a man, and you take the offer of some freighter, jumping eight hundred or a thousand dollars in salary right then, but never getting any more. You have struck your stride and you settle down into it. You forfeit your idea of the final big blue-ribbonliner prize in maritime life for the quicker fruit, that may in the end feed your life with satisfaction quite as fully as the other and certainly nourishes it more promptly. Or, if you aim to be a hotel-man at sea, you start in as mess-boy, become a waiter, a bedroom steward, a bath steward, a deck steward, a library steward, a second steward, a chief steward, perhaps some day a commissary superintendent in the shore office. Or if you are interested in the business affairs of the ship you work a number of years as purser's clerk until the chance comes of appointment as purser. Or you take your chances with the opportunities in wireless work, which, aboard a ship, are limited but interesting. Meantime you have to be away from your parents, from your chums, from the girl you like and put off marrying and finally marry and then seldom see, and the children that come but see their father only occasionally as he makes port.

That is the dark side of it. But the life

has a lot of compensations. The great majority of men come to a standstill ashore and keep on year after year, earning about the same amount of money as they earned the year before, doing about the same things, and in general just holding their own. The life at sea does at least as well as that. Men ashore grow pale and thin or overfat unless they take all kinds of trouble to overcome the confinement under roofs that shore life requires of most workers. The life at sea is an open, healthy life. A man ashore has often more appearances to keep up than he really cares about, and this costs him both money and trouble. The ship's officer also has appearances to keep up that are more than his income justifies, often, but in the main he has fewer requirements of this kind placed upon him, and the man who is not yet an officer has decidedly fewer than he would have ashore. The man ashore, especially the young man, is always spending. The man at sea can't spend for about threequarters of his time. Of course, when he comes to port he is under temptation of spending a lot of his money in less time than the shore man would take, but if he has reasonable self-control and some plans for the future he can save more than the shore

man because there aren't the steady dribbles from his pocket every day. If he is married his wife doesn't have to figure on his food as part of every week's bills, because the ship gives him his daily living in addition to his wages, and he probably has more money clear to bring home for the home's expenses than the shore man earning the same money can bring home clear of his own demands upon it in the same space of time. Very worth-while men like to associate with him because he has knocked about the world and can talk about kinds of men and various countries with a fresh, hearty judgment that is oftentimes very helpful and interesting. He learns the true significance and thrill of friendship in all the necessities and dependences upon one another that tie men together who live at sea or go ashore in strange countries together. He may find opportunities for making a living that he would never have found in the district of his own country where he originally lived. He brings into his home, when he gets home, his abounding health, his fresh joy in seeing his beloved ones again, his talk and his souvenirs of his voyages. He is now as well protected as any other man in the conditions of his employment, so that there is not un

necessary hardship. He knows that he is playing a part in a very significant service for his country, the new growth of her merchant marine. Also he has the sense of mastery over the elements and men that is in itself a great satisfaction with life, and as he rises in official rank he has the deferences and the comforts of life accorded him in an elaborate way hardly existent in any other life outside the armed services.

Here are the rates of pay for all the kinds of men aboard ship, that went into force January 1, 1919. The figures are permanently interesting, even though they may shift before you get to sea, because they in all probability represent the best pay you will ever get at sea in the various ratings. In all human probability sea wages will never get higher than these, though there are men who claim wages will go even higher, just as there are other men who insist wages will get back to the meager pre-war level. The scale was agreed to at a conference in Washington of Shipping Board officials, officials of private shipping companies, representatives of ships' officers' associations and seamen's unions at the time war bonuses for exceptional duties were abolished, and the question of what the going rate should be,

with all bonuses cut out, had to be settled. The general feeling was that the men at sea had secured action in accordance with their views regarding wages. The first officer's wages doubtless will be increased to something not so out of proportion with the captain's, in view of his very great responsibilities in the actual administration of the ship's work, but in general this scale probably will represent top-notch wages during the coming years for everybody at sea excepting captains of the finest liners. You may get less; you will hardly get more during your time at sea. The rates for all the officers, engineers, and three principal stewards vary a little according to the size of the ship. The master of a 20,000-ton singlescrew ship or a 15,000-ton twin-screw ship gets fifty dollars a month more than the master of an 8,000-ton ship, and there is about the same difference with chief engineers and chief stewards. A slighter difference is maintained for the other officers, engineers, and principal stewards. But the pay for all the petty officers and the men on deck, in the fire-room and engine-room and in the galley, is the same, whatever the size of the ship. The pay of the official rankings runs as follows: