Alexander Martin Model Ship Gallery

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Chinese Scavenger

There are hundreds of these tramps in the Asiatic waters. They thrive on whatever they can pick up from the water. They hang around the swill chutes of ships at anchor and meet ships coming in and follow ships going out and with nets made of old sacks or what have you, they catch every particle of swill the ship's cook happens to throw out - coffee grounds, potato skins and garbage, etc. There is a great variety of these boats, sam pans, junks, etc., and are manned by coolies who live on these boats and are never allowed ashore.

Some of the old superstitions are still accepted by these coolies, such as: if one falls overboard he is completely ignored and they do not try to get him out because they believe he is on his own and must do the best he can. They all scatter away and nobody wants him. If he should happen to get hold of something and climb aboard of any boat at all he will live on that boat from then on and some of them are quite crowded as it is. And they believe that the demon of death wanted him and pulled him into the water and if anyone took him out of the water, the demon of death would get real angry and get him sometime.

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