A Yankee in the Far East Part 23

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You're a third-cla.s.s pa.s.senger on this s.h.i.+p"--and further conversation with me seemed to give him a pain]

If a protest and a pet.i.tion for an effort to try and make things better, signed by a goodly number of us from the underworld who were American citizens, were sent up to the captain, it might mend matters, and wouldn't I draft it?

After my encounter with that purser--the purser standing high in the management of a pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p at sea--I had a fear that any pet.i.tion we might make wouldn't be received with favor by the management, but my election for the job was so unanimous, spontaneous and hearty that I buckled to it and wrote a pet.i.tion, in which I told the management what we American steerage pa.s.sengers thought of what was being handed to us on our pa.s.sage home. I told them we were steerage pa.s.sengers not from choice, but owing to the fortunes of war, and instead of trying to emphasize the fact that we were steerage pa.s.sengers, wouldn't they see what they could do to make us forget it? Furthermore, I asked in the pet.i.tion if they wouldn't at least see that the stewards who served us our food put on clean clothes: that the white suits they wore were filthy when we left Liverpool, and that they were still wearing the same filthy suits. And also wouldn't they see that the dishes were given an occasional bath--that the knives and forks they were handing us turned our stomachs. And couldn't we have ice water to drink? Even had the temerity to suggest that they give us napkins--qualified the suggestion of napkins by telling them paper ones would be counted a boon.

I read my pet.i.tion to the crowd and it was loudly acclaimed a choice bit of literature, right to the point, and exactly fitted the case; and they crowded around to sign it, and wanted me to get it into the captain's hands as quick as I could. I went up to first cabin to hunt for the captain and ran into the purser. When he saw me coming he looked even more aggrieved than when he told me to stay where I belonged. But I told him this time I came with a pet.i.tion, signed by several hundred American citizens, and that I wanted to give it to the captain.

"We're in a fog now and captain is on the bridge; I'll give your pet.i.tion to him when he comes off the bridge," the purser said.

"All right, purser," I said; "and you needn't return the pet.i.tion to me. I've got a copy of it and a copy of all the names of the signers."

And I went back to steerage, from choice now. I fear that I've always set too great a store on ease and luxury--asceticism has never appealed to me as a personal practice; but it would have taken a roll of money to have hired me to shake steerage now. My better nature, or something, had triumphed, and my lot was cast with that down-trodden, forsaken, and hopeless crowd of steerage travelers. A revulsion of feeling for first-cla.s.s on that s.h.i.+p had filled my soul. They couldn't have hired me to travel first-cla.s.s now. When I got back "amongst my own people" I was the recipient of so many tales of woe--I was so filled up with steerage pa.s.sengers' grievances, that if my interior had been a.n.a.lyzed it would have looked just like the bureau for the amelioration of troubles at San Francisco after the earthquake.

Shake that bunch? Nay, nay. In my contrition of spirit I concluded that what I was getting was just retribution for ever trying to do such a thing; and I feared if I should let go and make another attempt to do it, something worse might come to me--although I couldn't figure out just what it could be. Besides, after that pet.i.tion reached the throne, I'd be in bad with the s.h.i.+p's management, and another attempt to get away from steerage would be futile.

My-o! but that was a forlorn lot of pa.s.sengers traveling steerage.

Our chief aversion was "Beef," chief steward of steerage (he was dubbed "Beef" by the sufferers an hour after we got aboard). He was big, beefy, bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned and shoulder-strapped, evidently hired by the line for his ability to drive over-worked stewards and handle immigrant pa.s.sengers.

Almost immediately after boarding the s.h.i.+p he had earned the indignation of the Americans by insulting one of our country-women, a woman of refinement and culture, who was traveling alone--the wife of a banker. When she protested at the deplorable condition of the dishes, he stormed up to her and asked her what was wrong. "Why," she said, "you don't expect us to eat our meals off such dirty dishes, do you?"

"You're no better than immigrants, and you'll be handled as such,"

"Beef" said. And when she told him she would report him to the captain he bellowed out most insultingly: "Go ahead and report; we aren't afraid."

