In a word, they are just ship-boys, fed like the men, worked harder than the men, but living apart from the men in a little den of their own, where they may, unhindered, sink into savagery. This is a lurid picture, I admit, yet I dare not soften its details one iota. I can only say that it is not universal. There are fortunately a good number of ships in which conscientious masters consider themselves in honour bound to act towards their apprentices as honest guardians of their best interests, who would no more think of allowing them to be set to cleaning out latrines, pig-sties, and fowl-coops, while the men were comfortably engaged upon cleaner work, than they would think of putting their own children to do it. But such treatment ought to be made impossible. It should also be very distinctly laid down that no apprentice with whom a premium is paid should be put to work cargo in tropical ports. That is a task under which the strongest European sailors often fail. Shovelling coal, guano, or nitrate, for instance, with a temperature of over 100° in the shade in a ship's hold, is an employment that no boy on board ship should ever be subjected to, much less a lad whose parents have paid for him to be well treated. So curiously are some men constituted, that I have seen two lads from the _Chichester_ on board one vessel in which I was A.B. much more carefully taken care of than I ever saw apprentices but once. Those two boys were not even allowed to grease down any of the masts, because it was their first voyage; they were never sent into any position of danger on any pretext whatever; they were taken in hand by the mate in their watch below, educationally; in fact, they received what I should call the ideal treatment for an apprentice. Yet in my next vessel there were three apprentices, two on their first voyage, with each of whom £50 premium had been paid, whose treatment was so scandalous that even the men cried out against it. I did not join the ship until half the voyage was over, so I did not witness their early training; but while I was on board they did _all_ the greasing down, and all the extra dirty work of the ship, while for a season one was acting cook (?) and another was acting steward. I am glad to say that one of them had the _nous_ to prevail upon his widowed mother to write to the owner upon the ship's arrival home, protesting against the most scandalous treatment of her son. In this case the owner was certainly not to blame, but that mother's letter had the effect of opening his eyes to what might be going on in his ships without his knowledge or privity. But in one most painful case which recently came under my notice, a boy was actually done to death by overwork and neglect, both of which crimes against him were abundantly proved, but went unpunished, owing to official shielding of the criminal. And the broken-hearted mother was advised to let the matter drop, as she could not possibly do any