438 Notes on Sport and Travel v 



hurting anybody. Yes, I think it must have been 

 an American who told me this. It put one in mind 

 of the old story of ' throwing a tub to the whale,' 

 which has been so useful to many a generation of 

 members of Parliament, members of that house 

 which is for ever throwing tubs to the whale instead 

 of killing it. We are all rather apt to do the same 

 thing ; it is so easy to throw a tub, particularly when 

 it is somebody else's tub, to amuse the whale that 

 bothers us for a time. In its higher developments 

 this is called ' philanthropy,' or the keeping things 

 quiet at other people's expense, and sometimes 

 ' statesmanship,' or the sacrifice of the interests of 

 others to insure the popularity of one's own party. 



They die hard, these old stories of utterly 

 unintelligible antagonism between animals with no 

 opposing interests, or still more unintelligible com- 

 binations of animals of utterly different races for no 

 apparent gain to any of them, — and particularly 

 among seafaring men. Much as I admire both 

 naval and mercantile Jack (and from considerable 

 personal observation I have no hesitation in saying 

 that a first-rate English sailor, take him all round, is 

 as good a specimen of humanity as you will find 

 anywhere), I declare positively that they are the 

 worst observers and the most inexact describers I 

 have ever encountered. It is not that their descrip- 

 tions are intentionally polemical, nor that they 

 wilfully lie for a purpose ; but, I suppose from the 

 peculiarities of their mode of life, they become 



