SAILING CRAFT 95 



Slocum ' are well within living memory. 

 Black Taylor came to a befitting end. Be- 

 cause the rope surged at the capstan he kicked 

 the nearest man down, and was jumping to 

 stamp his ribs in, when the man suddenly 

 whipped out his knife and ripped Black Taylor 

 up with a New Orleans nigger trick-twist for 

 which he got six months, though really deserv- 

 ing none. 



But such mates and skippers always were 

 exceptions ; and, as a general rule, no better 

 crews and vessels have ever sailed the sea 

 than the Yankees at their prime. Their 

 splendid clippers successfully challenged the 

 slower Britishers on every trade route in the 

 world. At the very time that the America was 

 beating British yachts hull-down, the old 

 British East Indiamen were still wallowing 

 along with eighty hands to a thousand tons, 

 while a Yankee thousand-tonner could sail 

 them out of sight with forty. The British 

 excuse was that East Indiamen required a 

 fighting crew as well as a trading one, and that 

 British vessels were built to last, not simply 

 put together to make one flashy record. But 

 after the Napoleonic wars the British Navy 

 could police the world of waters ; so double 

 numbers were no longer needed ; and if East 



