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among themselves it can be traced more often than not to their immediate private affairs, and, although it may be bubble and squeak as a rule, they have learned that the Sahib has to look after them, and a malingerer, resenting suspicion, may threaten to jump overboard, knowing quite well that, if he were suffered to do so, the consequent trouble would be ample compensation from his point! "or ways that are dark," the Lascars, native like, are positively inscrutable, even tricky at times, yet with all their faults and many weaknesses we do not hesitate to state that they make most satisfactory crews for steam traders to the East, where Sundays and holidays are almost impossible. It often occurs that a steamer leaving Liverpool for an ordinary Indian voyage late on Saturday night, or early on Sunday morning, will have her affairs so arranged that scarcely a Sunday passes but what the boat is either in the canal, or arriving at, or leaving some place on the voyage. One or two at the most quiet Sundays is all that may be looked for, and these, at sea, bring the daily work and routine like other days. People who are keen on having quiet Sundays and the holidays of the calendar must not go to sea for a living; competition and comparisons do not permit of days of rest for the seafarer, as is the case of those who are careful to stay above low water mark of our shores.
Regarding the Committee now sitting under the presidency of Sir Francis Jeune to inquire into the condition of the mercantile marine and the cause of the decline in the number of Britishers employed, it has been seriously suggested that the chairman should call for a return of the number of bad discharges given to seamen during the last twenty or thirty years, ostensibly to prove that the V.G. character has been indiscriminately given, whether it was deserved or not. There will not be much information to be gathered under this head, inasmuch as there are no bad discharges ever given beyond that of the prescribed form "Dec." which signifies "Decline to report" upon the man's character, no matter what the cause. Under Section
