96 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



laconic phrases of the record itself, were as follows: "refused 

 to ship} went back; father took him home; went to hospital; 

 no chance; transferred to other shippers; did not arrive; went 

 to jail; joined navy; went in army." The accompanying list of 

 representative entries will convey some concept of the atmos- 

 phere which pervaded these whaling labor agencies/ 



While the shippers were thus juggling his accounts and ar- 

 ranging for his sailing date, the new hand had ample oppor- 

 tunity to become familiar with the life of the sailors' boarding- 

 houses. The keepers of these establishments, comprising the 

 second major division of landsharks, were usually either whale- 

 men's widows or shrewd and unscrupulous men who soon be- 

 came adepts in playing upon the weaknesses and necessities of 

 the seamen. A few houses, frequented by mates, boatsteerers, 

 and the more thrifty foremast hands, were able to boast of 

 good food, cleanliness, and a certain air of gentility; but the 

 great majority were sadly lacking in all of these attributes. 

 In the latter places the green hands came into contact with vet- 

 eran tars who were known to their intimates by such euphonious 

 names as Blue John, Long-Legged Bill, Big-Foot Jack, Chaw- 

 o'-Tobacco Jim, Handsome Tom, and Bully Clincher; and he 

 also met housemaids, known as Mag, Moll, Bet, or Peg, to 

 whom formal introductions were entirely superfluous. 



Throughout the middle of the century the price of accom- 

 modations in most of the boarding-houses ranged from two to 

 four dollars per week; and in view of the cuisine and the con- 

 dition of the quarters these sums would seem to have afforded 

 ample compensation to the owners. Even in the Mariners' 

 Home at New Bedford there was one lone tin wash-basin in a 

 rusty iron sink and a single towel on a roller for the use of as 

 many as fifty men thrice daily. A typical day's menu at the 

 same place included fat-soaked sausage and fried potatoes for 

 breakfast; boiled beef, cabbage, and soggy potatoes for dinner; 

 and a hash made of the scraps of the two preceding meals for 

 supper. Repasts which were amply sufficient in quantity, but 



■^ While the entries here reproduced were chosen from those cases in which 

 men were not successfully shipped, they are representative in the sense that 

 each item could be matched by many others belonging to the same category. 

 Some of the more extreme occurrences, in which the "Remarks" were couched 

 in terras hardly appropriate for the printed page, have been omitted. 



