{"id":"01KG8AKYJNTS4YP2XXYPXSVN87","cid":"bafkreihgqfznj6dhe4n7jp2xuwhrvinqybvztqk4ehmutb6arhwfcdejeu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5443,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":5389,"text":"better classes of people, and cut off from all access to respectable\r\nand improving society; consider all this, and the reflecting mind must\r\nvery soon perceive that the case of sailors, as a class, is not a very\r\npromising one.\r\n\r\nIndeed, the bad things of their condition come under the head of those\r\nchronic evils which can only be ameliorated, it would seem, by\r\nameliorating the moral organization of all civilization.\r\n\r\nThough old seventy-fours and old frigates are converted into chapels,\r\nand launched into the docks; though the “Boatswain’s Mate” and other\r\nclever religious tracts in the nautical dialect are distributed among\r\nthem; though clergymen harangue them from the pier-heads: and chaplains\r\nin the navy read sermons to them on the gun-deck; though evangelical\r\nboarding-houses are provided for them; though the parsimony of\r\nship-owners has seconded the really sincere and pious efforts of\r\nTemperance Societies, to take away from seamen their old rations of\r\ngrog while at sea:—notwithstanding all these things, and many more, the\r\nrelative condition of the great bulk of sailors to the rest of mankind,\r\nseems to remain pretty much where it was, a century ago.\r\n\r\nIt is too much the custom, perhaps, to regard as a special advance,\r\nthat unavoidable, and merely participative progress, which any one\r\nclass makes in sharing the general movement of the race. Thus, because\r\nthe sailor, who to-day steers the Hibernia or Unicorn steam-ship across\r\nthe Atlantic, is a somewhat different man from the exaggerated sailors\r\nof Smollett, and the men who fought with Nelson at Copenhagen, and\r\nsurvived to riot themselves away at North Corner in Plymouth;—because\r\nthe modem tar is not quite so gross as heretofore, and has shaken off\r\nsome of his shaggy jackets, and docked his Lord Rodney\r\nqueue:—therefore, in the estimation of some observers, he has begun to\r\nsee the evils of his condition, and has voluntarily improved. But upon\r\na closer scrutiny, it will be seen that he has but drifted along with\r\nthat great tide, which, perhaps, has two flows for one ebb; he has made\r\nno individual advance of his own.\r\n\r\nThere are classes of men in the world, who bear the same relation to\r\nsociety at large, that the wheels do to a coach: and are just as\r\nindispensable. But however easy and delectable the springs upon which\r\nthe insiders pleasantly vibrate: however sumptuous the hammer-cloth,\r\nand glossy the door-panels; yet, for all this, the wheels must still\r\nrevolve in dusty, or muddy revolutions. No contrivance, no sagacity can\r\nlift _them_ out of the mire; for upon something the coach must be\r\nbottomed; on something the insiders must roll.\r\n\r\nNow, sailors form one of these wheels: they go and come round the\r\nglobe; they are the true importers, and exporters of spices and silks;\r\nof fruits and wines and marbles; they carry missionaries, embassadors,\r\nopera-singers, armies, merchants, tourists, and scholars to their\r\ndestination: they are a bridge of boats across the Atlantic; they are\r\nthe _primum mobile_ of all commerce; and, in short, were they to\r\nemigrate in a body to man the navies of the moon, almost every thing\r\nwould stop here on earth except its revolution on its axis, and the\r\norators in the American Congress.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRM0AKT1HBDD19XJYXXB","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKYJD18NPCQFDTZV3N75S","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKYJD4Y7B7VF9FG5A312F","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:21.077Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:29.393Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}