about the entrails and bones, which, by the process of cutting, as practiced by our whalers, is lost; but these people save it all. After the blubber is divided, then comes a scene of feasting and gorging that baffles description and almost exceeds belief, except to those who, like myself, have witnessed it. The eyes, with the optic nerve attached, are always claimed by the one who first fastened to the whale, and are kept as carefully as ever the scalp-locks were by the Mohicans as trophies. The Indian who is fortunate enough to obtain them, would part with his own eyes sooner than with those. These people, when they have killed an enemy, take the skull instead of the scalp-lock; and when speaking of their exploits, they always tell of the number of whales they have fastened to and killed before speaking of the number of skulls they have obtained. I noticed, while among them, that the smartest whalemen always occupied positions of influence in the tribe, and were treated with the greatest respect.

As

Each canoe carries about twenty buoys, of which ten are inflated and made fast to the line, and then attached to the sides of the canoe. soon as they have fastened one lot to a whale, they paddle off out of his way, and inflate the others; and, as soon as an opportunity offers, those also are attached to him.

In this way do these poor people, after paddling a long distance out to sea in their frail canoes, fearlessly attack the monster of the deep, and seldom fail to secure the much-coveted prize. In this way does the poor savage, who is looked upon with contempt by three-fourths of the civilized world, accomplish that which we, with all our knowledge and skill, have heretofore been unable to effect. There is no estimating the saving, in time and expense, if we would pattern after the Indians in this respect. If they can catch, in their rude way, and kill these whales, (that lie in such numbers, as it were, at our very doors,) certainly we can do it with all the advantages that are possessed for making the different articles required. The present harpoon is good enough, if it be made of good, tough iron, and our India-rubber factories can furnish buoys of a far better quality than the seal-skin of the untaught savage. These can be fashioned so as to extend the whole length of the boat, and, by being attached outside below the row-locks, would, in a rough sea, increase the buoyancy of the boat to such a degree that it would be next to impossible to capsize it, while they would make excellent life-preservers for the crew to cling to, in the vent of getting the boat stove.

CHAPTER V.

GREAT ADVANTAGES OF THE INDIAN METHOD OF CATCHING WHALES-IF ADOPTED BY THE WHITES IT WOULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE TRADE-WE HAVE BORROWED THE CLIPPER-SHIP FROM THEM, WHY NOT THEIR PLAN OF WHALING ?-WHALING AMONG THE FRENCH AND GERMANS-IMPROVEMENT IN THE WHALE-SHIP "PHOQUE"-REFLECTIONS ON THE GENERAL SUBJECT THE COD-FISHERY

TO BE NEXT CONSIDERED.

Three very important results are obtained by using buoys-first, it prevents the whale from sounding; second, it stops them when they attempt to run. Occasionally they will make a bolt, but they seldom go more than a few hundred yards before they bring-to and commence fighting, evidently trying to rid themselves of the buoys. Lastly, and this is by far the most important point, the buoys prevent the whale from sinking when he is dead. Instead of sending ships to Kamshatka and the Arctic regions, why not return to first principles, and fit out sloops and schooners, pro

vided with such gear as I have indicated, to take the numerous whales that frequent our own coasts and harbors? It does not require an immense outlay to test the matter. The thousands of gallons of oil taken by the Indians annually, and bought from them and imported into this country, proves the practicability of the plan beyond a doubt.

This method, in my opinion, will effect a complete revolution in the whaling business, as patterning after the canoes of the Indians has in shipbuilding for that the idea of the model of our clippers was taken from their canoes, I as firmly believe as in my own existence. Any one who has seen the canoes of the Tallasnooks, Chinooks, Chehales or Cape Flattery Indians, has, without doubt, noticed the resemblance. These people adhere with the greatest tenacity to the customs of their forefathers. In this respect they are unchangeable. It is my opinion that some of the numerous whalers, which have visited that part of the coast, had procured and carried home one of their canoes, and in that way the model was obtained. The man who built the first clipper would have been entitled to a great deal more credit if he had done the poor Indians the justice to have acknowledged that they were the inventors of the model. Now, having got that idea from them, we can take another, and adopt their method of whaling also. Any one who takes an interest in the matter can, by visiting the rooms of the Academy of Natural Sciences, see their whaling apparatus which I have deposited there, as also one of their beautifully-modeled canoes.

