FORECASTLE AND CABIN 71 



chest and the loading and unloading of the cargo and equip- 

 ment, was seized upon avidly. 



The same parsimonious policy was pursued in regulating 

 other phases of shipboard life. The food was so coarse, stan- 

 dardized, and limited in quantity that during the middle dec- 

 ades of the century it cost the owners only fifteen to thirty 

 cents per day to feed each member of the crew.^^ So little of 

 the precious cargo space was given over to the forecastle, and 

 so little effort was made to keep it decently clean, that the 

 living quarters were not only cramped, but nauseating. A 

 ship's library, which might have been provided easily and 

 cheaply by simply dumping old books and magazines on board, 

 was virtually unknown. A trained physician and surgeon, 

 found as regularly as the first mate on British sperm whalers, 

 was not even seriously considered for American vessels. In 

 general, it was the policy of the whaling merchants to provide, 

 in the cheapest possible manner, only those things which were 

 unquestionably essential to the pursuit of whales and the pres- 

 ervation of life. 



The smouldering resentment inevitably accompanying such 

 conditions was fanned into flame by the day-to-day treatment 

 received at the hands (and feet) of the officers. Blows, kicks, 

 and curses were so common that on many vessels they came to 

 be expected as a normal accompaniment of every order. 

 Threats, vituperation, and the assignment of deadening tasks 

 followed the slightest relaxation of discipline or the least in- 

 disposition on the part of a mate. Flogging, confinement, and 

 more ingenious forms of formal punishment were all too fre- 

 quent. The two-fisted, bludgeon-footed type of mate, who 

 boasted long and loudly that he feared neither man nor devil, 

 was regarded as the ideal disciplinarian. 



But in this, as in the other phases of whaling labor policy, 

 the methods pursued would seem to have overshot the mark. 

 Discipline, and that of a stern and rigid sort, was undeniably 

 essential in handling crews containing such a large percentage 

 of unprincipled and shiftless hands. Gentle persuasion, a 

 meek demeanor, and soft answers had no place amongst men 



15 The question of food costs, including the estir^ates from which these fic^'^rps 

 were derived, is considered in the chapter on ^arniTT^ ?nr? thr- t ny 



