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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: For a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;
but curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased,
the wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover
the reason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was nice
to have a 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a couple
of years, gratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked;
all pilots and captains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and
by it came to pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman.
When a steersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory
to any two pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him
by signing an application directed to the United States Inspector.
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