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numbers is arrived at by considering the heaviest work the crew will be called upon to perform. In regard to what is known as the deck department, in steamer parlance, the heaviest work is now in entering and leaving port, docking or leaving dock, passing through the Canal—in Eastern steamers—and working the boats. This requires sufficient to man-handle the ropes in warping, and then the maintenance of the vessel in good order, and a proper condition of cleanliness, on which the health of the crew in a great measure depends. The question of canvas—except for awnings—may now be left entirely out of it. In the engine-room and stokehold the work is fairly constant, varying with good or bad weather and climate. Cargo is invariably worked by stevedores everywhere, contracted for, unless very small parcels, at ports of call— not the terminal ports. This eternal question of numbers for a crew, whatever it may have been in former times, is exclusively an owner's question, and very strictly preserved in our experience of eighteen years as a shipmaster. Even the question of crews, whether Lascar or European, is decided entirely by themselves at all times. A sea-going shipmaster's opinion may or may not be asked in the matter.

The Times of India (Bombay), April 14, 1899, in an article on "Lascars in British ships," refers to Sir Thomas Sutherland's letter to the Times (London) on the employment of these men in P. & O. steamers, and after remarking on their employment on the famous opium clippers, states:

"These Lascar-manned craft deserved all the high praise that the chairman of the P. & 0. bestowed upon them. Sir Thomas Sutherland's letter at all events shows that the Lascar has worthy antecedents, and that those who stand up for him against the parliamentary attacks that are made upon him have no reason to be ashamed of their client. Precisely the same thing cannot be said of those who are anxious to take his place. "It is an old story—quite old enough to be worth telling again—how badly the P. & O. succeeded when they endeavoured to provide exclusively European crews and firemen for the service between India and England. The results, he says, were so unsatisfactory that the efficient working of the mail service was seriously compromised. 'It was no uncommon experience to have half a crew in prison for drunkenness and disobedience to orders, and the Directors found themselves compelled, after a year's experience of English sailors and stokers in the tropics, to make the experiment of employing Lascar crews west of Suez, in order to get the work of their ships properly done.' Well nigh thirty years have passed since then; there has in the interval been a general amelioration of the morality of the working classes in England in respect to drink, and the sailor has probably