Harper's Round Table, January 7, 1896

by Various

[OUGHT A BOY TO GO TO SEA?]

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL.

wo sorts of boys go to sea—one for love, the other for necessity. Those who go to it for love stand, perhaps, more in need of advice than those who are sent to it for a living. The young lover of the sea is nearly always a boy of lively imagination. He has read romances, he has watched the passage of a ship through an ocean sunset, he has haunted pier-heads and quay-sides; the creak of a block has fired his enthusiasm, the fabric of a squalid little butter-rigged schooner has despatched his spirit into distant purple seas studded with islands like emeralds, and perfumed with gales of Arabian sweetness.

This boy, to be sure, will be disappointed. A boy going on board a ship without a day-dream sulkily accepts the new conditions; he has no illusions which a ship can destroy. But no sooner has the young lover of the sea climbed over the ship's side than his fine imaginations vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The romance is gone, the tender coloring that distance lends has disappeared; the young sea-lover hears himself rudely bawled at; nobody shows him any respect or consideration; if he asks a civil question about his bed or berth the answer he gets may probably be a thrust in the ribs from the elbow of a drunken sailor. He is bewildered, without finding anything to fascinate him. On the fo'c's'le some noble hurricane chorus is timed by the pulses of the windlass pawls. Men dangling high aloft are shrieking to their shipmates below to "sheet-home!" The tug is manœuvring to catch hold of the tow-rope. The pilot is cracking his pipes in strong commands on the forecastle head. The very cook is full of business, and seems to find everybody in his way.

Much such is the scene of a ship leaving the docks of London river. There is no sentiment. Presently the young sea-lover begins to feel a little sick, and with sickness come heart-chill and the sense of friendlessness. But I would bid such a boy to be of good cheer, nevertheless, for by-and-by, when the roughnesses of the life are worn down by use and custom, he may find his old shore-going sentiments recur. He will fall in love with the tall white beauty under whose starry trucks he is floating towards countries which are strange and therefore wonderful to him. He may find the Captain equal to the expression of a civil word now and again; the mate may be good-natured enough to answer his questions occasionally. He may meet amongst the crew some plain, steady, respectable old sailor from whose conversation, practical advice, and teaching he will pick up more about his calling in a month than he could acquire in a whole round voyage from the mere mechanical routine of laying aloft or going below and standing a watch.

But illusion or no illusion, the boy who goes to sea must make up his mind to suffer from end to end a hard life. Some call it a dog's life. And depend upon it, there are a great many dogs who, if they knew how sailors fare and toil, would not exchange places with them even to be men.

I deal in this brief essay with sailing-ships because a boy must first serve an apprenticeship to tacks and sheets before he is qualified to serve in steam. In England a boy may pass three years of still-water seafaring life on board such training-ships, for example, as the Worcester or the Conway, and the service will be accepted as a considerable contribution towards the whole period required. The training-ship has, no doubt, certain features of merit. A boy may enter at a comparatively tender age. He is rescued from the violent hardships of the life and the temptations of the ports, and he is fairly equipped as a sailor when he goes to sea in earnest. It is a question, however, whether, if the sea be decided on as a career for a lad, it is not better to dismiss him heroically and at once, to acquire a knowledge of the real life in a ship sailing the ocean, than to keep him playing at sailor aboard a gigantic toy moored in a smooth stream.

But the question is that of earning a living. A boy comes to me and says, "Can I get a living by going to sea as a sailor?" I assume he is a lad of respectable antecedents, and that he has parents or "friends" who are willing to give him a start. I would tell him, first of all, that his going to sea—supposing him to be a lad of, say, fourteen years of age—would be cheaper to his parents than going to school. The boy would be bound apprentice for a fee in guineas—from twenty to fifty; one cannot talk positively on this head, as some owners take apprentices at much cheaper rates than others.

Now, to be sure, whilst my young friend is at sea as an apprentice he is not earning a living; but then he is at no cost to himself nor to his parents outside the premium and the outfit. Meanwhile he is learning a profession, and that means a great deal. He is finding out all about the intricacies of a ship's hull and rigging; he discovers how her cargo is stowed; some old salt in the crew will point out the difference between the screws and iron rigging of to-day and the dead eyes and the immensely thick shrouds of thirty years ago. He will take sights at noon, for his father will surely provide for his being instructed in the use of the sextant on board ship. A boy will not qualify for a Board-of-Trade examination by dipping his hand in the tar-bucket only; he will have to prove to the examiners that he knows how to find a ship's situation by several processes in the art of navigation. And the examiners will require a great deal more than that. But I should need a page of this publication to explain what is expected of a second mate before a certificate is granted to him.