spoon-wise

Updated: May 26, 2025

Then the need for fast vessels restricted hold room and the methods of the trade attained a degree of barbarity that can not be paralleled since the days of Nero. Shackled together "spoon-wise," as the phrase was, they suffered and sweltered through the long middle passage, dying by scores, so that often a fifth of the cargo perished during the voyage.

Willis J. (Willis John) Abbot - American Merchant Ships and Sailors