Rigger

“ Some artists prefer to use a fine brush instead of a pen. A small sable brush, having the outside hairs cut away, or a long hair brush known as "tracer" or "rigger," is capable of making fine lines hardly to be distinguished from pen strokes. At first they are slow to work with, but considerable rapidity may be acquired with practice. The lines [82] are rounder and not so harsh as those made with the pen, and it is said that an artist who has once accustomed himself to use a brush never goes back to pens.
A FIELD PATH.
Bitumen process. (Original 71⁄2 x 61⁄2) . ”

“ The driving rigger or pulley a, is fixed upon the front roller b, commonly called the drawing roller, because when pressed upon by the upper wooden roller c, it draws out the fibres between them. The rollers d, e, f, are the ordinary back or holding rollers, for retaining the fibres, while they suffer powerful traction [502] by the rollers b, c, over the needles or points of the heckle bars. The upper guide rail above mentioned, upon which the heckle bars slide, is shown at g, in fig. ”

“ He dashed madly towards her, stooped to snatch her weapon, a rook-rifle, from her, and swinging it high in the air, flung it back among the bushes and bracken he had just crossed.
"Are you mad!" he cried.
But there was no response. The girl had fallen back in a swoon, and a twitching of her fingers showed that even now her half-conscious mind was busy trying to find the trigger of the deadly rook-rifle. ”

“ HOW TO CHANGE THE RIGGINGS
When completing one side of a stack and in order to get the tackle to another position on the stack, twist the rope, making it all in one; then leave a little slack to make a snake whip movement towards the top, and you will have the satisfaction of seeing your rigging move around on the top. If the wind is blowing hard, perhaps you will have to do several of the switching movements before getting the hook to start to move. Then take the line around the guy wire and you are ready for the next set. ”

“ When tying up your riggings for the night, and it might be calm at the close of the day. Weather changes in a very few minutes at times. To safeguard against the rope from wearing against the stack and guy wires, walk out about fifteen feet from the stack, taking a piece of extra sling. Tie the sling to some object that is solid, throw two half-hitches with your fall line around the riggings just above the single block. When this is done, pass the sling which you have tied to some object through the hook of the block, making it fastened to the block. ”

“ Dunstable sprang into the rigging when he saw the boatswain arming the boys, who were all willing enough to advance, but afraid of their victim's vicious looks. At last one rat of a boy sprang up beside him, and brought his strip of hide stinging across the poor fellow's naked body. In a moment up went his foot, and with a kick under the jaw, which made the boy bite the tip off his tongue, the hunted man stretched the little brute senseless upon the deck, completely stunned by his fall from the rigging. ”

“ Come up the rigging, stays and backstays, weigh the mast, take out the fid, and lower away. If the rigging is to remain aloft, lash the cross-trees to the lower cap. The rigging should be stowed away snugly in the top, and the backstays be snaked up and down the lower rigging.
To rig in a Jib-boom.—Reeve the heel-rope (if necessary,) come up the stay, martingale stay and guys; unreeve the jib-stay, station hands at each guy, clear away the heel-lashing, haul in upon the guys, and light the boom on board. In most cases the boom will come in without a heel-rope. ”

“ When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck ”

“ There is often a job for Smith Lars, and then the forge flames forward by the forecastle, and sends its red glow on to the rime-covered rigging, and farther up into the starry night, and out over the waste of ice. From far off you can hear the strokes on the anvil ringing through the silent night. When one is wandering alone out there, and the well-known sound reaches one’s ear, and one sees the red glow, memory recalls less solitary scenes. While one stands gazing, perhaps a light moves along the deck and slowly up the rigging. ”

“ The running rigging consists of the ropes used in handling the yards and sails, and every rope has a distinguishing name. Halyards are ropes used to hoist yards and sails. Braces are ropes used to swing the yards round by. ”

