Littell's Living Age/Volume 135/Issue 1748/Miscellany

A correspondent at Waterloo, N. Y., sends us a quotation from Littell's Living Age, No. 1741, page 182, where, in an article on Commodore Goodenough, the writer speaks of the ship sailing into port "with yards scandalized and flags at half mast." A ship's yards are "scandalized" when instead of being drawn shipshape they are, as a greenhorn expressed it, "every which way," or as a landsman had it, "all at sixes and sevens." It is a common practice for extreme Catholic nations, notably the Spanish and Italians, to scandalize (or as the French would say to dishevel) the ship's yards when lying in port on Good Friday. The object is to express extreme mourning, as an individual would have done it in the earlier days, with disevelled hair and disordered raiment. The ship puts on a distracted appearance, like an inconsolable mourner plunged in the depth of grief.N. Y. Journal of Commerce.