He is a
relic of the past,--a monstrous compound out of the imperfect gleanings
of the Wapping dramatists of the last century. Yet all those who deal
with this character of the sailor begin upon the same false notion. In
their eyes the seaman is a good-natured, unsophisticated, frank,
easy-going creature, perfectly reckless of money, very fond of his
calling, unhappy on shore, manly, noble-hearted, generous to a degree
inconceivable to landsmen. He is a child who needs to be put in
leading-strings the moment he comes over the side, lest he give way to
an unconquerable propensity of his to fry gold watches and devour
bank-notes, _a la sandwich_, with his bread and butter.
With this theory in view, all sorts of nice schemes are set forward for
the sailor, and endless are the dull and decorous substitutes for the
merriment or sociability of his favorite boarding-house, and wonderful
are the schemes which are to attract the nautical Hercules to choose
the austere virtue and neglect the rollicking and easy-going vice.
Beautiful on paper, admirable in reports, pathetic in speeches,--all
pictorial with anchors and cables and polar stars, with the light-house
of Duty and the shoals of Sin.
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