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20 got caught in a cyclone, they and their leadsmen had to turn to and get the canvas off her and upper yards down, as the natives become utterly paralysed. I have witnessed the same thing myself, for in the Calcutta cyclone of 1867 native craft by the dozen came to grief across our mooring chains, and the crews were so stupified [sic] by sheer 'funk' that they made no attempt to save themselves; we actually had to lower ourselves over the side into their sinking boats, put a bowline round them, and haul them up on to our deck. During the night we thus saved some twenty of them. Scandinavians and Germans, classed by Jack under the generic term 'Dutchman,' also fail in such cases &hellip;&hellip; Poor Paddy makes a good sailor if well led; he wants leading, in the same way that British officers are a necessity to our native regiments in India. If you are in a really tight place at sea, an Irishman will follow you anywhere. Mind! It is of sailors I speak, not firemen. Those awful firemen! Lord, send us a new motive power, or liquid fuel, for 'tis the fireman who makes things so unpleasant in the sea life of to-day."

In the chapter on the "Hub of the Universe," Alan Oscar continues:

The laws of discipline, as they obtain in the present day merchant service, are peculiar and difficult to define. The cult of the boot and belaying pin is not of the kind to be advocated for adoption by those on whom the incidence of maintaining