278 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



service without fee in return for the privilege of selling the 

 men their outfits at exorbitant prices. Still other counter- 

 balancing gains were the high interest rates which were charged 

 upon all cash advances j the profits which accrued from the sale 

 of goods from the slop-chest j and the confiscation of the 

 abandoned effects and accumulated but unpaid earning of those 

 deserters whose accounts showed a credit balance/^ 



Against the physical risks of the industry the whaling own- 

 ers used a triple shield, made up of the lay system, the diversi- 

 fied ownership of single vessels and of fleets through the hold- 

 ing of fractional shares, and a well-established scheme of 

 marine insurance. The device of the lay not only automati- 

 cally decreased the wages bill in proportion to any losses which 

 might be sustained, but also obviated the necessity of paying 

 any wages whatever in those cases in which a voyage proved 

 to be a total failure. As compared to common business prac- 

 tice, under which an employer paid the going rate of wages 

 with small regard to the financial success or failure of his own 

 particular enterprise, such a plan evidently lightened appre- 

 ciably the financial burdens of shipwreck and of other forms 

 of physical disaster. 



The possibility of achieving some dispersion of risk through 

 the diversified ownership of single vessels was at once too de- 

 sirable and too obvious to be ignored in an occupation like whal- 

 ing. Consequently it became a common practice to divide the 

 ownership of both vessels and outfits into fractional shares of 

 %, /4, Vsj Me, or Ys^j and to dispose of these shares among a 

 relatively small group of investors, seldom more than ten or 

 twelve per vessel. The case of the bark Lagoda, of New Bed- 

 ford, which made twelve voyages during the years 1841-1886, 

 and was owned throughout this period by a slowly-changing 

 group of four to eight individuals, was typical. ^^ Outfits, as 

 distinct from the vessels themselves, were also financed on the 

 same fractional basis. Thus during one voyage of the bark 

 Minerva, her outfit, which cost $11,458.92, was subscribed by 

 nine different persons in the following proportions: one in- 



11 See the two preceding chapters for a more detailed discussion of the mat- 

 ters referred to in this paragraph. 



12 An account of the voyages of the Lagoda is given in the Old Dartmouth 

 Historical Sketches, No. 45, pp. 33-43. 



