of labour as the cabin-boy who served aboard the old sailing
brigs, schooners, and barques, and I must plead guilty to
having a sentimental regret that the romance was destroyed
through this attractive personality being superseded by
another, with the somewhat unattractive title of "cook and
steward." The story of how poor boys of the beginning and
middle of the century and right up to the latter part of the
'sixties started sea-life is always romantic, often
sensational, and ever pathetic. They were usually the sons
of poor parents living for the most part in obscure villages
or small towns bordering on the sea, which sea blazed into
their minds aspirations to get aboard some one of the
numerous vessels that passed their homes one way or the
other all day long. The notion of becoming anything but
sailors never entered their heads, and the parents were
usually proud of this ambition, and quite ready to allow
their offspring to launch out into the world while they were
yet little more than children. It very frequently happened,
however, that boys left their homes unknown to their
families, and tramped to the nearest seaport with the object
of engaging themselves aboard ship, and they nearly always
found some skipper or owner to take them. Swarms of Scotch
and Norfolk boys were attracted to the Northumberland ports
by the higher rate of wages. Many of them had to tramp it
all the long way from home, and quite a large number of them
became important factors in the shipping trade of the
district. It was a frequent occurrence to see a poor
child-boy passing through the village where I was brought
up, on his way from Scotland to Blyth, or the Tyne, his feet
covered with sores, and carrying a small bundle containing a