as it were a savour of sea-salt in its very blood--to hold out a helping
hand for those who, having struggled to keep our dominion by carrying
the flag of British commerce all round the world, are themselves flung
ashore, weak, old, and helpless, dependent on the goodwill of their
countrymen to take them into some quiet harbour, where they may, as it
were be laid up in ordinary and undergo some sort of repairs, even
though they should never again be able to go a voyage? It is with
feelings of something like regret that an average Englishman sees the
old hull of a sea-going boat lie neglected and uncared for on the beach.
Not without a pang can we witness the breaking-up of some stout old ship
no longer seaworthy. Yet, unhappily, we have hitherto given scant
attention to the needs of those old and infirm seamen, who having for
many years contributed out of their wages to the funds of the Naval
Hospital at Greenwich, and having been again mulcted of some
subscriptions which were to have been specially devoted to found an
asylum for themselves, are left with little to look forward to but the
workhouse ward when, crippled, sick, or feeble with age, they could no
longer tread the deck or crack a biscuit.
It is true that there are now hospitals or sick-asylums in connection
with some of the sailors' homes at our seaports, and to the general
hospitals any sailor can be admitted if he should be able to procure a
letter from a governor. The 'tween-decks of the _Dreadnought_ no longer
form the sole hospital for invalided merchant seamen in the Port of
London; but even reckoning all that has been done for sailors, and fresh
from a visit to that great building where three hundred hale and hearty
seamen of the great mercantile navy find a home, we are left to wonder
that so little has been accomplished for those old tars who, having
lived for threescore years or more, going to and fro upon the great
deep, can find no certain anchorage, except within the walls of some
union where they may at last succeed in claiming a settlement. Surely
there is no figure which occupies a more prominent place in English
history than that of the sailor--not the man-o'-war's man only--but the
merchant seaman, the descendant of those followers of the great old
navigators who were called "merchant adventurers," and who practically
founded for Great Britain new empires beyond the sea. In the poetry, the
songs, the literature, the political records, the social chronicles, the
domestic narratives of England, the sailor holds a place, and even at
our holiday seasons, when our children cluster on the shingly shore or
the far-stretching brown sands of the coast, we find still that we
belong to a nation of which the sailor long stood as the chosen
representative. Nay, in the midst of the life of a great city we cannot
fail to be reminded of the daring and the enterprise which has helped to
make London what it is.
The poet, who, standing on the bridge at midnight, and listening to the
chime of the hour, found his imagination occupied with serious images
and his memory with solemn recollections, would have been no less moved
to profound contemplation had he been a temporary occupant of one of the
great structures that span the silent highway of the Thames. There is
something in the flow of a broad and rapid stream which has a peculiar
association with thoughts of the struggle and toil of human life, and as
we look on the ever-moving tide, we ask ourselves what have we done for
the brave old toil-worn men who have seen the wonders of the great deep
for so many years, and have brought so much to us that we can scarcely
speak of food or drink without some reminder of their toilsome lives and
long voyages? Well, a little has been done,--very little when we reflect
how much yet remains to be accomplished; and yet much, regarded as a
fair opportunity for doing a great deal more. I have already recounted
some part of the sad story of what a provident Government did when it
thought to undertake the affairs of poor improvident Jack. How it
collected his money, and neglected to give him the benefit of the
enforced subscription; how it administered and laid claim to his poor
little effects and arrears of pay, if he died abroad and nobody came
forward to establish a right to them; how it demanded additional
contributions from his monthly wages, in order to show him how to
establish a relief fund; and how somehow the scheme went "by the board"
(of Trade), and the balance of the money was lost in the gulf of the
estimates.
As long ago as 1860 it became clear to a number of leading merchants,
shipowners, and officers of the mercantile marine that nothing was to be
looked for from the State when the subject of making an effort to
provide for aged and infirm sailors was again urgently brought forward;
but it was determined to make a definite movement, and "The Shipwrecked
Mariners' Society," which had then 40,000 officers and seamen among its
subscribers, was appealed to as a body having the power to form the
required association.