When the whaling business was commenced by the French and Germans, they always had American officers to do their whaling for them; but they proved to be apt scholars, and at the present time they can catch and kill a whale quite as well as the Americans, and now their ships are moved almost exclusively by their own people. A short time since, I visited the French whale-ship Phoque, Capt. Leegee, in Santa Barbara, and whilst on board I noticed many improvements-among which was a new kind of try-works, that did not occupy half the space of the large brick structures usually found on board American ships. Instead of putting the oil into casks, the whole of the vessel was one immense iron tank, divided into compartments, and built so as to conform to the shape of the vessel. This must have added greatly to the strength of the vessel. From each compartment was an iron pipe leading to the deck, through which the oil was easily run down without having to wait for it to cool, as they do when it is put into casks. But what attracted my attention most, was Capt. Leegee's method of keeping whales from sinking. This method was to attach a number of large casks to the whale when he was about to die. Here was a very clumsy arrangement, but I could not but acknowledge to myself that he had got the idea, and without doubt he will improve upon it.

From this our people can perceive that other nations are turning their attention to this matter, and if we are not careful our hard-earned reputation will be destroyed, and the old scene be reenacted of the old gentleman and his boy:

"To teach his grandson chess, then,

His leisure he'd employ,

Until at last the old man

Was beaten by the boy."

It may be thought that I am dwelling a long time on this subject. Perhaps I may be, but, aside from the immense interests at stake, motives of humanity alone would make me do it. From the last census it appears that there are 36,000 seamen engaged in the fisheries from the United States. Of this great number, 16,000 are engaged in the whaling business, in 600 ships. And what a miserable existence is theirs, cooped up in their narrow, floating prisons, living on worse than prisoner's fare, cut off from their wives and little ones, and debarred from everything that makes life pleasant, while often on their return, after years of hard labor and privation, they find themselves in debt; or if they are fortunate enough to have a little money coming to them, they are often stripped of it by the hundreds of land-sharks, who always stand ready to prey upon them! I trust I have, in these articles, made it apparent that these voyages can be shortened, thereby ameliorating the condition of the thousands of poor fellows who are now engaged in the whaling business. If but one of them is benefited by what I have here suggested, I shall consider myself well rewarded for all my time and trouble. I will now drop the subject of whaling, and sincerely hope that it will soon be taken up by the enterprising merchants of San Francisco.

Art. VII. THE TRUE MERCHANT.*

THE true merchant, is but the true man, illustrating a particular condition in life. He is no more, as he certainly should be no less. The ethics and moralities, prevailing in, and governing all other relations, should be those which suggest his mercantile life and conduct. He should have no one rule of right and wrong, for the social circle and the drawingroom, and another for the counting house and busy marts of trade.

The man is the same, or ought to be, wherever or however engaged, and neither opportunity, nor policy, nor the caprices of occasion or trade, should ever, even remotely, be allowed to insinuate the smallest deviation from the straight and strict line of honesty, and honorable dealing between man and man. The merchant, by his calling, of all men, stands especially in the way of temptation. "The devil," says quaint old Burton, "is his fastest friend. He is always perched upon his shoulder, whispering in his ear, hanging upon his tongue, leering into his eye, or riding upon his pen-point, suggesting fraud, gilding deceit, obscuring vision, and intimating addition or subtraction, as debit or credit may be the subject of his entry."

This is too true, even putting aside, if you please, the more palpable and obvious forms, known and legitimately recognized, and acted upon as tricks of the trade. From the sale of a penny-worth of pins, or a yard of six-penny calico, (warranted "fast colors,") to the purchase of an East Indiaman

"Rich in barbaric gems, and gold,"

opportunities are ever present, wherein money could be made, by even

*The following extract from a lecture delivered before Duff's Mercantile College at Pittsburg, by the Hon. JOHN M. KIRKPATRICK, is now first printed in the Merchants' Magazine from the manuscript copy furnished to our hands by an intelligent correspondent.

the veriest refinement of deception, or the thinnest possible gloss and glaze of falsehood properly laid on. Happy is the true merchant and the true man, whose regard for the right rises equal to the exigency of such necessities, and who finds, when occasion demands, that he has not left his integrity at home, with wife and children, to be put on, only with slippers and gown, when the labors and perplexities, and toils and temptations, of the day are ended and gone.

It is said of the distinguished Athenian, Aristides, surnamed the Just, that upon one occasion, during the representation of one of the tragedies of Eschylus, a passage occurred having reference to an honest, honorable, and upright man; and that the whole of the vast audience, actuated by a common impulse, arose as one man, and turned their eyes upon him, applying the passage to him alone, of all those who were present! Who would not rather be called ARISTIDES the JUST than ALEXANDER THE GREAT? The one, of thousands in whom alone could be recognized the impersonation of the beauty of truth, than the hero of a hundred battles, weeping because he had no more worlds to conquer. Who would not rather be the honest laborer, whose lowly dwelling could not vie with his horses' stables, than Huntington the Forger, rioting in extravagance, dwelling in luxury, and aptly consummating a life of fraud in the gloomy walls of a felon's cell! Or the humble weaver, whose swiftly-flying shuttle sings to him a daily song of golden content, than Schuyler, resplendant in crime, and magnificent in villainy, fleeing his country for his country's good, and filling up the measure of his iniquity far away from home, and kindred, and friends, in a dishonored grave?

