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- 13479
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
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- 13416
- text
- the cruise they were hard at work. At what? Mostly making chests of
drawers, canes, little ships and schooners, swifts, and other
elaborated trifles, chiefly for the Captain. What did the Captain pay
them for their trouble? Nothing. But the United States government paid
them; two of them (the mates) at nineteen dollars a month, and the rest
receiving the pay of able seamen, twelve dollars.
To return.
The regular days upon which the barbers shall exercise their vocation
are set down on the ship’s calendar, and known as _shaving days_. On
board of the Neversink these days are Wednesdays and Saturdays; when,
immediately after breakfast, the barbers’ shops were opened to
customers. They were in different parts of the gun-deck, between the
long twenty-four pounders. Their furniture, however, was not very
elaborate, hardly equal to the sumptuous appointments of metropolitan
barbers. Indeed, it merely consisted of a match-tub, elevated upon a
shot-box, as a barber’s chair for the patient. No Psyche glasses; no
hand-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 with
the rude appearance of their shops. Their razors are of the simplest
patterns, and, from their jagged-ness, would seem better fitted for the
preparing and harrowing of the soil than for the ultimate reaping of
the crop. But this is no matter for wonder, since so many chins are to
be shaven, and a razor-case holds but two razors. For only two razors
does a man-of-war barber have, and, like the marine sentries at the
gangway in port, these razors go off and on duty in rotation. One
brush, too, brushes every chin, and one lather lathers them all. No
private brushes and boxes; no reservations whatever.
As it would be altogether too much trouble for a man-of-war’s-man to
keep his own shaving-tools and shave himself at sea, and since,
therefore, nearly the whole ship’s company patronise the ship’s
barbers, and as the seamen must be shaven by evening quarters of the
days appointed for the business, it may be readily imagined what a
scene of bustle and confusion there is when the razors are being
applied. First come, first served, is the motto; and often you have to
wait for hours together, sticking to your position (like one of an
Indian file of merchants’ clerks getting letters out of the
post-office), ere you have a chance to occupy the pedestal of the
match-tub. Often the crowd of quarrelsome candidates wrangle and fight
for precedency, while at all times the interval is employed by the
garrulous in every variety of ship-gossip.
As the shaving days are unalterable, they often fall upon days of high
seas and tempestuous winds, when the vessel pitches and rolls in a
frightful manner. In consequence, many valuable lives are jeopardised
from the razor being plied under such untoward circumstances. But these
sea-barbers pride themselves upon their sea-legs, and often you will
see them standing over their patients with their feet wide apart, and
scientifically swaying their bodies to the motion of the ship, as they
flourish their edge-tools about the lips, nostrils, and jugular.
As I looked upon the practitioner and patient at such times, I could
not help thinking that, if the sailor had any insurance on his life, it
would certainly be deemed forfeited should the president of the company
chance 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 all
splinters, comprise part of the practical qualities that make up an
efficient man-of-war’s man.
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