whip his weight in wild cats. When he became unable to maintain
discipline with fists and belaying-pins, he was deposed for a
better man.

Your seasoned packet rat sought the ship with a hard name by
choice. His chief ambition was to kick in the ribs or pound
senseless some invincible bucko mate. There was provocation
enough on both sides. Officers had to take their ships to sea and
strain every nerve to make a safe and rapid passage with crews
which were drunk and useless when herded aboard, half of them
greenhorns, perhaps, who could neither reef nor steer. Brutality
was the one argument able to enforce instant obedience among men
who respected nothing else. As a class the packet sailors became
more and more degraded because their life was intolerable to
decent men. It followed therefore that the quarterdeck employed
increasing severity, and, as the officer's authority in this
respect was unchecked and unlimited, it was easy to mistake the
harshest tyranny for wholesome discipline.

Reenforcing the bucko mate was the tradition that the sailor was
a dog, a different human species from the landsman, without laws
and usages to protect him. This was a tradition which, for
centuries, had been fostered in the naval service, and it
survived among merchant sailors as an unhappy anachronism even
into the twentieth century, when an American Congress was
reluctant to bestow upon a seaman the decencies of existence
enjoyed by the poorest laborer ashore.

It is in the nature of a paradox that the brilliant success of
the packet ships in dominating the North Atlantic trade should