Fretwork

“ The crew receive no wages, but have all a share in the venture, and in general, I believe, they are the owners of the whole freight. They choose a captain, to whom they entrust just power enough to keep the vessel on her course in fine weather, but not quite enough for a gale of wind; they also elect a cook and a mate. ”

“ It is found in China and Japan, and in the latter country when painted on lacquer is employed as a fret-diaper, the bands not being at right angles to one another but forming acute and obtuse angles. In old English writers a wider signification was given to it, as it was applied to raised patterns in plaster on roofs or ceilings, which were not confined to the geometrical fret but extended to the modelling of flowers, leaves and fruit; in such cases the decoration was known as fret-work. In France the fret is better known as the “meander.” ”

“ There is freight enough for all. Every vessel that has a sound keel and a helm to steer her is actively employed. Old craft and odd are come on the sea to serve turn in our emergency. Barges and inland watermen, Hudson Bay sloops, whilom pleasure craft, mud-hoppers reshelled, hulks even, are used; if they can neither sail nor steam, the ropemakers can supply a hawser—there is trade and bargain for a tow. After peace-years of grinding competition with the freight-grabbing steam coasters, the sailing craft of the smaller ports have found a new prosperity, from which no risks can daunt them. ”

“ With competition the transatlantic voyage has been cut from forty days to little more than four. Giant ships plough every sea and offer their magnificence to every passenger who cares to pay the passage money. No longer do silks and spices fill the holds of the argosies of the deep. Iron ore or polished motor cars, bales of cotton or crates of textiles, toys or machinery, hides or shoes, lumber or furniture—it matters not. ”

“ Fretted. The fret is, strictly, an ornament used in classical architecture, formed by small fillets intersecting each other at right angles. Parker (Glossary of Architecture) derives the word from the Latin fretum, a strait; and Hales from ferrum, iron, through the Italian ferrata, an iron grating. It is more likely (see Stratmann and Wb.) from the A. S. frætu, an ornament.
Cf. Hamlet, ii. 2:
"This majestical roof fretted with golden fire;"
and Cymbeline, ii. 4:
40. ”

“ The tiny boats run day and night in the season, and though it is dark within, and though there are a thousand piers, no freight that starts underground for a leaf is ever landed on the way for bark or woody fiber. Freight never goes astray, nor are express packages miscarried. ”

“ In practice, however, these ships range, perhaps, from five to fifteen thousand tons, and as they supplement, to some extent, the freight-carrying passenger ships of the lines to which they belong, their speed is high, for freighters. They make, perhaps, fourteen or fifteen or even sixteen knots an hour, and they are likely to be fine, wholesome-looking ships, handsome in their lines and proud in their appearance. ”

“ And farmed it he had, for twenty years, shrewd, cool-headed, sober, industrious, and thrifty, rising from ship’s boy and forecastle hand to mate and master of sailing-ships and thence into steam, second officer, first, and master, from small command to larger, and at last to the bridge of the old Tryapsic—old, to be sure, but worth her fifty thousand pounds and still able to bear up in all seas, and weather her nine thousand tons of freight. ”

“ Is it in human nature that the conscience of the good Shipowner will remain tender? He sees a vessel of much less strength, and not nigh so efficiently manned, go to sea, perhaps a foot deeper than his, earning the same rate of freight, and carrying a Government certificate of competency. ”

“ Fleets of these little craft crowd the quay day and night, and there is a perfect Babel of voices in their vicinity, as the chaffering goes on for the disposal of their precious freight, much of it still “alive and kicking.” ”

“ Those who have the command of the Sea Trade, may Work at easier Freight with more profit, than others at greater: for as Cloth must be cheaper made, when one Cards, another Spins, another Weaves, another Draws, another Dresses, another Presses and Packs; than when all the Operations above-mentioned, were clumsily performed by the same hand; so those who command the Trade of Shipping, can build long slight Ships for carrying Masts, Fir-Timber, Boards, Balks, &c. ”