It was not till 1867, however, that the actual work of providing an
asylum for old sailors was commenced. The society had then put down the
sum of £5,000 as a good beginning, a committee had been appointed, of
which the late honoured Paymaster Francis Lean was the indefatigable
honorary secretary, and Captain Thomas Tribe the secretary, whilst the
list of patrons, presidents, vice-presidents, and supporters included
many eminent noblemen and gentlemen who took a true interest in the
undertaking.
Several public meetings were held, and "a Pension and Widows' Fund" was
first established. Then the committee began to look about them for a
suitable house in which to begin their real business, and had their
attention directed to a large building at that time for sale, situated
on the breezy height above Erith, and formerly well known as the
residence of Sir Culling Eardley, who had named it Belvidere. The
property, including twenty-three acres of surrounding land, cost
£12,148, and £5,000 having already been subscribed, the balance of
£7,148 was borrowed at five per cent. interest. Not till the 5th of May,
1866, however, was the institution inaugurated and handed over to a
committee of management.
It is admirably suggestive of its present occupation, this fine roomy
old mansion, standing on the sheltered side, but near the top, of the
lofty eminence, whence such a magnificent view may be obtained, not only
of the surrounding country, but of the mighty river where it widens and
rushes towards the sea. Here on the broad sloping green, where the tall
flagstaff with its rigging supports the Union Jack, the old fellows
stroll in the sun or look out with a knowing weather-eye towards the
shipping going down stream, or sit to smoke and gossip on the bench
beneath their spreading tree opposite the great cedar, while the cow of
the institution chews the cud with a serious look, as though it had
someway caught the thoughtful expression that characterises "turning a
quid." A hundred infirm sailors, each of whom is more than sixty years
old, are serenely at their moorings in that spacious square-built house,
where the long wards are divided into cabins, each with its neat
furniture, and many of them ornamented with the curious knick-knacks,
and strange waifs and strays of former voyages which sailors like to
have about them. There is of course a sick-ward, where those who are
permanently disabled, or are suffering from illness, receive medical
attention and a special diet; but the majority of the inmates are
comparatively hearty still, though they are disabled, and can no longer
"hand reef and steer."
There are a hundred inmates in this admirable asylum, and ninety
pensioners who are with their friends at the various outports of the
kingdom, each receiving a pension of £1 a month, called the "Mariners'
National Pension Fund," the working management of which, with the
"Widows' Annuity Fund," is made over to the "Shipwrecked Mariners'
Society."
A hundred and ninety worn-out and disabled seamen now provided for or
assisted, and a total of above 300 relieved since the opening of the
institution. A good and noble work truly. But can it be called by so
great a name as _National_, when we know how large a number of old
sailors are yet homeless, and that at the last election there were 153
candidates who could not be assisted because of the want of funds to
relieve their distress? Looking at the number of men (2,000 to 5,000)
lost at sea or by shipwreck every year, and at the inquiry which has
been made, through the efforts of Mr. Plimsoll and others, with respect
to the conditions under which the service of the mercantile marine of
this country is carried on, is it not a reproach to us that during the
nineteen years since this institution was founded, so little has been
done? Year by year it has been hoped that the Board of Trade would
relinquish its claim to take possession of the effects of sailors dying
abroad, and would transfer the £1,200 a year represented by this
property to the funds of the society, but hitherto the committee have
waited in vain. The donations from all sources are comparatively few;
and though the annual subscriptions are numerous, they are rapidly
absorbed.
Many masters, mates, seamen, engineers and firemen pay to this
institution a subscription of five shillings a year, for which they have
a vote at each annual election; or any such subscriber may leave his
votes to accumulate for his own benefit when he shall have reached the
age of sixty years, and becomes a candidate for admission.
