Officers in the old ships were very precise as a rule in matters of this kind. A number of years after the coat incident, I was serving under Captain Geo. D. Morrison, one of the old-time sailing-ship masters. We were on the bridge of a fine steamer. Eight bells had just been made and a quartermaster, an important little man, came up out of the fo'c'sle where he had his quarters, and as he walked aft along the forward well deck he drew a huge silver watch out of his pocket as though to verify the correctness of the bells on the bridge. "Great Scott!" exclaimed the skipper. "What in thunder are we coming to with sailors carrying watches? I suppose they will carry walking sticks next. But, sir," turning to me, "not on my ship! Send that man down to the chart room!" When Erricson, the quartermaster, arrived on the bridge, I sent him down to the skipper. The old man closed the chart room door, he was a very religious man, and after a short session, the quartermaster came out looking much scared. When we got to San Francisco, he was paid off, and Captain Morrison handed me an envelope to give to the man; this contained a heavy turnip-like object that no doubt was the offensive watch. As soon as warm weather struck us, the last remnant of our potato bin went bad, and some of them were thrown overboard. This ended a duty that had helped to pass away many an hour for the farmers of the watch when they were sent forward to pick the sprouts off of the spuds and discard those that were too bad. Chow always picked out the bad ones anyway, and for the most part we subsisted on concoctions of half-rotten potatoes. Someone, Old Smith, I believe, said that raw potatoes were good for the scurvy. We all tried eating them. Scouse and the Kanakas were the only ones who could stomach the raw tubers. They always picked out the best sound potatoes and seemed to relish them; at any rate they robbed the cabin table of a good many messes of selected spuds. When the old potato bin was knocked down, we had a general clean up under the fo'c'sle head, a scrubbing and overhauling of the bo'sun's lockers, the paint locker, and the oil stores. The short half deck forming the fo'c'sle head was not high enough for a man to stand upright under it, the lockers being arranged along the sides up into the bow. In the very nose, next to the hawse pipes, were the toilets of the ship, that is, those for the crew. These were very wet and uncomfortable in heavy weather. They were kept scrupulously clean, however. Large oil tanks were provided above these, fitted with small copper tubes leading into the sea alongside of the forefoot of the ship. Small cocks provided for the release of oil in heavy weather.