Page:Yachting wrinkles; a practical and historical handbook of valuable information for the racing and cruising yachtsman (IA yachtingwrinkles00keneiala).pdf/35

 been disgraced or degraded by the professional hands necessarily employed in its service. Officers and men before the mast quickly realize that good conduct is the only secret of success, that braggarts and bullies have no place in its symmetry, and that dishonesty of any kind, whether selling a race or robbing a yacht owner, is quickly detected and punished. I have never known an instance of the first-named disgraceful offence, and the lack of it speaks volumes in behalf of the honor and integrity of yacht skippers the wide world over. Be it remembered that for a sailing-master to lose a race would be as easy as for a jockey to so ride a horse that in spite of his gameness or his speed he could not possibly win. Scandals such as in the past have made the turf a byword are happily unknown in yacht racing. In all my experience of yachtsmen I never heard one of them, in his most open and confidential moods, with his mind mellowed with grog, boast of winning a race by unfair or questionable methods.

Many stockbrokers race their yachts, and, although the Stock Exchange is supposed to have a peculiar effect on the moral tone of its members, yet when these gentlemen engage in a yacht race they display the nicest honor, the most chivalrous conduct toward their adversaries, that is indeed most admirable to contemplate. Lawyers, too, who in the exercise of their profes