Below his high mightiness the chief steward in a liner come a host of subordinates in as many varying grades as are to be found in a big hotel. Unto each is allotted work, which goes on like clock-work, day and night, in fair weather or foul. Efficient service in your hotel means a great deal, one cannot help feeling, not only a great deal of thought on the part of the management, but a great deal of hard work and manual dexterity on the part of those who actually do the work. And these toiling ones are always expected to wear a smile, no matter what their physical condition may be; must always be ready to spring at your call, and do for you whatever you choose to desire. But what does such service as this mean at sea? When what the sailor calls a stiff breeze is blowing, with "a nasty bit of a cross sea on," and the big ship is writhing her way through the green masses with a perfectly indescribable combination of pitches and rollings, the seasoned passengers must have their meals in due order, with all the usual accompaniments; the helpless ones must be waited on. How is it done? Only by the most loyal, eager subordination of self in the desire to please, backed up, if you will, by a wish to get on, and tempered by the prospect of a substantial tip by-and-by. Whatever the motive, the work goes on with a regularity that is so unostentatious that the passenger ceases to wonder at it after a day or two, and accepts it as he does the unseen machinery below.
At the head of each department of bed-room stewards, waiters, pantrymen, and what-not—I do not know the designations—is a gentleman who is steadily working his way to the top, climbing to the giddy height where he may go about all day long in the dress of a private gentleman, and use only his brains, not his hands, for the prosecution of his work. As in all businesses, efficient devolution is the whole secret of success. But let the work be devolved as much as it may, every one beneath the chief has quite as much as he can do by steadily working on with little sleep, little rest, but abundant food. This is so in the finest weather at sea and in harbour; in bad weather at sea work is greatly added to, not only in quantity, but in the difficulty of doing it. There is no mere child's play in the distribution of food alone, without the arrangement of all the paraphernalia of the meal tables. And in the cleaning up afterwards, and carrying away of china and glass, the washing and stacking thereof in secure places while the decks dance beneath the feet and every little bit of panelling complains, there is very much severe toil, done no less thoroughly because out of sight.
This ocean hotel service has grown to great dimensions, but not without dragging into its toils a great many burden-bearers, whose labours are essential to the luxurious comfort of latter-day passengers. It is to be hoped that those who enjoy this wonderful attendance while crossing the great and wide sea do at times give a thought to the human machinery ever at work on their behalf. For a little thought would surely make them less intolerant of mistakes or seeming neglect.
As we come down the scale of passenger steamers and lengthen the voyages, the position of the stewards gets worse, while their wages (that is to say their entire gains, which means wages and backsheesh) get less. Their labours increase by reason of the shortness of hands and lack of accommodation provided for them. They are not to be envied at all. Yet they are a cheerful crowd and a respectable, for any dereliction of duty, misbehaviour of any kind, means dismissal from the ship, a serious matter, which often carries with it a great difficulty in finding another.
Coming down still lower, to the cargo-carrying steamer, or tramp pure and simple, the stewards have dwindled to one, and a mess-room boy, who waits upon the engineers; and although the steward of a tramp does not get much of a salary, his duties are simple and his masters are few. Indeed, he may be said to have but one master—the skipper—if he be well up to his work. With that proviso and civility, no other officer in the ship will ever interfere with him. Even here he is a most responsible man. Upon him devolves the outlay of the consumable stores. They are placed under his charge, and he is expected to see them duly served out to all, keeping due record of their going, so that he may not be unable at any time to answer a question put to him by the master as to how the ship is prepared for the next portion of her voyage. His part it is, too, to do battle with wily "dhubash" or "compradore" in the far East, who will cheat not only in quantity, but quality of stores on every possible or even impossible occasion. Upon entering ports abroad, one of these worthies, or their prototypes, is always engaged to supply harbour-food, fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, etc., and a good, honest steward will make a tremendous difference to the comfort and well-being of the ship's company. A dishonest one is of the devil, because bribes will be offered him to wink at short weight and inferior quality, and he will accept. Then there is discontent, and often blame cast upon the wrong shoulders.
His other duties consist in keeping the saloon and the skipper's berth clean—the officers must get their berths cleaned by somebody else, usually a deck-boy, the steward being no body-servant of theirs—and waiting at table. Where the cook is incompetent, the steward will have, in addition, the duty thrown upon him of preparing food for cooking. In fact, some stewards prefer to do this, considering that their pastry-making cannot be excelled by anybody. But the practice is by no means so common in steam as it is in sailing ships.
I can hardly close this portion of the subject without an allusion to the curious principle that obtained when I was sailing in inter-colonial steamers, and may still be in force for all I know to the contrary. It was there usual for all the ship's provisions to be supplied by a speculator on shore, whom we called the providore, at a fixed rate per head for every member of the crew, i.e. so much for a sailor per day, for a fireman, for an officer, for a second-class passenger, for a saloon passenger—the rate varying from one shilling to half a crown a day. For this the providore not only supplied food, but cooks and attendance. The chief stewards were always supposed to be deeply interested in making the scheme pay, but their peculiar position often led to their being very unjustly abused. Any attempt on their part to stop waste was almost certain to be met by the accusation that they were stinting the food in the interests of the providore, and naturally they could look for no countenance from the master or officers. And as the waste forrard was simply abominable, they were always in more or less hot water. Of course they could, and did, control the expenditure of food aft and among the passengers, but the crew did as they liked. I have seen a man go to the galley for breakfast, and receive a tin dish containing four or five pounds of chops and steaks for six men. It is true that they were vilely cooked, and therefore usually as tough as leather. The fellows would turn the meat over, saying bad words the while, and presently one would say, "Well, this isn't good enough for me." Then taking the tin to a port, he would cast its contents overboard, and go calmly to the galley for more. And if he were refused he had only to complain to the master, who would, of course, give no sympathy to a providore's man. Enough food was wasted on that ship to feed a large ship's company every day, and by men who had all known what it meant to be very hungry.