The anti-crimps Pt 2

Just as everything we know about witches in the middle ages derives from a few crazed witch hunters who wrote books designed to make everyone hate and fear witches, so too is everything we know about crimps written by their enemies. The important fact you won't learn about them is that seamen really did value the services crimps provided. Crimping wasn't a respectable business but it provided something that was really sought after just as bootleggers did during prohibition.

Last time, I talked about people who had a direct financial interest in the matter. Shipowners saw that crimps tended to drive up the wages they had to pay seamen. On the other hand, ship owners also needed crews and, while they disliked the crimps, they were unwilling to provide an alternatives so they, while maintaining they were opposed, ended up playing along. But they weren't the only ones opposed.

There was another group who opposed crimps for moral reasons. They cared little what seamen got paid or how hard it was for them to find work. They thought that crimps led seamen to drink and whore about more than they otherwise would do.Here, for example, is an extended quote from Seamen's Missions: Their Origin and Early Growth by Roald Kverndal.

The Crimping System was destined, in years to come, to rank as the most notorious international impediment to the spiritual and social welfare of seamen. By the 1820's, the "crimp" was already only too well established on the British waterfront, as a species of seaport parasite whose sole profession was to separate the sailor from his hard-earned wages by fair means or foul, normally foul. His method consisted in attaching himself to his victim from the earliest possible moment, and thereupon exploiting every peculiarity of the seamen's situation and character to serve his mercenary end. 

For this purpose, a successful crimp would organize a whole hierarchy of helpers. Himself often a wealthy publican or boarding-house owner, he would be in league with any or all of the following, as listed by G.C. Smith" "Runners," "brothel-keepers," "pot-house bullies," "cheating slop-sellers," and "pettyfogging sea-lawyers." With their aid, the crimp would establish a virtual monopoly, in meeting those two basic needs of any homecoming seafarer—relief from the privations and stress of sea-life, and re-employment when no longer willing or able to remain ashore. 

The resultant system of "marine slavery" (as Smith called it) seemed completely fool-proof. By devious means the seaman was duly fleeced, both of what he had earned on his arrival, and of any advance (generally two months wages) obtainable on his departure. Meanwhile, the crimp cunningly contrived to make the shipowner dependent on him for supplying new hands when and where needed. Incredible as it may seem, this unscrupulous gangster was, in fact, the principal "shipping agent" of his day, a position he reinforced by impressive expertise in legal evasion.

This is not fact-free. My great-great grandfather James Costigan and my great-grandfather Denis Costigan were both publicans and boarding-house owners. They no doubt did have connections with all manner of dubious denizens of Sailortown. They unquestionably pocketed an awful lot of sailors' money and they took a portion of a sailors' advance pay in return for delivering them to new ships to sail out of town on. And we have seen that they were willing to use criminal business methods to achieve those ends. Furthermore, we will later see that the combined boarding-house keepers in Saint John were very successful in making the shipowners dependent on them (and that they may have done so in collusion with port authorities).

But note that both liquor and room and board are actual services. We might ask why sailors didn't go elsewhere for these? Why didn't they go to s seamens' mission house, for example? Well, one reason was that the mission was dry, having been set up by those joyless reformers who sought to "improve"others lives in ways that no one asked them to.