Subsequent events proved that "Beef" had no cause to fear the captain.

It was not a nice way for a servant of a transportation line to talk to any patron, immigrant or otherwise, voicing a just protest, and especially not to an unprotected lady traveling alone, subject to the care and courtesy of the transportation company she was traveling with.

Indignant? Oh my! I should say so.

If indignation could sink a s.h.i.+p, we'd never have got across.

As Chairman of the Protest and Indignation Committee, all that indignation was poured into me. I didn't know I could hold so much.

And still it came. One woman wanted to sue the company when she got home for a million dollars, and she came and asked my advice about it.

I told her I wasn't a lawyer, but being Chairman of the Committee on Protest and Indignation, I told her to state her case. She said she was going down a darkened stairway to the noisome, filthy quarters where they had to sleep; the stairway wasn't lighted and in consequence she fell down stairs and was picked up for dead, jarred, bruised, broken and bleeding profusely. The s.h.i.+p's doctor attended her injuries and charged her two dollars, and she wanted her two dollars back and a million on top of it.

Speaking from underneath the load of other people's woes I had aboard, to say nothing of those of my own, I told her she had, in my opinion, a just claim. To sue the company when she got home--this last advice I threw over my shoulder at her, as another woman was dragging me off to investigate the "awful condition" below deck where they were herded to spend the nights.

And still the indignation grew and grew. Our pet.i.tion hadn't bettered matters.

We were steerage pa.s.sengers--just that and nothing more, and if there wasn't some new, fresh, sensational bit of steerage news to tell there was always "Beef" and his insults to discuss.

One evening as curfew rule was being enforced (it seems there is a law that demands that female immigrants en route to the United States shall be ordered below deck at 9 o'clock), as this rule was being applied to our steerage pa.s.sengers, both Americans and immigrants, and as they were being driven to the filth and stench and vermin below, indignation boiled over again.

One young fellow whose wife was driven from his side, swore like a pirate, but had to submit--we were steerage pa.s.sengers.

"Beef" was boss of the steerage, and as he was standing near, to voice our indignation, I said to the men who were allowed to stay on deck: "Men, if any of us catch an officer on this s.h.i.+p insulting a woman, whether she is American or an immigrant, no matter how many shoulder straps or bra.s.s b.u.t.tons he wears, I propose we knock him down, and if he is too big to handle with our fists, take a club." That little speech was for "Beef's" benefit--but things didn't mend.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He swore like a pirate]

The well deck was the outdoor privilege for steerage pa.s.sengers, set nine feet down in the hull of the s.h.i.+p, forward the p.o.o.p deck and aft second cabin promenade deck, with a railing across the latter to prevent cabin pa.s.sengers falling off into the well deck. All view available for steerage pa.s.sengers on the well deck was up into the sky--whence we might look and pray for deliverance. We could sit on the bulkheads that formed a part of the floor and lean our backs against the wall, which our women folk did.

Cabin pa.s.sengers up top side would lean on that rail and _spit on us_!

And they complained to _me_ about it--of course they did--to whom else should they tell their troubles?--wasn't I Chairman of Committee on Complaints? I was, and it was another case of "Let George do it."

There was no one to appeal to but "Beef." Captain and purser held aloof and wouldn't answer our pet.i.tion.

I didn't have much hope in approaching "Beef" after my proposition of the night before at curfew--"Beef" knew I was driving at him--but I thought of Moses and how he had to appeal to Pharaoh, of the stony heart--what little I knew of the career of Moses was especially comforting to me--but since I'd been purged of the streak of yellow in me that prompted me to try and shake my steerage friends I was willing to do anything; so I went to "Beef" and said: "Say, those low-brow cabin pa.s.sengers along the rail up top side are _spittin'_ on the ladies and gentlemen down here in the steerage!"

The enormity of the outrage didn't faze "Beef." Cabin pa.s.sengers had the privilege to spit on steerage. He wouldn't do anything. All the attention he paid to the complaint was to look at me and say: "I don't consider _you're_ a gentleman."

