THE PILOTS MONOPOLY. 153

whatever, give information about tbe channel to any * outsider.' By
this time about half the boats had none but association pilots, and the
other balf had none but outsiders. At the first glance one would
suppose that when it came to forbidding information about the liver
these two parties could play equally at that game; but this was not
so. At every good-sized town from one end of the river to the other,
there was a * wharf-boat' to land at, instead of a wharf or a pier.
Freight was stored in it for transportation ; waiting passengers slept
in its cabins. Upon each of these wharf-boats the association's officers
placed a strong box fastened with a pecul'ar lock which was used in
no other service but one—the United States mail service. It was the
letter-bag lock, a sacred governmental thing. By dint of much be-
seeching the government had been persuaded to allow the association
to use this lock- Every association man carried a key which would
open these boxes. That key, or rather a peculiar way of holding it
in the hand when its owner was asked for river information by a
stranger—for the success of the St. Louis and New Orleans association
had now bred tolerably thriving branches in a dozen neighbouring
steamboat trades—was the association man's sign and diploma of
membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing a
similar key and holding ifc in a certain manner duly prescribed, his
question was politely ignored. From the association's secretary each
member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed
like a bill-head, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns j a
bill-head worded something like this—

STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.

JOHN SMITH, MASTEB.
Pilots^ John Jones and Thomas JBrowfi.

CBOSSINGS.
SOUSTDINGS.
MARKS.
REMARKS.

These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed,
and deposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon
as the first crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items
would be entered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings,
thus—