{"id":"01KG8AMFYDX3NWVSZZGQV68MG2","cid":"bafkreigjt7l2a26ur7ell3di4mj3k5snbwyqbuaiqrk2wnzcxjfos3lzg4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3430,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":3364,"text":"driven to the extremity of sewing a piece of tarred canvas on the seat\r\nof his trowsers.\r\n\r\nLet those neat and tidy officers who so love to see a ship kept spick\r\nand span clean; who institute vigorous search after the man who chances\r\nto drop the crumb of a biscuit on deck, when the ship is rolling in a\r\nsea-way; let all such swing their hammocks with the sailors; and they\r\nwould soon get sick of this daily damping of the decks.\r\n\r\nIs a ship a wooden platter, that is to be scrubbed out every morning\r\nbefore breakfast, even if the thermometer be at zero, and every sailor\r\ngoes barefooted through the flood with the chilblains? And all the\r\nwhile the ship carries a doctor, well aware of Boerhaave’s great maxim\r\n“_keep the feet dry_.” He has plenty of pills to give you when you are\r\ndown with a fever, the consequence of these things; but enters no\r\nprotest at the outset—as it is his duty to do—against the cause that\r\ninduces the fever.\r\n\r\nDuring the pleasant night watches, the promenading officers, mounted on\r\ntheir high-heeled boots, pass dry-shod, like the Israelites, over the\r\ndecks; but by daybreak the roaring tide sets back, and the poor sailors\r\nare almost overwhelmed in it, like the Egyptians in the Red Sea.\r\n\r\nOh! the chills, colds, and agues that are caught. No snug stove, grate,\r\nor fireplace to go to; no, your only way to keep warm is to keep in a\r\nblazing passion, and anathematise the custom that every morning makes a\r\nwash-house of a man-of-war.\r\n\r\nLook at it. Say you go on board a line-of-battle-ship: you see\r\neverything scrupulously neat; you see all the decks clear and\r\nunobstructed as the sidewalks of Wall Street of a Sunday morning; you\r\nsee no trace of a sailor’s dormitory; you marvel by what magic all this\r\nis brought about. And well you may. For consider, that in this\r\nunobstructed fabric nearly one thousand mortal men have to sleep, eat,\r\nwash, dress, cook, and perform all the ordinary functions of humanity.\r\nThe same number of men ashore would expand themselves into a township.\r\nIs it credible, then, that this extraordinary neatness, and especially\r\nthis _unobstructedness_ of a man-of-war, can be brought about, except\r\nby the most rigorous edicts, and a very serious sacrifice, with respect\r\nto the sailors, of the domestic comforts of life? To be sure, sailors\r\nthemselves do not often complain of these things; they are used to\r\nthem; but man can become used even to the hardest usage. And it is\r\nbecause he is used to it, that sometimes he does not complain of it.\r\n\r\nOf all men-of-war, the American ships are the most excessively neat,\r\nand have the greatest reputation for it. And of all men-of-war the\r\ngeneral discipline of the American ships is the most arbitrary.\r\n\r\nIn the English navy, the men liberally mess on tables, which, between\r\nmeals, are triced up out of the way. The American sailors mess on deck,\r\nand pick up their broken biscuit, or _midshipman’s nuts_, like fowls in\r\na barn-yard.\r\n\r\nBut if this unobstructedness in an American fighting-ship be, at all\r\nhazards, so desirable, why not imitate the Turks? In the Turkish navy\r\nthey have no mess-chests; the sailors roll their mess things up in a\r\nrug, and thrust them under a gun. Nor do they have any hammocks; they\r\nsleep anywhere about the decks in their _gregoes_. Indeed, come to look\r\nat it, what more does a man-of-war’s-man absolutely require to live in\r\nthan his own skin? That’s room enough; and room enough to turn in, if\r\nhe but knew how to shift his spine, end for end, like a ramrod, without\r\ndisturbing his next neighbour.\r\n\r\nAmong all men-of-war’s-men, it is a maxim that over-neat vessels are\r\nTartars to the crew: and perhaps it may be safely laid down that, when\r\nyou see such a ship, some sort of tyranny is not very far off.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQSQQZXV8JE55Y1C2VK6","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFYD1N2ZPQ2NQMBJVMNE","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFYG6RTSFYV74QMPRNDX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.861Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:45.161Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}