These are, we grant, extreme cases, but none the less truly illustrate the rule, that "honesty is always the best policy." They are the possible results of the feeblest insinuations. Obsta principiis. This accords with the compensations of nature, and the laws of our mental and moral being. Success, even in its most popular sense, is predicated upon no other or more durable foundations. The fruits of other planting will never ripen into a healthy perfection, but like the Dead Sea apple, will crumble into ashes on the lips.

Viewing the matter, therefore, in the cold light of success, the true merchant sees and governs his conduct accordingly. He looks upon mere money-getting as an art requiring the very lowest order of talent. "Put money in thy purse" is not, in his estimation, the chief command. Any one can, if he pleases, do that. Buy cheap and sell dear, is the successful axiom of successful trade. The true merchant, as the honorable man, does not so look upon it. Not at all. He reflects upon the means. He magnifies his calling. He studies carefully the laws of trade, and compels success. He watches like a philosopher the thousand inclinations of the mercantile compass, and elevates his avocation to the certainty of an exact science. Chance and luck are with him words without meaning, while into his lap is always emptied the purse of Fortunatus, and for him the breezes ever blow, laden with myrrh, and frankincense, and spices, and perfume from Araby the blest.

At the merchants' board, on 'change, in the counting room, and on the street, without attestation, his word is as good as his bond. His promises ring out like true gold-his contracts are never violated-his drafts are never dishonored-he needs no indorser. "Protest" is an association with which he is never identified. His bank is integrity, and his bank

book shows always a large credit side to his account. He values equities above legalities, and moralities above advantage. He looks the sheriff and the constable full in the face, like an honest man, and lawyers and agencies he never invokes. Courts, or the places "where justice is judicially administered," he is entirely ignorant of; and the voice of the eloquent orator, though pleading with the gift and power of Cicero, he has never heard. Its bells ring out for him sounds as pleasant as the chimes of "the church-going bell," for he has to answer no "summons," and to enter no "plea." He dog-ears Webster to know the meaning of "suit," and "process," and "judgment," and "execution," and "stay;" and has never had, in any way, practical illustration of the power of parchment covered all over with the cabalistic words, "We command you," Given under our hand and seal." Happy, happy, fortunate man! recalling the golden age of commerce, when old Tyre was queen of the seas, and the idyls of Arcady were sung upon oaten pipes by simple shepherd swains

"Tityre tu patulæ, recubans sub tegmina fugi."

Of such were Rogers, singing in stately classic rythm his "Pleasures of Memory" amidst the clinking and ringing of gold in the room of the money changer, and, like a most devoted worshiper of the beautiful and the true that he was, forgetting discount and per centum in the poetry and sentiment of an elevated and refined, though none the less diligent and laborious, pursuit of business.

Of this school, too, was Lawrence, the world's merchant, whether standing amidst the hum of a thousand busy spindles at Lowell, or in the presence of sovereigns and great ones of earth, scattering benefactions and largesses of love with an affluent and unsparing hand. And such are Peabody, princely in hospitalities and regal in donations to every ennobling charity; and last and greatest of all, the noble-hearted, philanthropic Grinnell, who of his own abundance, when the purse-strings of a nation tightened, sent forth heroes, in the guise of men, to far-off Arctic Seas, to brave privation and peril; and, alas! death itself bring back tidings of the loved and lost!

These were true and successful merchants only because they were true men. Failing in this respect, in any degree, and we would look in vain for those results of life which have rendered them good and great in the world's estimation. "He who is diligent in business shall stand before kings."

Art. VIII-CHINESE MERCHANTS.

FREEMAN HUNT, Editor of the Merchants' Magazine :—

On the corner of the street adjacent to that on which I lived, I had often observed a small store, very scantily furnished with goods, and apparently conducted with very little enterprise. This was a matter of surprise, for the Chinese shopkeepers are unsurpassed by any on earth for their eagerness to secure customers, and their energy in driving a bargain. The natural consequence of such business laxity occurred before long. The shop was closed, the bankrupt had disappeared, and, so far as I was able to judge, the balance of his stock on hand had disappeared, with him.