you are at the age that you are nothing but a pair of lungs and a pair of legs it's none so bad as a plan and is still largely used in developing what we may call volunteer recruitment for sea service. Personal liberty is being interfered with so much nowadays, however, that many shipping-offices and shipping-commissioners ask for written consent of parents before signing on a lad, so it is well to get the family reconciled to your scheme and leave by the front door with a little more money and luggage. It is fairer to your folks and makes an easier retreat to the home base in case of temporary disaster. Still, it doesn't try out your nerve as well as the other, and your nerve will have to be tried out in one way or another before you have gone far in your sea career.

Seamen are 'kind. If, with or without your parents' co-operation, you are trying to place yourself direct aboard a ship and can't get to the mate to ask him about it, chum up with the boatswain or one of the sailors who looks companionable and get him to take you to the mate or the "old man.' Or go to the shipping-offices. In New York City the Standard Oil Company has one in Pearl Street; the Shipping Board maintains one in Washington Street, down near the Bat

tery. You can learn of others by hanging around either of those.

If you would rather be introduced to the service instead of jimmying your way in, the Shipping Board maintains a training system at various ports-Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco, Cleveland-where you can be received if you come within certain age and weight limits and get a couple of months' training aboard one of their ships and then be sent to sea. You won't be as far ahead this way in either money or capability as you will be by trying the practical, direct method, but it is an easier and surer way of getting started than the other.

If you are sure about your intention of staying at sea for some years at least, the state nautical school-ships can hardly be beat as a way of getting thorough, high-class training in both seamanship and navigation and the ways of both sail and steam. There are only two such ships at present, the Newport at New York and the Ranger at Boston. Pennsylvania used to have one, but passed it up. But plans afoot seem to promise more of them, probably half a dozen, distributed on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico, so that there will be room enough for as many boys as

want that character of training. You have to give some things up that the other life at sea lets you have straight off the bat. You can't earn so much money nor be so much your own boss. On the other hand, you are given expert teaching in both seamanship and navigation, and get more out of your two years that the ship requires from you than you would in an average ship. You can get aboard these ships at sixteen and have to stay two years. You can address the Board of Governors, New York State Nautical School, New York City, or Massachusetts State Nautical School, Boston.

Several lines the American line operating between New York and Liverpool or Southampton, and the Ward line, running ships down to the West Indies and Central America-have a cadet system that is attractive if you try to get the most out of it you can. The appointments are for boys under twentyone, and are confined to a few mail-ships under an old provision of Congress that requires one such cadet to be carried for each thousand of gross tonnage in ships paid by the government for carrying the mails. The system has been in existence twenty years or more. It has turned out some good men. But as prospects were so poor before the

war for much of a career in the United States merchant marine, it was often hard, especially in the winter, to get the right kind of boys to sail for the fifteen dollars a month they were paid and the odd jobs they were set to. The ships had to sign on that number of cadets before they could sail, and consequently often there was a sprinkling of lads glad of any shelter and not interested in either seamanship or navigation. But when a lad did show interest and application he had every possible chance given him by expert officers. Still, the system was not justifying itself before the war. Now it ought to do so to the mutual satisfaction of the cadets, the ships' officers who are charged with overseeing them, the companies that own the ships, and the general government that decreed the system. Boys given these appointments are supposed to show qualities that deserve prompter training for officership than the slower process out of the forecastle and, as in the school-ships, they give up bigger earnings for the better training. Application is made to the offices of the American line and the Ward line. A number of the lines plan to establish credit systems on their ships.

A good thing to do is to buy a copy of the

Journal of Commerce (New York City, 32 Broadway) for a nickel and study the page solid with small advertisements of shipping companies that it runs every day, and so get an idea of the companies, their ships, and their trades and routes. For the Pacific coast the San Francisco Commercial News will do you the same service.

In the bad old days when "crimps" got a little from the ship and a little from the man for each member of the crew they provided, you needed to watch out for the man who was too ready to "sign you up." Now, with such conditions almost entirely removed, reputable shipping-offices are established that act for the various ship companies, though some of the bigger companies maintain their individual offices. The headquarters of the various marine unions are good places to hang around for tips of good ships and likely openings and good shipping-offices, and also such places as the Seamen's Institute on South Street and the Seamen's Christian Association on West Street, New York City, the Seamen's Institute in Galveston, and similar institutions in all the ports of the country, where, either direct from the officials or in conversation with the men, you can get a good many pointers.