163 LIFJS OX THE MISSISSIPPI.
The association had a good bank account now, and was very
strong. There was no longer an outsider. A by-law was added
forbidding the reception of any more cubs or apprentices for five
years; after which time a limited number would be taken, not by
individuals, but by the association, upon these terms : the applicant
must not be less than eighteen years old, and of respectable family
and good character; he must pass an examination as to education,
pay a thousand dollars in advance for the privilege of becoming an
apprentice, and must remain under the commands of the association
until a great part of the membership (more than half, I think) should
be willing to sign his application for a pilot's license.
All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from
their masters and adopted by the association. The president and
secretary detailed them for service on one boat or another, as they
chose, and changed them, from boat to boat according to certain rules
If a pilot could show that he was in infirm health and needed assis
tance, one of the cubs would be ordered to go with him.
The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's
financial resources. The association attended its own funerals in
state, and paid for them. When occasion demanded, it sent members
down the river upon searches for the bodies of brethren lost by
steamboat accidents; a search of this kind sometimes cost a thousand
dollars.
The association procured a charter and wenb into the insurance
business, also. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took
risks on steamboats.
The organisation seemed indestructible. It was the tightest
monopoly in the world. By the United States law, no man could
become a pilot unless two duly licensed pilots signed his application;
and now there was nobody outside of the association competent to
sign. Consequently the making of pilots was at an end. Every year
some would die and others become incapacitated by age and infirmity;
there would be no new ones to take their places. In time, the asso-
ciation could put wages up to any figure it chose ; and as long as it
should be wise enough not to carry the thing too far and provoke the
national government into amending the licensing system, steamboat
owners would have to submit, since there would be no help for it.