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March 03, 2008
Jack Ashore
jack ashore phr. [late 19C-1900s] larky, excited, tipsy. [jack tar, n. and his habits when in port] From Cassell's Dictionary of Slang.
When Jack's ashore he'll make his way, to some old boarding house.
He's welcomed in with rum and gin, likewise with fork and Scouse.
And he'll spend and spend and never offend, 'til he lies drunk on the ground.
But when your money's all gone it's the same old song,
"Get up Jack, John sit down." Traditional sea shanty
Jack Ashore
For a score of years, the condition of the sailor in the port of New-York has been rather worse than that of the plantation slave in the palmy days days of Southern Slavery. He was bought and sold, beaten, robbed and murdered. On landing here from a foreign voyage he fell at once into the hands of the sailor's boarding-house keepers- a class of men who Legree would have acknowledged to be his superiors in heartless wickedness. He was systematically made drunk and kept drunk, until his money had either found its way over the bar of his boarding-house, or had been deliberately robbed from his person. The New York Times. August 5th, 1872.
...The night scenes of the dance-room give the truest idea of the contaminating influences that are exerted for the moral impoverishment of sailors and the enrichment of the landlords. Behind the bar, appropriately is situated the crib, wherein are held the revelries which draw our mariners down to a criminal level... In a low-roofed dimly lighted apartment, only a few feet square, a reeking audience gathers. The "dance" is, of course, a bold euphemism for indescribable sin... In writing here we cannot be more specific. From the article Jack Ashore by William H Rideing in the July 1873 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine (subscribers only).
In doing my (admittedly cursory) research on the phrase "Jack Ashore" I was surprised at how many of the articles I found portrayed sailors as helpless innocents who were preyed upon by boardinghouse keepers (in addition to the Times and Harper's articles above see also this chapter from Darkness and Daylight; Or Light and Shadows of New York Life by Mrs. Helen Campbell) rather than focusing, as assumed they would, on sailor's wild behavior when in port. Though I did find one Times article that painted a less forgiving portrait of sailors.
Most of the photos I do come across of sailors on shore leave have little to do with drunken carousing. I recently went through a box of photos from the estate of a man who served in the US Navy during the 20s & 30s and the only photos I came across that even hinted at bad behavior were this pair of photos: The first of a pair of Hula girls dancing on board the U.S.S. Richmond,
and the second, a souvenir photo labeled with a curious disclaimer, "Wild Man With Tail, Not On Board U.S.S. Henderson."
Most of the photos I come across are, perhaps not surprisingly, of WWII sailors simply posing for portraits.
Though some are better than others.
Unfortunately, I guess that most sailors who set out for a wild night in port simply chose to leave the camera back on board the ship.
Posted by nick at March 3, 2008 06:28 PM