“Nobody cares for me!” one will hear from at least one-half the inmates of every forecastle, and in the greater proportion of such cases it is really too true. If the seaman has no immediate relatives, he finds those whom he meets ashore solicitous to make his acquaintance only for the sake of their own profit. To be sure, Seamen’s Homes, Bethels, and Aid Societies, have done much, very much. God forbid! that I should say a word that could be construed into a disparagement of the efforts of these noble and benevolent institutions. But there is something more than these needed to reclaim the outcast seaman for society, and teach him truly that he has a character to maintain, as well as an abiding interest in the commonwealth. In fact, to effect a permanent amelioration of his condition, he must in his youth be educated and disciplined with a view to his profession, become accustomed to revere the ties and restraints of home and society, and be fully imbued with the principles of national citizenship. In this humane work, the influence of the gentler sex is vitally essential. The time has long gone by when the seaman (the American seaman in particular) was a rude, uncouth being--half fish, half man: apparelled in a blue jacket and tarpaulin hat; his cheek pouched out with a great chew of tobacco; his walk a swagger, and his language redolent of oaths and tar. Such is a picture of Jack that has been drawn (from time immemorial) by too many authors, whose very particularizing, however, discloses to the initiated their ignorance of the subject. Your true sailor, from the general stigma that attaches to his class ashore, rather inclines to conceal, than make an unnecessary display of his calling. I have now been afloat almost four years; in one place or another, met with at least ten thousand seamen, principally belonging to our mercantile and whaling marine; and, although closely observing their habits, manners, and peculiarities, I never saw the original of the false picture above presented--a familiar one, it is true, to the readers of the yellow-covered nautical romances of the day. So, ladies, you need not fear, that, in urging you to extend a cordial greeting to Jack, I desire to favor the introduction of a boorish clown into your refined circles. But I will leave that to your own fair judgments. Compare him with the landsman: ten to one, you will place them on an equality; and, if you have a sparkling of romance in your character, you will give the Tar the preference.