16. Generally speaking, the very worst enemies of the sailor in all ports are the consuls who are sent to protect them. Practically, they are the aiders and abettors of landlords. There may be exceptional cases, but I cannot venture to name them. A special investigation of consulate abuses would reveal the sailor as the most frequent victim. I could mention other important points, if space permitted. To be brief, I have seen that the sailor is without protection from Government laws, Government agents, or the owners whose interest he serves. He is systematically robbed, imprisoned and sold into the hardest of servitude, as openly as negroes were sold a few years ago in the South. If he complains of the robbery, judges, who hold their positions by the favor of the landlords who commit the robbery, release the culprit on bail, and send the sailor to the House of Detention as a witness, where he is forgotten, or finally turned penniless into the street, to wander back to the man who robbed him, to beg for assistance and work. If he refuses to ship as landlords direct, he is forcibly put on board by legal process, or through the agency of the whiskey bottle, and in either case is sent penniless and almost naked to sea. They never complain of the terms of sale. After Jack has been on a packet ship for two months, he is glad to escape, by any means, to the ills of the boarding houses, and after enduring that slavery for a fortnight, he is only too glad to rush back to the hardships of the ocean life he lately thought so terrible. His life is one desperate effort to escape the ills he has and fly to others that he knows well enough. The sailor has no respect for Hamlet's philosophy. CHAPTER XLVI. THE CHURCHES AND THE CLERGY. The churches of New York are models of architectural beauty. Trinity, Grace, the Temple EMANUEL, and the new Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, are the handsomest religious edifices in America. Catholics and Episcopalians no longer have all the magnificent churches, for the other denominations are following hard in their footsteps. Nearly all the churches of the city are above Fourth street, and in some localities they crowd each other too greatly. A few are very wealthy and are well supported, but the majority are poor and struggling. Pew-rent is very high in New York, and only those who are well off can afford to have seats in a thriving church. Besides this, people seem to care little for churches in New York. There are thousands of respectable people in the great city who never see the inside of a church, unless some special attraction draws them there. The entire support of the churches, therefore, falls on a few.