“ Commencing at the bottom and going upwards we have the first storey, a hold, 16 feet high in the clear, with ample room for the machinery, boilers, and coals, and for a large quantity of freight besides. All this great weight of engines, boilers, coals, and dead weight freight, which is to be stowed in the very bottom of the ship, will act as ballast placed in the right position to insure stability and to relieve the ship from that dangerous topheaviness usually observed in many sea-going steamers. ”

“ EXTERIOR OF LLOYD’S. We often hear and read of “unclassed” ships; does the reader understand the term? Nearly all new ships are fit to take valuable merchandise—silks, tea, provisions, cloth, or what not; and if “tight,” i.e., not leaky, would be classed A 1 by Lloyd’s Committee. The letter refers to the ship proper; the numeral to its equipment, rigging, boats, cables, anchors, &c. The term or period for which she is classed varies with the quality and kind of timber employed, and the quality of the workmanship is also taken into account. ”

“ A boarding-master, or crimp, without the machinery, becomes a shipping-master, a go-between between the skipper and the boarding-master, whose income is the blood-money paid by skippers for men. Murphy, strolling along South Street a few days later, saw a new sign over a doorway—Timothy Hennesey, Shipping-Master. ”

“ There was little easing of speed; with only a few hours of winter daylight to work in, shipping was being driven at its utmost power to make the most of the precious time. 'All out,' stoking up and setting a stiff smoke-screen over the seascape, we thinned out to a more comfortable formation, while the smaller craft, taking advantage of the rising tide, cut the inner angles of the channel to keep apace. ”

“ And likewise the great liners and, to a lesser degree, the mail and intermediate and cargo liners, are often in the public print, [Pg 123] while the tramp steamers, which make possible the conditions that have brought the others into being, are seldom written of. For, from the point of view of the world’s work, these simple ships are mostly vitally important to it, just as the “common people” are of more value to a country than are the holders of high office. ”

“ A vessel was a community venture, and the custom still survives in the ancient ports of the Maine coast where the shapely wooden schooners are fashioned. The blacksmith, the rigger, the calker, took their pay in shares. They became part owners, as did likewise the merchant who supplied stores and material; and when the ship was afloat, the master, the mates, and even the seamen, were allowed cargo space for commodities which they might buy and sell to their own advantage. Thus early they learned to trade as shrewdly as they navigated, and every voyage directly concerned a whole neighborhood. ”

“ How to catch a freight without walking to a station was the problem. I noticed that the track came up a steep grade, culminating at the point where I had tapped it, and I knew that a heavy freight couldn't pull up there any too lively. But how lively? On the opposite side of the track rose a high bank. On the edge, at the top, I saw a man's head sticking up from the grass. Perhaps he knew how fast the freights took the grade, and when the next one went south. ”

“ Here the master does not superintend personally, but gives general instructions to the chief mate, whose duty it is to see to their execution. In order to understand this distinction, it is necessary to define the two great divisions of duty and labour on shipboard. One is the working and navigating of the vessel; that is, the keeping and ascertaining the ship’s position on the ocean, directing her course, the making and taking in sail, trimming the yards to the wind, and the various nautical manɶuvres and evolutions of a vessel. ”

“ The story of docks and harbours, of the loading and unloading of the war freights merits a chapter of its own. To understand it you must remember that ships are of many sizes and of very varying draught. The depths of water in the ports, the tides, the quay accommodation, the provision of cranes and sorting sheds, of available railway trucks have in each case to be considered. Grain requires one type of machinery for unloading, timber another, fruit or meat yet another. ”

“ Then there were sounds on deck—the voices of men laughing and jesting together, and addressing occasional brutal remarks to, presumably, the wearers of certain chains, the clanking of which, together with the sounds of boats or canoes coming alongside, and an occasional order issued by some one nearly overhead, powerfully suggested the idea that the craft, whatever she was, was now taking in her human cargo. ”

