By Taeasvitus John D. Whidden, of Boston, Massachusetts, was born in 1832, some ten years before the Treaty of Nanking had been signed and the foreign settlements which have made Shanghai what it 1s to-day brought into being. He was left an orphan at five and at twelve he was on shipboard, exposed as he says—for he has' written a book—to temptation in every port, subjected tothe rough usage and strict discipline of the merchant marine which sailed out of Boston, serving apprenticeship as boy, ordinary, and able seaman in' the forecastle, graduating to. third, second. and first officers with quarters "in the land of Knives and forks, te, the ship's cabin," and the sacred precincts of the quarter: deck, ending with the command and part ownership of a fine craft, and in all'that time—-twenty-five years, for he was thirty-seven when he left the sea—with his feet clear of a ship's planks but a mere twelve months.
Could there be a better seafaring name than Whidden? It" ranks with the Cosgroves, the Murrells the 'Thachers and all those British families who from the coasts of England or eastern United States sailed the seven seas and care ried "their countries' flags into whatever quarter of the globe trade lured them, John Whidden was somewhat of raconteur, and on many occasion when he had delighted his audience with stories from his wide experience, someone, or other would make "that footing remark: "Captain, you ought to write' a book." He manfully resisted the temptation' for, as he says, School experience of seventy years ago, cut short at the age of twelve years, was not likely to leave a boy, however bright, with a high order of Mterary attainment." But at the age of seventy-six John Whidden fell, If at that age ha could till say "Vade metro Sathanas," the voice' that had, roared the top gallant sails aloft'on many a day had lost its power, and unable to hold the tempter at bay by the power of his voice, John fell before the onslaught of cacocethes seribendi, and so sixty-four years atter he took his chest aboard the half-clipper Ariel, and nearly forty after he gave up the sea, John Whidden, smooth faced, Keeneoyed, white haired and: fresh complexioned, reaches down the slong avenues of his memory to tell of the days when men were men and the sea a man's, life, wee "there was a running dispute be~ tween John and his family as to his career. "He wanted to follow the sea, determined to own the planks which eventually he should trea they fancied some trade which would keep him ashore, John won, It is dimeult. for a widow woman to withstand the' urgings of her male offspring.' There isvalways a doubt in her mind as to whether it Is better that the lad.should gang his ain gait, offset with a greater fear lest he should grow. up\a "sissy" brave against the world no further than the limits of her apron strings, John claims to have had more scoldings than pettings, but, less you, the children of one hundred years ago had just as much, if not more devil la them, and it is to be believed that this budding master mariner was not too hardly done by... scooped out the contents, had replaced the tops in good order. Can you conceive the humiliation of John's mother? Can you doubt for one moment that John eventually was allowed to go to sea. If you nad known the New England states those days, how all the "tabbies" who attended that small festivity spread the story of John's recal~ citrance and how his mother had been "sair affrontit," you also would realize that merely.to let a youth like that go to sea was simply not sending him far enough, even though his grandfather had applied those remedial measures so strongly advocated by King Solomon.
So" John was entrusted to the fender mercies of Captain James King, of Salem, Mass, master of the half-clipper. Ariel, Just launched, and'lying at Newburyport, bound round to New. York. to load four for Liverpool, and thence to China, the' vessel having been built for the 'Canton trade. It is rather delightful' to picture John setting out on the great adventure, his sea chest packed under the advice of an old shipmaster, the whole of the previous Sunday at church,—the man of twelve, the cynosure of all eyes, the envy of his contemporaries, the burden of a mother's.sorrowful thoughts as she. stood beside him in the house of prayer, thinking that this, maybe, would be the last hymn they would sing together, listening to prayer following prayer until that benediction, the last until who knew. when?.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.