They
talk together, and take to each other.
The brig Tiberius, from an English port, with seventy or thereabouts
factory girls, imported to work in our factories. Some pale and
delicate-looking; others rugged and coarse. The scene of landing them
in boats, at the wharf-stairs, to the considerable display of their
legs;--whence they are carried off to the Worcester railroad in hacks
and omnibuses. Their farewells to the men--Good-by, John, etc.,--with
wavings of handkerchiefs as long as they were in sight.
A pert, petulant young clerk, continually fooling with the mate,
swearing at the stevedores and laboring men, who regard him not.
Somewhat dissipated, probably.
The mate of a coal-vessel--a leathern belt round his waist, sustaining
a knife in a leathern sheath. Probably he uses it to eat his dinner
with; perhaps also as a weapon.
A young sailor, with an anchor handsomely traced on the back of his
hand--a foul anchor--and perhaps other naval insignia on his wrists
and breast. He wears a sky-blue silk short jacket, with velvet
collar--a bosom-pin, etc.
An old seaman, seventy years of age--he has spent seven years in the
British Navy (being of English birth) and nine in ours; has voyaged
all over the world--for instance, I asked if he had ever been in the
Red Sea, and he had, in the American sloop of war that carried General
Eaton, in 1803. His hair is brown--without a single visible gray hair
in it; and he would seem not much above fifty.
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