TH out of 5
*Exd***
631
a S.M; But I have known many captains intimately, and
I know how, naturally enough, they and the S.M. must
hit it off. I hold no brief for the seaman! He is too
much trouble to ships' doctors for them to love him!
But it is the sense of injustice that makes him class
the ship's surgeon with his employers out of whom he
never expects more justice than fate will allow him.
Surely he will be elevated (as the convict has been)
by representation. He is less unlovable when treated
with common sense justice, & loses his sense of suspicion and its natural cunning to score off the officers when fate lets him. Even the Chinese Coolie
(to whom Mr. Balfour likened Jack, as to terms of contract) has his own Consul Leu, a man of very high social
and educational attainments. I know of a Chinese crew
reaching London in a Shell Line boat. S.M. decided against them on a question of pay. They got a lawyer
and got their dues. I went out with them, & they
thought the Shipping Master like their own in Hong Kong.
Faithfully Yours,
(Sd.) John H. Pugh.