Whaling as a Business Enterprise 333 



and is now before the writer, confirms almost 

 every statement of the robbery of the sailors 

 which was made by the consul quoted above. 

 "Grossly imposed upon in the matter of outfit" 

 and "the man at the close of his long service 

 finds himself as poor as at the beginning" are 

 some of the expressions used by Wayland in his 

 discourse (p. 18). 



Bluntly stated, the whale-ship owners, who were 

 receiving from 25 to 50 per cent per year, clear 

 profit, on their investment in the ships of that 

 period, were willing to increase their gains by 

 sheer robbery of the men whose work brought 

 the gains. In what was called the Golden Era 

 of whaling this robbery was the rule ; the owners 

 disposed to do the fair thing were apparently the 

 exception. There is no reasonable doubt that 

 some of the men to whom Wayland was talking, 

 some of the members of the Port Society, were 

 chief among those robbers, and their support 

 of the Society was only an evidence of their 

 hypocrisy. 



Nor is that all. At this time, when the fore- 

 castle life was unendurable, the berth of the high- 



