On Monday, Sept. 26th, 1898, three days after our arrival in the bay, we were paid off before the United States Shipping Commissioner, the short interval having worked a deplorable change in the crew. Whoever was responsible for a condition so well calculated to cause the downfall of the returning deepwaterman, has a great weight of iniquity resting against his eternal soul; no doubt this responsibility was so well divided that each and every one of those guilty felt that his individual part in the great scheme of debauchery would go unnoticed.
I like to believe that all of them, boarding masters, crimps, runners, politicians, shipping officials, owners, managers, and masters who were parties to the fate that befell the men of the Fuller, have long since received their due reward in full consciousness of its meaning. Nowadays things are managed better, thanks to the greater influence of such noble establishments as the American Seamen's Friend Society, the Seamen's Christian Association in West Street, and the Seamen's Church Institute, on South Street, clubs where sailors are given room and board, are outfitted, and are able to bank their payday. Healthful amusements and recreation are provided, without that sanctimonious atmosphere that seems to curdle many well-meaning attempts of this sort and most of the shipping companies secure their crews through the Institute.
But in 1898, the deepwater sailor was at the mercy of the hungry sharks who had full sway in the vile business of ruining the souls and health of sailors in order to rob them of the few dollars earned during a year or more of cruel labor on the sea.
I have forgotten just where the shipping office was located, but it was somewhere near Beaver Street and the waterfront. I was on hand bright and early, anxious to see the crowd. The three days of rest and good food, and wholesome amusement, those happy days at the home of my uncle, had put me in fine condition; I never felt better in my life, and I was looking forward to a visit with the old gang. I wanted to take a trip around the waterfront with Frenchy and Australia, as we had often planned, and have a good dinner ashore, such as Frenchy and Tommy and I enjoyed in Honolulu.
The shipping office, as I remember it, had a dingy outer room in which the crew to be paid off awaited the pleasure of the haughty officials. One must be a sailor about to receive the scant reward for a year of toil, to fully appreciate the high and mighty character of such minor public officers as waited upon us on that bluest of all blue Mondays.
A gruff understrapper told me where to wait, and in the course of a half hour the crew, in tow of the crimps, appeared on the scene; I would like to draw a veil over this part of the story and leave the reader the simple picture of the men rowing toward the Battery, with Scouse shaking his fist at the ship, but realism, which in itself constitutes the highest romance, bids me tell things as I saw them, and the final tragedy is a part of the old days under sail that none of us wish to see return.
I looked for Frenchy, but hardly knew him. His beard was trimmed close to his chin, he wore his old cap but had on a cheap new suit of clothes, wrinkled as though he had slept in them, and his eyes were bloodshot. He seemed to avoid me, as he hung in the rear of the crowd. For every man to be paid off, at least two crimps were on hand.
All were more or less under the weather, the smell of cheap whisky permeated the room, and the ribald jests of the crimps, the constant whooping up of an ill-sustained merriment, gave the gathering a ghastly character that drove home to me with peculiar force. No doubt the close approach to the money caused the robbers more than a passing thrill. A couple of special bouncers from the inner office appeared when the gathering became too obstreperous, and I had a chance to say "hello" to the gang. Peter was there, sober, and wide-eyed with astonishment, having come from the house of Mrs. Burdick, the good angel of the waterfront. Australia, in a new rig, derby, watch, and soiled linen, kept bursting into song; not the songs of the sea, but some cheap new airs picked up along the Bowery.
"I owe them half of what's coming to me," he whispered, as if this was something to be proud of; a crimp slid up, and he at once ceased his confidences; all hands acted as though they were in charge of jailers, which in fact they were.
Brenden, Charlie Horse, and Tommy sat in a corner, sullen, and I judge partly sober.