While “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum,” as a line, occasionally has since been used in modern versification, but without any of the Stevenson flavor and seldom with much poetic or dramatic instinct, all authorities appear to be agreed that he evolved the quatrain. This however is not a point at issue here. What seems to be of prime importance to this narrative though, is that Allison, taking this quatrain as a starting point, wrote a wholly modern versification in words and meter so skillfully used as to create not only a vivid atmosphere of piracy and antiquity, but of unskillfulness and coarseness. That is the highest expression of art.
Since The New York Times Book Review very unjustly raised a question of the authorship of “Derelict,” it has been my privilege to read the really remarkable correspondence that has reached Mr. Allison from men all over the country who have been treasuring newspaper clippings of perverted versions of the poem out of pure admiration for its classical lines and the bold portrayal of a grewsome story. These letters have increased since The Scoop of the Press Club of Chicago printed the correspondence [See “[The Unpublished Letter]”] addressed to The New York Times Book Review. The Scoop continued its interesting discussion of the poem in the issue of October 24, under a caption of “Yo-ho-ho!” and incorporated a communication from “our Bramleykite Pilling” on chanties in general, submitting also a criticism of Allison’s sea-faring knowledge of the consistency of mainsails and the size of hawsers. If anything were needed to prove that “Derelict” is not “of the sea,” this in itself would be sufficient. The Scoop article is worthy of production in toto:
YO-HO-HO!
In an annoying discussion of Young Allison’s “Derelict” and the origin of the chanty beginning “Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest,” The New York Times quotes Robert Louis Stevenson as saying “Treasure Island came out of Kingsley’s ‘At Last,’ where I got ‘The Dead Man’s Chest.’” That is interesting, and apparently authentic, but it has nothing to do with Allison’s poem. The development of that poem, as related by C. I. Hitchcock in The Scoop two weeks ago, is as clearly established as the similar process out of which emerged Smith’s “Evolution,” and is abundantly attested. Allison’s chanty is one of the best, if not the very best, in its class, and The Scoop is glad to have been given a chance to so accredit it.
Taking up the subject matter, our Bramleykite Pilling, a retired mariner now enjoying his otium cum dignitate at the town of Athol in the state of Massachusetts, writes this letter:
“In the days when sailing ships and sailors were on the deep, chanties were used with every heave or pull.
“Fifteen or twenty men trailing onto a rope, fitting each other like spoons, as the sway-back pull induced whatever was at the other end to give way.
“Nothing ever was broken, as it was seen to that such a possibility did not exist; hence the command ‘Break something, break something.’
“A chanty contained one verse or line only, the rest depending on the composition of the man who sang the verse or line. The pull was always at the accent of the chorus, as follows:
“‘Blow a man down is a blow me down trick.