steamers is in this way regarded by a fresh
generation on the common with complete
indifference. The experience acquired by its
forefathers ten or twelve years ago, seems to
be now added to the knowledge of every calf
born in any corner of our province. And yet,
in what way have these calves been educated,
or, if this fact has been taught to them all,
what else may they not know?

THE LIFE OF POOR JACK.

WITH respect to the remarks made by a
tar in your honoured journal, I am appointed
secretary to a committee of old salts, respectable
friends who smoke their pipes together
at times in my crib, of which I give you the
address in confidence, where we shall be glad
to see you any Tuesday after six in this
month, which are open evenings, and no
charge for your beer. Having a little
property by right of my wife which was an
upper servant in the Savings Bank, I left
the sea myself a many years ago, not liking
to eat mahogany and do the work of an
elephant upon the keep and lodging of a pig.
My position in society as landlord of The
Tar Ashore, requires that I should be o
current in the salt-water talk of landsmen,
and overhaul the log of parliament both as
regards debates and blue books, which my
wife, to whom I read the interesting parts
aloud, says are blue bores, and she hopes
will some day choke me. That, however,
properdebots as the French say.

When the remarks made by a tar in your
honoured journal being read from the chair
in our committee, were approved as correct,
it was considered that there were some more
facts that might be submitted to your readers.
Consequently I was authorised to draw up
this communication, of which you are at
liberty to make what use you please.

Concerning what was said about crews
being compelled to sail in unseaworthy
vessels, I am directed to send you without
comment this paragraph, which Tom Winkle
cut yesterday out of the Bristol Mercury, for
April 23, 1853:—

THE JANE.—From a report in the Commercial
Booms we perceive that the Jane, which left this
port on Wednesday se'nnight for Quebec, has put
back to King Road. It will be remembered that on
Tuesday, the 12th instant, the crew, consisting of
fourteen men, were brought before the magistrates
for refusing to go to sea in this vessel. The men
gave as a reason that she was not sea-worthy, but
the magistrate did not consider the case made out
on the part of the men, and committed them to
prison for fourteen days. The Jane is LEAKY, and
we learn that she will have to discharge her cargo,
and go into Messrs. Hill's dock for repair.—Bristol
Mercury, April 23, 1853.

Something was said of undermanning
vessels, and the entering of fishmongers,
tailors, and others, who desired to work their
passage out to the gold diggings, at a reduced
pay, to the hurt of good seamen by lowering
their rate of wages, and screwing up to the
worst possible pinch their rate of work. It
might have been said—for it is true—that
vessels, undermanned already, carry out
among their crews men taking a passage in
the forecastle (where their mothers may pity
them, but sailors don't) entered and bound
to work, who receive not a farthing for their
labour. Matthew Crab, one of our set, who
has just come home from Australia, says, and
is ready to testify, that there were two men
in the forecastle of his vessel who came on
board with hands like satin. One of them
was a gentleman; the other was a Scotch
tobacconist; they had both been cleaned out
at the diggings and could see no other way
of getting home. If the forecastle was not
quite so terrible a den, and a three months'
voyage, with common sailor's board and
lodging, was not so very much worse than three
months in the filthiest old jail in England,
there would be no need of professed sailors at
all. There are lots of men wanting to go
somewhere who wouldn't mind taking the
command of a ship, to say nothing of working
in her. The two men who sailed with Crab
were to get no wages at all, though they were
took on board and put into the berths of
seamen. Hard berths they were. The gentleman,
says Crab, showed he was well bred, for
he made himself agreeable, ran up the rigging,
and pulled at the ropes his best. He was
worth some of the salt he didn't get, and the
men treated him civilly. The tobacconist
did nothing but growl about his kennel like
an ugly dog, and a dog's life he had to lead
for it. He always was the horse that never
pulled; he only shammed work, and every
bit of strength he should have used had to be
put out extra by the other men, who would
have been short-handed enough, even if both
the land lubbers had been A. B.'s. As it is
obvious to the meanest understanding you, I
am sure, will see that by acting in this way
owners or masters place themselves upon the
horns of a dilemma. If it be said that men
who work their passage in that way are fit
for the work, I ask, why are they not paid?
If it be said that they are not fit for the
work, I ask, sir, why are they taken? As
the Ghost says in the comedy, I pause for a
reply. If any, speak!

I fear it is of no use speaking, but I will
reply myself. Vessels are manned anyhow,
because there is money made by cutting down
the cost of hands, and the risk run by so
doing is not run by the owner. An
insurance covers it. Vessels that go out well
insured, may often make a quicker and a
better voyage to the bottom than to any
distant port. Though nobody would be so
wicked as to turn them adrift wilfully, with a
design that they should run astray or founder,
very few owners let their sleep be broken
much with dreading of the chance of a