brother.

Everybody who lives in Gloucester is interested in the fishing industry, and so it falls out that the city's life is about equally made up of intervals of joy and sorrow. When summer opens the general tone of public feeling is bright and hopeful, but at the end of the season, as the fishers come in, some with flags at half-mast, others bearing fateful news, the whole town is depressed. All the residents show a concern in the sailors who are lost and in the welfare of their families. Even citizens of fortune who suffer no personal bereavement have been brought closely into touch with the poor fishing families through repeated tragedies at sea. The scenes in the fishing quarters during the late fall and winter months when news of death is brought by almost every returning boat are most pathetic. Sometimes the news comes with a shock, at others wives and children wait for weeks in anxiety and never know the details of the fate of their loved ones.

The immediate wants of the families of lost sailors are looked after by the Gloucester Relief Association. Almost everybody in the town subscribes to this, rich and poor alike, as well as the sailors living along the shore and in Nova Scotia, all of whom sail in the Gloucester vessels. When there is a disaster the nearest relatives of the men lost receive a sum proportionate to the amount which the subscribers have paid into the association. In addition, voluntary subscriptions are made by churches and societies in Gloucester and Boston once a year and distributed at the time of the annual memorial service in February.

This service held in the city hall of Gloucester is unique in its way. Everybody in the city takes an interest in it and, with shops closed and business suspended, the day is one of general mourning. But neither death nor its solemn reminders can rob the boy born and bred in Gloucester of hunger for the time when he, too, may hazard life and fortune on the distant fishing grounds; and gray Mother Ocean, kindly and cruel by turns, claims him for her own, singing to-day of his hardihood and to-morrow—chanting his requiem.

CHAPTER II AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW

Work on an ocean steamship never ends, for no sooner does she reach her moorings in New York, Liverpool or Hamburg than preparations begin for the next voyage. Her decks are holystoned, sprinkled with sand and made beautifully clean; the outside of her hull, from deck to water line, is repainted and, if it be the end of a round trip or voyage, all the exterior paint work receives a new coat, while her sanitary and plumbing arrangements, her smokestacks, woodwork, spars and rigging are all carefully examined and overhauled. All this is done by the sailors under the direction of the boatswain, who reports each day to the officer on duty and receives instruction as to the work to be performed.

Meanwhile an overhauling equally minute and thorough is going on in the engineer's department, which includes not only the engines and boilers, but also the electric-lighting plant of the ship. The work of this department, however, is so arduous while at sea that officers and men receive liberty for the entire time the ship remains in port, their places being taken by a special shore force which remains aboard until sailing day. One boiler is left untouched to supply power for the engines that work the electric and refrigerating apparatus, the pumps and the machinery used in shipping cargo, but all the others as soon as they have cooled are entered, examined and, if need be, repaired. Each tube, combustion chamber and furnace receives careful attention; cylinders, pistons, crankpins and crossheads are gone over one by one, while the engines are generally overhauled and all the arrangements of the fireroom inspected. Nor is the steward's department less busy while in port. All the bed and table linen used during the voyage, many thousands of pieces, is collected and sent to the company's laundry, after which all the staterooms are cleaned and put in order and the fresh supply of linen made ready for the coming voyage.

During a steamship's stay in port the three chief divisions, sailing, engineer's and steward's, are under the jurisdiction of shore officials whose officers are on the deck. The sailing department is responsible to the marine superintendent, the engineer's to the superintending engineer and the steward's to the port steward. Thus the vessel while in port has no direct communication with the company's office, the dock superintendents acting as intermediaries. When stores are sent to the ship they are addressed to the department for which they are intended. The port steward controls the direct purchasing of provisions and is supposed to buy in the cheapest and best market. The marine superintendent and superintending engineer furnish the other materials required. Should provisions be found unsatisfactory when received the chief steward sends them back, and in such action is always upheld by the port steward. The cargo is in charge of the sailing department and is received and stowed under the direction of a boss stevedore selected by the dock superintendent.

Even the fleetest ocean steamships carry considerable cargoes, and to those unfamiliar with it the process of loading a vessel is a sight full of interest. On the wharf assorted merchandise by the carload is being lifted from vans and piled near the ship, and teams by the score are adding their quota to the immense mass, while on the water side lighters laden with more merchandise are either fastened to the vessel's side or anchored close at hand waiting to hoist their contents aboard. Engines are puffing, ropes are tugging and derricks lifting heavy freight of every kind to the ship's deck, the orders of the stevedore and the answers of his men mingling with the general din. Large vessels have four or five holds and much skill is required to properly stow the cargo in them, grain, from its compact and dead weight, being mostly reserved for the center of the vessel, while cured provisions are packed as far forward and aft as possible for their better preservation from the heat of the ship's fires. In many vessels carrying passengers as well as freight the heaviest weight is stowed in the lowest hold; this is to steady the ship and is called in the argot of the stevedore "stiffening" the ship. It requires about 1,500 tons to "stiffen" an ocean steamship of the largest size, and when this is done the hold is battened down and work begun on the next.

An important feature in the loading of a steamship is her coal. It is customary to take as high as 200 tons of a surplus over the actual needs of the voyage, and the bunkers of the vessel are in charge of a special gang of men. Some vessels load their coal over all, but a majority receive it through openings at the sides. Large V-shaped pockets, running direct to the bunkers, are let down on each side and around them are built stagings on which a couple of men are stationed to dump the coal from huge buckets hoisted by engines from lighters. On the wharf side the coal is wheeled in barrows up a shelving gangway and turned into the bunkers direct. To load a great vessel requires the services for several days of 125 men, including a boss stevedore and a couple of foremen and with all the appliances of steam and gearing to assist their operations. The force is divided into half a dozen or more gangs, each having its head, who is in communication with the boss stevedore. As the work is intermittent the men