And I told him if in _his_ opinion I was a gentleman I'd go and hang myself.

And the indignation grew and grew.

All the comfort there was on hand was to lodge complaints with me and to express the hope that I'd do justice to the situation when I got home.

"Don't forget to tell about the rats, Allen," a man from Maryland piped up.

"Yes, touch up the rats," a man from Iowa admonished me, while a man from Kentucky said he had become so innured to hards.h.i.+p he didn't mind the rats so much, he could stand their running over his face nights, if they would only hurry across.

"Yes," a man from Ma.s.sachusetts plaintively wailed, "it _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?" While a man from Florida said that he didn't mind their feet so much--it was the dragging their tails across his face that got onto _his_ nerves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?"]

"And don't forget to tell how they served us those little, pithy oranges that day, Allen," a man from California broke in.

This was hardly worthy. The man who lodged that complaint ought to have been ashamed of himself, and his ingenuity for finding things to kick about was of a low order--he was straining at a gnat and swallowing camels.

It's true the stewards brought them on in their dirty ap.r.o.ns and pitched them at us--not the stewards' fault, they were doing the best they could with the tools furnished them--but steerage pa.s.sengers ought to be grateful for any kind of oranges, served in any shape.

While it's quite true, in my adolescent years, as a boy on the farm I have fed apples to hogs with the same courtesy, the complaint was too trivial to be spread on the minutes of the meeting. But it was voted to spread it, hence the mention.

Before the meeting adjourned, under the head of "New Business," a portly judge advised that the pet.i.tion sent to the captain be rewritten and signed again with the home addresses of all signers opposite their names, and that I take the resigned pet.i.tion home with me. Some of the s.h.i.+p's letterheads were pasted together until we had a sheet nearly five feet long on which to rewrite the pet.i.tion, and on both sides of the paper there was not enough s.p.a.ce to hold the signers' names, and an overflow sheet had to be supplied.

The next day all steerage pa.s.sengers were subjected to a medical examination. Americans examined on deck--immigrants in the dining saloon.

A brother-in-tribulation, "New York," and I, after we were released from the examination, started down a noisome alleyway to go to our cabins, and we had to pa.s.s through the dining-room, where immigrants were being examined. We were in "New York's" cabin when a dining-room steward came to us and told us he had been sent to tell us to go on deck; that we were holding up the medical examination. No steerage pa.s.sengers were allowed in the cabins until medical examinations were completed, he told us, and that he was ordered to tell us to go on deck.

We had gotten so used to being ordered up and down and in and out that we obeyed like dumb driven cattle. As we were about to pa.s.s through a companionway to get on deck, dining-room stewards guarded it and told us we couldn't go on deck. "New York" was ahead, and paid no attention to the contradictory order. They let him pa.s.s, but when I followed, one of the guards took hold of my arm to stop me, and I brushed past him. He fell down and began to howl before he struck the deck. I joined "New York" on deck and told him I suspected a frame-up, and that I would hear of it later.

Sure enough, in about half an hour "Beef" hove in sight and told me the captain wanted to see me in the purser's room.

"Glory be, 'New York'," I said, "let's shake the nether regions and go up first and see the captain. I've an invitation to meet him in the purser's room. We've been wanting to see that fellow ever since we left Liverpool, and I invite you to go with me as my guest."

"Only Mr. Allen is wanted," "Beef" vouchsafed, but "New York" didn't pay any more attention to him than if he'd been a toadstool--I was going to say mushroom, but I like mushrooms--and together we went to pay our respects to his nibs, the captain, "Beef" following on behind.

As we neared the purser's room we pa.s.sed the entrance to first-cabin dining-saloon, and as we saw the luscious fruits and viands prepared, and took in the luxurious surroundings, we clasped our hands and simultaneously exclaimed: "Is this heaven?"

I was ushered into the purser's room, "New York" sticking to me closer than a brother. There sat his nibs, the captain, togged out with enough gold braid to scare a horse. The purser stood at his side, and "Beef" came in. There were some chairs in the room.