“ After the leaping from trapeze to trapeze in mid-air, after the walking the tight rope, and the facing wild beasts in their cages, and other feats of daring, the clowns come tumbling into the arena. So it is also in life. There is one all in Turkey-red riding backward on an ass, telling all and sundry how much more clever he is than the genuine heroes they have been clapping. He gains in the long run more applause than the tight-rope dancer. ”

“ Bobstays, fore-stays—all your rigging may be well fitted, but if the gammoning is wrong you’ll spring your bowsprit to a sartainty; and why then, you sees, your foremast must follow, and your main-topmast follows that. Gammoning, to my mind, is a sort of thing like the heart of the rigging: when it’s finished, it’s hidden from you; but if it goes, all goes. So your heart you can’t see; but if your heart’s wounded, the man dies. ”

“ JUGGLERS, ROPE-DANCERS, AUTOMATA, ETC.
Under this title I comprehend not only those properly called jugglers, who, for the sake of money, by quick and artful motions of their hands, bodies, and limbs, and by various preparations, delude the senses in an agreeable manner, or practise an innocent deception on the spectators, so that they think they hear and see what they do not really hear and see, but also rope-dancers; people who place their bodies in positions according to all appearance dangerous ”

“ They “spread-eagled” a man by tricing him up inside the rigging, taut lines holding his arms and legs outstretched to the farthest shrouds, a bight of rope passed around his body preventing too great a strain. ”

“ Leaping for the axe which is always kept near the bitt, so the rigging can be quickly cut away if need be, I struck down another man; then, with a back stroke, nearly cut off the arm of a man who was rushing upon me, sabre in hand. All this occurred almost in the twinkling of an eye. Taking advantage of the sort of stupor that had seized the crew, and feeling much calmer after this explosion of long-suppressed rage, I could see better where I was, or take my bearings a little, as the saying is. ”

“ A vessel looks much neater for having the ends of the rigging, where eyes are spliced, or where they are set up on their ends aloft or on deck, covered with canvass, and painted white or black, according to the place where they are. The lanyards and dead-eyes of the smaller rigging which sets up in the top may also be covered with canvass. The lanyards, dead-eyes, and turnings-in of the rigging in the channels, should always be protected by scotchmen when at sea, and the forward shroud should be matted or battened all the way up to the futtock staves. ”

“ We are well assured, that dancing upon the rope constituted a part of the entertainment presented to the public by the minstrels and joculators; and we can trace it as far back as the thirteenth century: but whether the dancers at that time exhibited upon the slack or tight rope, or upon both, cannot easily be ascertained; and we are equally in the dark respecting the extent of their abilities: but, if we may judge from the existing specimens of other feats of agility performed by them or their companions, we may fairly conclude that they were by no means contemptible artists. ”

“ What a shouting—and merry laughing—what cries of encouragement from the lookers on—what a diving under the rope, and over the rope, and among the chairs, mingled with whoopings from the boys, ensues, until the victim has escaped, or else been caught by her pursuer. Sometimes she submits quietly to the forfeit, but at other times she will fight like a young tiger. ”

“ Presently a man swarmed up her rigging in order to look down on our decks, and as he went up, my father bade our men crawl over to windward, so that he should see all one gunwale lined with men, and so think that both were, and deem that we were setting a trap for them in order to entice them alongside by pretending to be hardly manned. ”

“ We were half in the rigging before the order came, and never since we left Boston were the gaskets off the yards, and the rigging overhauled, in a shorter time. “All ready forward, sir!”—“All ready the main!”—“cross-jack yards all ready, sir!”—“Lay down, all hands but one on each yard!” The yard-arm and bunt gaskets were cast off; and each sail hung by the jigger, with one man standing by the tie to let it go. At the same moment that we sprang aloft, a dozen hands sprang into the rigging of the California, and in an instant were all over her yards ”

