The master of a smack was lately accused of having murdered an apprentice; so the mob made desperate attempts to lynch the prisoner every time he was brought before the magistrates.  They heard that the dead boy used to be beaten with ropes’-ends, kicked, dragged along the deck, drenched with cold water, and subjected to other ingenious modes of discipline, and they were horrified.  Yet only a few years ago no surprise or indignation greeted a skipper who habitually ill-used his cabin-boys.  If screams were heard coming from a collier in the Pool, the men in neighbouring vessels scarcely took the trouble to turn round.  They know that some unhappy boy was being corrected; and they believed in stripes and bruises as necessary agencies in nautical education.  When a weakly lad chanced to die he was dropped overboard, and there was an end of the matter; the strong lads who lived through these brutalities grew into fine sailors.

Times are altered.  The old-fashioned sailor is an extinct creature, and modern conditions have developed a totally new variety.  The old-fashioned sailor was brought up in an atmosphere of rough cruelty; the new-fashioned sailor will submit to no tyranny whatever.  The old-fashioned skipper was very like the Hull culprit in habits and customs; the new-fashioned skipper is overbearing and often conceited, but rarely brutal.

They formed a strange society, did those East Coast sailors of past days.  A boy grew up in one of the brisk little ports that lay between Wivenhoe and Spittal.  The notion of inland life had no place in his mind, for his thoughts in early years suffered a sea change.  He played on the quay, and heard the growling talk of the lounging, bearded sailors; so that he soon became critical in the matter of ships and seamanship.  He could tell you the name of every black and apple-bowed vessel that came curtseying over the bar on the flood tide; and he would prove the superiority of the “Halicore” over the “Mary Jane,” with many clenching allusions to aged authorities.  If the black fleet went out with a northerly breeze blowing, he could name the ship that would be first clear of the ruck; if the wind were off the land, he knew which ship would be suited by having the breeze on the beam.  Long before he ever saw the outside of the bar he had heard of every point on the coast.  The possibility of becoming anything but a sailor never entered his head.  He tried to copy the flat-footed rolling walk of the seamen, and he longed for the time when he might wear a braided cap and smoke a pipe.  While yet little more than a child he went on his trial voyage, and had his first experience of sea-sickness.  Then he was bound apprentice for five years, his wages beginning at L8 per year, and increasing yearly by L2 until the end of his term.  His troubles began after his indentures were signed.  The average skipper had no thought of cruelty and yet was very cruel.  The poor lad had a very scanty allowance