CHAPTER LXXXIV.
MAN-OF-WAR BARBERS.
The allusion to one of the ship's barbers in a previous chapter,together with the recollection of how conspicuous a part they enactedin a tragical drama soon to be related, leads me now to introduce themto the reader.
Among the numerous artists and professors of polite trades in the Navy,none are held in higher estimation or drive a more profitable businessthan these barbers. And it may well be imagined that the five hundredheads of hair and five hundred beards of a frigate should furnish nosmall employment for those to whose faithful care they may beintrusted. As everything connected with the domestic affairs of aman-of-war comes under the supervision of the martial executive, socertain barbers are formally licensed by the First Lieutenant. Thebetter to attend to the profitable duties of their calling, they areexempted from all ship's duty except that of standing night-watches atsea, mustering at quarters, and coming on deck when all hands arecalled. They are rated as _able seamen_ or _ordinary seamen_, andreceive their wages as such; but in addition to this, they areliberally recompensed for their professional services. Herein theirrate of pay is fixed for every sailor manipulated--so much per quarter,which is charged to the sailor, and credited to his barber on the booksof the Purser.
It has been seen that while a man-of-war barber is shaving hiscustomers at so much per chin, his wages as a seaman are still runningon, which makes him a sort of _sleeping partner_ of a sailor; nor arethe sailor wages he receives altogether to be reckoned as earnings.Considering the circumstances, however, not much objection can be madeto the barbers on this score. But there were instances of men in theNeversink receiving government money in part pay for work done forprivate individuals. Among these were several accomplished tailors, whonearly the whole cruise sat cross-legged on the half deck, makingcoats, pantaloons, and vests for the quarter-deck officers. Some ofthese men, though knowing little or nothing about sailor duties, andseldom or never performing them, stood upon the ship's books asordinary seamen, entitled to ten dollars a month. Why was this?Previous to shipping they had divulged the fact of their being tailors.True, the officers who employed them upon their wardrobes paid them fortheir work, but some of them in such a way as to elicit much grumblingfrom the tailors. At any rate, these makers and menders of clothes didnot receive from some of these officers an amount equal to what theycould have fairly earned ashore by doing the same work. It was aconsiderable saving to the officers to have their clothes made on board.
The men belonging to the carpenter's gang furnished another case inpoint. There were some six or eight allotted to this department. Allthe cruise they were hard at work. At what? Mostly making chests ofdrawers, canes, little ships and schooners, swifts, and otherelaborated trifles, chiefly for the Captain. What did the Captain paythem for their trouble? Nothing. But the United States government paidthem; two of them (the mates) at nineteen dollars a month, and the restreceiving the pay of able seamen, twelve dollars.
To return.
The regular days upon which the barbers shall exercise their vocationare set down on the ship's calendar, and known as _shaving days_. Onboard of the Neversink these days are Wednesdays and Saturdays; when,immediately after breakfast, the barbers' shops were opened tocustomers. They were in different parts of the gun-deck, between thelong twenty-four pounders. Their furniture, however, was not veryelaborate, hardly equal to the sumptuous appointments of metropolitanbarbers. Indeed, it merely consisted of a match-tub, elevated upon ashot-box, as a barber's chair for the patient. No Psyche glasses; nohand-mirror; no ewer and basin; no comfortable padded footstool;nothing, in short, that makes a shore "_shave_" such a luxury.
Nor are the implements of these man-of-war barbers out of keeping withthe rude appearance of their shops. Their razors are of the simplestpatterns, and, from their jagged-ness, would seem better fitted for thepreparing and harrowing of the soil than for the ultimate reaping ofthe crop. But this is no matter for wonder, since so many chins are tobe shaven, and a razor-case holds but two razors. For only two razorsdoes a man-of-war barber have, and, like the marine sentries at thegangway in port, these razors go off and on duty in rotation. Onebrush, too, brushes every chin, and one lather lathers them all. Noprivate brushes and boxes; no reservations whatever.
As it would be altogether too much trouble for a man-of-war's-man tokeep his own shaving-tools and shave himself at sea, and since,therefore, nearly the whole ship's company patronise the ship'sbarbers, and as the seamen must be shaven by evening quarters of thedays appointed for the business, it may be readily imagined what ascene of bustle and confusion there is when the razors are beingapplied. First come, first served, is the motto; and often you have towait for hours together, sticking to your position (like one of anIndian file of merchants' clerks getting letters out of thepost-office), ere you have a chance to occupy the pedestal of thematch-tub. Often the crowd of quarrelsome candidates wrangle and fightfor precedency, while at all times the interval is employed by thegarrulous in every variety of ship-gossip.
