3io FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
every day ought to go and hang himself. A dog's food 
is sumptuous compared with their tasteless, monotonous 
diet 
And so sailors have been treated for ages, and may be 
treated to-day. No wonder they have growled a good 
deal and get the name of growlers ; but it is only with 
their lot at sea that they growl. We all know that 
there is no one more contented than Jack when he 
takes to life on shore. 
Now they are going to better their lot, and I wish good 
success to the endeavours of the men who unite their 
efforts to free themselves from the unutterable evils of the 
seaman's life. From my little experience of the ' ways of 
men of the sea/ I know what a hell life can be made for a 
seaman who has not some confederacy on shore that he 
can trust to back him against the tyranny of evil and 
irresponsible men at sea. 
There can hardly, in my opinion, be a finer lot than 
that of a sailor's on a well-found ship, none more evil 
than his lot on such a vessel as he may find himself 
aboard any day — badly found, with incompetent men and 
officers. 
A propos of unionism — unions are what the men trust 
will minimise the evil — I remember once listening to a 
sailor man of about forty telling his experiences of sea 
life. He was a small, active man, but too light a weight to 
hold his own in a rough and tumble, and the bullying he 
had gone through would scarcely be believed but that it 
comes within the experience of thousands of seamen. His 
opinion on the difference between sailing since the unions 
