Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE
NAME OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
New York
Saul Levitt
21 Hamilton Torras*
Ppril 5
Maritime
1. Date and Ulric, of interview
April
2. Place of interview
Panammorailifie Restaurast,
llet strait rad 11th Avenue
3. Name and address of informant
Forty Fathoms, IS South Street, I.Y.C.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Ordinary *Wes pot styli 'with however the addition
of a barrow through au eatrameevay•
(Use RS many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
NAT'L Or WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
Now York
Saul Levitt
27 Hamilton Terrace
April 5
Maritime
FOLKLORE
NEV[ YORK
FEUD
I drove this bloody gnglith mate to the other side of tho world.
This was on the old Canadian Constructor, shipping between Montreal, Liver.
pool and Antwerp. It could have never happened today man" that there arc
unions today. I am supposed to report at two o'clock and I got a bit on
and didn't ()omit on until four•thirty. When I got on board there was the mate,
Mt. Noble, waitin' for mo. Do you know what time it is, he save. It's
four -thirty o'clock, I says. And idiot time were you told to report, says
this bloody English sailor. Two o'clock, I says. Why, you can get your
stuff out of here and go ashore. An I to understand that I'm through, I
says. That's so, he said. Why, seem' that I'm no longer an employe*
et this ship ant free to do as I please I am going dawn to see the captain.
Out of my wall I do down to the captain's cabin and I said to him, captain
somebody else is running this ship. Who's that, said Mt. WObb, the captain,
who was a mighty cultured man and a gentleman. It's your mate, I says, who
has just told me to go ashare. Now' Hearin' that, the captain press.. the
button you know and calls the mate dawn. Mr. Noble, he says, ii it correct
that you have told Mr. Campbell hero to go ashore? Hearin' that the mate
-2
turned whi!;e and was die.
f f
two an' a larf hlurs late comint
abroad, says this Cockney just like that with all the stinkin' Limey
showint in his lace. Co on aft, says he captain to as and you, Mr.
Loble, rer.lember that I'm runnin this ship. I had a bit on ta.:! the
captain was a little sharp but I remembered that he '3. saved as job
for ae. a, I said nothin, to him a' I for ave him for addressin'
me in that sharp tone of voice. '.;oint out the hate says to as,
make it 'ell for you. I ,ient down to me bunk an' there was someone
sleepin,j whom I awoke damn quick/ Are ye married or single I says to
him, because if yer married with a family full of children you can
keep this job but otherwise you can just pack an' zo ashore. Ah, he
was single, and so I had the ,iob. -hat can a first mate do aboard a ship?
V4hy, he car. aake it so bad for you, it would seem a pleasure to zo over
the side. lie was a regular martinent and a sorofabitch..-I'm tellir'
al. He laade my life a hell. In Liverpool harbor I was paintnL: the
sides of her and somethin was coming down near me enough to kill me
if it ever struck. After, while unloading I was working the slings
and I noticed that a lot of ood planking was going ashore that was
not consigned. Haah) It looked suspicious to me and who do I see on
the bridge supervisin' but the mate. I had him then by God but he didn't
know it. On Lhe first day coming back I knocked on the door of his
cabin and I sk, it's as, h!o.. Noble, and I'd like to talk to you. I
laven't a thing to say to you, he says. shy, I says, standing in his
cabin, 74r. Noble, did you notice that planking that was put ashore at
Liverpool? lAth that he was ready to go through the floor. You never
saw anything like it in your life. He must have been indu1,7int in this
crooked traffic for some tie. I don't know what you're talking
about, he says, trying to brazen it out a true Limey. In
Liverpool I addressed a letter to the Canadian Government which
owns that lumber, 1 says, a registered letter, explaining that this
lumber went ashore under suspicious circumstances. And what is more
1111 testify in Montreal when we dock. Becuase you don't know who
I an at all, I said, and appearances don't count at all, Mr. Noble.
Well, by God, do you know that men didn't bother me one little bit,
dg ytknaw all the way back? And then what did he do on reaching
Montreal but leave a very important job as first mate of the Canadian
Constructor, that was the flagship of the Canadian Merchant Marine and
go off to Australia? It's the God's honest truth I'm no telling you
one of these sea stories that is made out of a man's vivid imagination.
That man left wife, family and all and went off to the other side of
the world. He's the mate of a flagship down there too, I've heard,
but its of a fleet of fishing schooners, I just bluffed it through
to save my skin because in them days there was no unions among the
seamen, and I sent this Limey off to Australia for the rest of his days.