“ I’m sure there would be no danger of losing the spars by the stretching of the rigging.”
“They would be strong to bear an up-and-down strain, as strong as rope, but would be liable to be broken by anything striking them, when set up taut: suppose the boom should happen to strike them, or the yards, anchor-stock, or jib-boom of 191 another vessel hauling by in the dock? ”

“ A cleat (Fig. 3) should be screwed to the side of the staff just within easy reach of the arm, say between 3 and 4 feet from the ground, in order to belay or make fast the halliards.
Now fix the staff in the ground, and see that the earth, etc., is well beaten in round it. The next proceeding is to set up the rigging. This may be done with deadeyes or with thimbles; the latter is certainly the neater way of doing it. Setting up with deadeyes need not be described here. The following is the method of doing it with thimbles.
Splice the end of each rope round a thimble, which is done as follows. ”

“ The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards—and Grip—ha ha ha!—brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite it—Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig—thinking, he told me, that it mocked him—and has worried it like a bulldog. ”

“ Hauling upon a tack is called "bowsing upon a tack," and when they would have the men pull all together, they cry, "Bowse away." Also used in setting up rigging, as "Bowse away, starboard;" "Bowse away, port." It is, however, mostly a gun-tackle term.—Bowse up the jib, a colloquialism to denote the act of tippling: it is an old phrase, and was probably derived from the Dutch buyzen, to booze.
BOWSPRIT, or Bolt-sprit. A large spar, ranking with a lower-mast, projecting over the stem; beyond it extends the jib-boom, and beyond that again the flying jib-boom. ”

“ And, in a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a drunken man. ”

“ To run one's rig upon any particular person; to make him a butt. I am up to your rig; I am a match for your tricks.
RIGGING. Clothing. I'll unrig the bloss; I'll strip the wench. Rum Rigging; fine clothes. The cull has rum rigging, let's ding him and mill him, and pike; the fellow has good clothes, let's knock him down, rob him, and scour off, i.e. run away.
RIGHT. All right! A favourite expression among thieves, to signify that all is as they wish, or proper for their purpose. All right, hand down the jemmy; every thing is in proper order, give me the crow. ”

“ Being no climbist, as might be expected from an urchin born and bred in London streets, getting used to the rigging was unpleasant at first; but that was mastered in its turn, until nothing remained unlearned but the helm. The one aim, apparently, of every man forrard was to so fit me for the work I might be called upon to do, as that no excuse might be found for cruelty of any sort. ”

“ Toe rags is another expression of contempt, less frequently used, and chiefly by the lower grades of circus men, and the acrobats who stroll about the country, performing at fairs and races, in the open air. These wanderers, and those who are still seen occasionally in the back streets of the metropolis, are said to ‘go a-pitching;’ the spot they select for their performance is their ‘pitch,’ and any interruption of their feats, such as an accident, or the interference of a policeman, is said to ‘queer the pitch,’—in other words, to spoil it. ”

“ The rope-dancing is performed by a woman holding a balancing pole; and on the same rope a man, probably "clown to the rope," is represented hanging by one leg with his head downwards. In modern times, the juggler has united songs and puppet-plays to his show. ”

“ The whole is covered by the stays, which are the largest ropes of the rigging.
When a yard is to be rigged, a grommet is also driven first on each of its extremities: next to this are fitted-on the horses, the braces; and, lastly, the lifts, or top-sail sheet-blocks: all of which are explained in their proper places.
The principal objects to be considered in rigging a ship appear to be strength, convenience, and simplicity ”

“ When I speak of the customary neatness of our rigging I in no way exaggerate. As an instance of my meaning, most people know that to save chafe on the backstays92 in the way of the lower yards, wooden battens are usually seized to the backstays. That was far too rough a method for us. We had the backstays served with unlaid strands of wire rigging, and if any one wishes to try his hand at putting that on, he is welcome to the job so far as I am concerned, for it came to my lot frequently to have to show men that the operation of serving with stiff wire was a possible one. ”