entered into their lives that might be usefully emulated by the seamen of our own time.  Their unquestionable skill and hardihood were acquired by a system of training that would have out-matched the severity of the Spartan, and they endured it with Spartan equanimity.  A spasmodic growl was the only symptom of a rebellious spirit.  The maritime historian who undertakes to write accurately the history of this strange society of men will find it a strain on the imagination to do them all the justice they deserve.  Their lives were illuminated with all that is manly and heroic and skilful.  They had no thought of cruelty, and yet they were very cruel—­that is, if they are to be judged by the standard of the present age; but in this let us pass sentence on them with moderation, and even with indulgence.  The magnitude of the deeds they were accustomed to perform can never be fully estimated now, and these should excuse to some extent many of their clumsy and misguided modes of operation.  It must not be supposed that all these men were afflicted by a demoniac spirit.  It was their training that blanketed the sympathetic side of them, until they unconsciously acquired all the peremptory disposition of Oriental tyrants.  But the stories I am about to relate of childlife aboard ship will show how difficult it is entirely to pardon or excuse them.  The blood runs chilly at the thought of it, and you feel your mind becoming impregnated with the spirit of murder.

No personage ever attracted so much attention and sympathy outside the precincts of his contracted though varied sphere of labour as the cabin-boy who served aboard the old sailing brigs, schooners, and barques, and I must plead guilty to having a sentimental regret that the romance was destroyed through this attractive personality being superseded by another, with the somewhat unattractive title of “cook and steward.”  The story of how poor boys of the beginning and middle of the century and right up to the latter part of the ’sixties started sea-life is always romantic, often sensational, and ever pathetic.  They were usually the sons of poor parents living for the most part in obscure villages or small towns bordering on the sea, which sea blazed into their minds aspirations to get aboard some one of the numerous vessels that passed their homes one way or the other all day long.  The notion of becoming anything but sailors never entered their heads, and the parents were usually proud of this ambition, and quite ready to allow their offspring to launch out into the world while they were yet little more than children.  It very frequently happened, however, that boys left their homes unknown to their families, and tramped to the nearest seaport with the object of engaging themselves aboard ship, and they nearly always found some skipper or owner to take them.  Swarms of Scotch and Norfolk boys were attracted to the Northumberland ports by the higher rate of wages.  Many of them had to tramp