As the shaving days are unalterable, they often fall upon days of highseas and tempestuous winds, when the vessel pitches and rolls in afrightful manner. In consequence, many valuable lives are jeopardisedfrom the razor being plied under such untoward circumstances. But thesesea-barbers pride themselves upon their sea-legs, and often you willsee them standing over their patients with their feet wide apart, andscientifically swaying their bodies to the motion of the ship, as theyflourish their edge-tools about the lips, nostrils, and jugular.
As I looked upon the practitioner and patient at such times, I couldnot help thinking that, if the sailor had any insurance on his life, itwould certainly be deemed forfeited should the president of the companychance to lounge by and behold him in that imminent peril. For myself,I accounted it an excellent preparation for going into a sea-fight,where fortitude in standing up to your gun and running the risk of allsplinters, comprise part of the practical qualities that make up anefficient man-of-war's man.
It remains to be related, that these barbers of ours had their laboursconsiderably abridged by a fashion prevailing among many of the crew,of wearing very large whiskers; so that, in most cases, the only partsneeding a shave were the upper lip and suburbs of the chin. This hadbeen more or less the custom during the whole three years' cruise; butfor some time previous to our weathering Cape Horn, very many of theseamen had redoubled their assiduity in cultivating their beardspreparatory to their return to America. There they anticipated creatingno small impression by their immense and magnificent_homeward-bounders_--so they called the long fly-brushes at theirchins. In particular, the more aged sailors, embracing the Old Guard ofsea grenadiers on the forecastle, and the begrimed gunner's mates andquarter-gunners, sported most venerable beards of an exceeding lengthand hoariness, like long, trailing moss hanging from the bough of someaged oak. Above all, the Captain of the Forecastle, old Ushant--a finespecimen of a sea sexagenarian--wore a wide, spreading beard, gizzledand grey, that flowed over his breast and often became tangled andknotted with tar. This Ushant, in all weathers, was ever alert at hisduty; intrepidly mounting the fore-yard in a gale, his long beardstreaming like Neptune's. Off Cape Horn it looked like a miller's,being all over powdered with frost; sometimes it glittered with minuteicicles in the pale, cold, moonlit Patagonian nights. But though he wasso active in time of tempest, yet when his duty did not call forexertion, he was a remarkably staid, reserved, silent, and majestic oldman, holding himself aloof from noisy revelry, and never participatingin the boisterous sports of the crew. He resolutely set his beardagainst their boyish frolickings, and often held forth like an oracleconcerning the vanity thereof. Indeed, at times he was wont to talkphilosophy to his ancient companions--the old sheet-anchor-men aroundhim--as well as to the hare-brained tenants of the fore-top, and thegiddy lads in the mizzen.
Nor was his philosophy to be despised; it abounded in wisdom. For thisUshant was an old man, of strong natural sense, who had seen nearly thewhol
e terraqueous globe, and could reason of civilized and savage, ofGentile and Jew, of Christian and Moslem. The long night-watches of thesailor are eminently adapted to draw out the reflective faculties ofany serious-minded man, however humble or uneducated. Judge, then, whathalf a century of battling out watches on the ocean must have done forthis fine old tar. He was a sort of a sea-Socrates, in his old age"pouring out his last philosophy and life," as sweet Spenser has it;and I never could look at him, and survey his right reverend beard,without bestowing upon him that title which, in one of his satires,Persius gives to the immortal quaffer of the hemlock--_MagisterBarbatus_--the bearded master.
Not a few of the ship's company had also bestowed great pains upontheir hair, which some of them--especially the genteel young sailorbucks of the After-guard--wore over their shoulders like the ringletedCavaliers. Many sailors, with naturally tendril locks, pridedthemselves upon what they call _love curls_, worn at the side of thehead, just before the ear--a custom peculiar to tars, and which seemsto have filled the vacated place of the old-fashioned Lord Rodney cue,which they used to wear some fifty years ago.
But there were others of the crew labouring under the misfortune oflong, lank, Winnebago locks, carroty bunches of hair, or rebelliousbristles of a sandy hue. Ambitious of redundant mops, these stillsuffered their carrots to grow, spite of all ridicule. They looked likeHuns and Scandinavians; and one of them, a young Down Easter, theunenvied proprietor of a thick crop of inflexible yellow bamboos, wentby the name of _Peter the Wild Boy_; for, like Peter the Wild Boy inFrance, it was supposed that he must have been caught like a catamountin the pine woods of Maine. But there were many fine, flowing heads ofhair to counter-balance such sorry exhibitions as Peter's.
What with long whiskers and venerable beards, then, of every variety ofcut--Charles the Fifth's and Aurelian's--and endless _goatees_ and_imperials;_ and what with abounding locks, our crew seemed a companyof Merovingians or Long-haired kings, mixed with savage Lombards orLongobardi, so called from their lengthy beards.
White Jacket; Or, The World on a Man-of-War Page 87
