concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself thoroughly,
returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat again so armed
against accident that he could not possibly get his boat into trouble
without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his aid.
Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve
or thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!
The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal
place once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch it
for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to run it.
His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. If the reports
in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on his mind concerning
a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew his steam-whistle
in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching; the signal was
answered in a peculiar way if that boat’s pilots were association men;
and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all uncertainties were swept
away by fresh information furnished to the inquirer by word of mouth and
in minute detail.
The first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis
was to take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors
and hang it up there,–after which he was free to visit his family.
In these parlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing
changes in the channel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival,
everybody stopped talking till this witness had told the newest news
and settled the latest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can ‘sink the shop,’
sometimes, and interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot;
he must devote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else;
for it would be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next.
He has no time or words to waste if he would keep ‘posted.’
But the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place
to meet and exchange information, no wharf-boat reports,
none but chance and unsatisfactory ways of getting news.
The consequence was that a man sometimes had to run five hundred
miles of river on information that was a week or ten days old.
At a fair stage of the river that might have answered; but when the
dead low water came it was destructive.
Now came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began
to ground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble,
whereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men.
Wherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished
exclusively with outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly
independent of the association and free to comfort themselves
with brag and laughter, began to feel pretty uncomfortable.
Still, they made a show of keeping up the brag, until one black day
when every captain of the lot was formally ordered to immediately
discharge his outsiders and take association pilots in their stead.
And who was it that had the dashing presumption to do that? Alas, it came
from a power behind the throne that was greater than the throne itself.
It was the underwriters!
It was no time to ‘swap knives.’ Every outsider had to take his trunk
ashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusion
between the association and the underwriters, but this was not so.
The latter had come to comprehend the excellence of the ‘report’ system
of the association and the safety it secured, and so they had made their
decision among themselves and upon plain business principles.
There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in
the camp of the outsiders now. But no matter, there was
but one course for them to pursue, and they pursued it.
They came forward in couples and groups, and proffered their
twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were surprised
to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added.
For instance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars;
that sum must be tendered, and also ten per cent.