“ Old Concord Coach.
Our first conveyance of goods and persons was by water, and the word transportation was one of our sea terms applied to inland traffic. Mr. Ernst has pointed out that many sea terms besides the word barge have received a land use. “The conductor shouts his marine ‘All aboard,’ and railroad men tell of ‘shipping’ points that have nothing to do with navigation. We ship by rail, and out West they used to have ‘prairie schooners.’ Of late we go by ‘trolley,’ and that word is borrowed from the sailors. Our locomotives have a ‘pilot’ each, and even ‘freight’ has a marine origin.” ”

“ Large steamers and sailing vessels, of every description, are being loaded and discharged; powerful steam-hoists in operation on the docks; immense quantities of freight and merchandise in process of transfer to and from the railroad cars; and bustle everywhere; while hundreds of pleasure-boats and small crafts, of every conceivable variety, may be seen as far as the eye can reach. ”

“ Its commerce is speculative but vast and successful. It is a frequent circumstance that a ship goes out without a cargo for a voyage around the world. In such a case the captain puts his elder children to school, takes his wife and younger children and starts for some semi-barbarous place where he procures some odd kind of cargo which he exchanges with advantage for another somewhere else; and so goes trafficking around the world, bringing home a freight of the highest value. ”

“ None can compete with them as regards low freight, for every sailor has an interest in the cargo, and all of them are anxious to increase the profits. One may have furnished the wood, another the rigging, a third a portion of the cargo, whilst their fellow-citizens have advanced money for the purchase of merchandise, without requiring any bond except their word of honour. ”

“ Clearing a cargo from an English port was a complicated process. When the goods were brought down to the wharf they were taken over by the packer and his underlings, whose duty it was to pack them and enter them at the custom-house, giving a true inventory of the contents of the bales. The merchant having paid the duties to the customers, the latter sent ‘cocketts’ or tallies for the same to the searcher, who searched the ship to see if they were true. ”

“ The train is practical only because the railroad company maintains freight and passenger stations, foreign and domestic agents, and all the detailed [Pg 277] force that a modern railroad requires. Furthermore, it sends its trains over certain routes at certain specified intervals, ready to move freight and passengers as they are ready to be moved. So must a shipping line be operated. Ships must be where they are needed, else freight accumulates or is diverted to other lines. ”

“ Almost every merchant vessel of a large class, or bound upon a long voyage, carries a carpenter. His duty is to work at his trade under the direction of the master, and to assist in all-hands work, according to his ability. If he ships for an able seaman as well as carpenter, he must be capable of doing seaman’s work upon the rigging, and taking his turn at the wheel, if called upon. ”

“ A ship's load is called distinctively a cargo, or it may be known as freight or lading. Freight denotes merchandise in or for transportation and is used largely of transportation or of merchandise transported by rail, which is, in commercial language, said to be "shipped." A load to be fastened upon a horse or mule is called a pack, and the animal is known as a pack-horse or pack-mule. ”

“ All frets are composed of straight lines. The illustrations from Fig. 3 to Fig. 23 are specimens of straight-lined ornaments. Taking the band or two horizontal parallel lines in Fig. 3, and marking off equidistant points on the upper and on the lower one, only alternating, and drawing vertical lines from these{27} points, we obtain the basis of a large class of frets. Figs. 4, 6, 7, and 8 show further developments of the fret. Figs. 5 and 18 show the elements of some Saracenic or Moresque frets, of which Figs. 11, 21, and 22 are developments. Figs. 6, 8, 12, 13 and 14
Figs. ”

“ The huge investments ships require necessitate that there be no loss of time and consequently ships must not wait for freight to come to them. Because ships carry great amounts of freight and cannot lengthen or shorten themselves, as trains can, to accommodate fluctuating quantities, it is often necessary for freight to go in “tramp” steamers to ports which attract small amounts of freight. ”