Under the exploded system, the profits of some of these officers
were almost incredible. In one cruise up the Mediterranean, the
Purser of an American line-of-battle ship was, on good authority,
said to have cleared the sum of $50,000. Upon that he quitted the
service, and retired into the country. Shortly after, his three
daughters--not very lovely--married extremely well.

The ideas that sailors entertain of Pursers is expressed in a
rather inelegant but expressive saying of theirs: "The Purser is
a conjurer; he can make a dead man chew tobacco"--insinuating
that the accounts of a dead man are sometimes subjected to post-
mortem charges. Among sailors, also, Pursers commonly go by the
name of _nip-cheeses_.

No wonder that on board of the old frigate Java, upon her return
from a cruise extending over a period of more than four years, one
thousand dollars paid off eighty of her crew, though the aggregate
wages of the eighty for the voyage must have amounted to about sixty
thousand dollars. Even under the present system, the Purser of a
line-of-battle ship, for instance, is far better paid than any other
officer, short of Captain or Commodore. While the Lieutenant commonly
receives but eighteen hundred dollars, the Surgeon of the fleet but
fifteen hundred, the Chaplain twelve hundred, the Purser of a line-of-
battle ship receives thirty-five hundred dollars. In considering his
salary, however, his responsibilities are not to be over-looked; they
are by no means insignificant.

There are Pursers in the Navy whom the sailors exempt from the
insinuations above mentioned, nor, as a class, are they so
obnoxious to them now as formerly; for one, the florid old Purser