One-fifth of the candidates admitted are nominated by the committee on
the ground of their necessities or special claims to the benefit of the
charity, while general subscribers or donors have privileges of election
according to the amount contributed. Perhaps one of the most touching
records of the subscription list is, that not only did the cadets of the
mercantile training-ship _Worcester_ contribute something like £100 in
one official year, but that the little fellows on board the union
training-ship _Goliath_ lying off Grays, have joined their officers and
their commander, Captain Bourchier, to send offerings to the aid of the
ancient mariners, of whom they are the very latest representatives. On
many a good ship these small collections are made for the same object,
and at the Sailors' Home in Well Street there is a box for stray
contributions; but much more has yet to be done. Perhaps it is far to go
to see this great house on the hill, but most of us have caught a
glimpse of its tall towers and its flagstaff in our excursions down the
silent highway of London's river, and it might be well to think how
little effort is required to give to each cabin its inmate, and to fill
the dining-room with tables, each with its "mess" of six or eight old
salts, who are ready to greet you heartily if you pay them a visit, and
to salute you with a grave seamanlike respect. Would you like to know
how this rare old crew lives in the big house under the lee of the
wind-blown hill? To begin with, the men who are not invalids turn out at
eight in winter and half-past seven in summer, and after making beds and
having a good wash, go down to prayers and breakfast at nine or
half-past eight, breakfast consisting of coffee or cocoa and
bread-and-butter.
At ten o'clock the ward-men, who are appointed in rotation, go to clean
wards and make all tidy, each inmate being, however, responsible for the
neatness of his own cabin, in which nobody is allowed to drive nails in
bulkheads or walls, and no cutting or carving of woodwork is permitted.
The men not for the time employed in tidying up or airing bedding, &c.,
can, if they choose, go into the industrial ward, where they can work at
several occupations for their own profit, as they are only charged for
cost of materials. Dinner is served in the several messes by the
appointed messmen at one o'clock, and consists on Sundays of roast beef,
vegetables, and plum-pudding, and on week-days of roast or boiled meat,
soup, vegetables, with one day a week salt fish, onions, potatoes, and
plain suet-pudding, and in summer an occasional salad. A pint of beer is
allowed for each man. The afternoon may be devoted either to work, or to
recreation in the reading and smoking rooms, or in the grounds. Tea and
bread-and-butter are served at half-past five in summer and at six in
winter, and there is often a supper of bread-and-cheese and watercresses
or radishes. The evening is devoted to recreation, and at half-past nine
in winter, and ten in summer, after prayers, lights are put out, and
every one retires for the night.
None of the inmates are expected to work in the industrial wards, and of
course there are various servants and attendants, all of whom are chosen
by preference from the families of sailors, or have themselves been at
sea. The whole place is kept so orderly, and everything is so
ship-shape, that there is neither waste nor confusion, and yet every man
there is at liberty to go in and out when he pleases, on condition of
being in at meal-times, and at the time for evening prayers, any one
desiring to remain away being required to ask permission of the manager.
It must be mentioned, too, that there is an allowance of ninepence a
week spending money for each inmate.
The men are comfortably clothed, in a decent sailorly fashion, and many
of the old fellows have still the bright, alert, active look that
belongs to the "smart hands," among whom some of them were reckoned
nearly half a century ago. The most ancient of these mariners at the
time of my first visit was ninety-two years old, and it so happened that
I saw him on his birthday. He came up the broad flight of stairs to
speak to me, with a foot that had not lost all its lightness, while the
eye that was left to him (he had lost one by accident twenty years
before) was as bright and open as a sailor's should be. This is a long
time ago, and William Coverdale (that was his name) has probably gone to
his rest. Significantly enough, at the time of my latest visit, the
oldest representative of the last muster-roll was James Nelson, a master
mariner of Downpatrick, eighty-five years of age; while bo's'n Blanchard
is eighty-one; able seaman John Hall, eighty; William Terry (A. B.),
eighty-two, and masters, mates, quartermasters, cooks, and stewards,
ranged over seventy. With many of them this is the incurable disability
that keeps them ashore; the sort of complaint which is common to sailors
and landsmen alike if they live long enough--that of old age. It will
come one day, let us hope, to the young Prince, whom we may regard as
the Royal representative of the English liking for the sea. For the
asylum for old and infirm sailors at Greenhithe has not been called
Belvidere for some years now. Prince Alfred went to look at it one day,
and asked leave to become its patron, since which it has been called
"The Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen's Institution"--rather a long
name, but then it ought to mean so much.
_WITH THE FEEBLE AND FAINT-HEARTED._
Is there any condition wherein we feel greater need of human help and
true loving sympathy than in the slow, feeble creeping from sickness to
complete convalescence, when the pulse of life beats low, and the
failing foot yet lacks power to step across that dim barrier between
health and sickness--not far from the valley of the shadow of death?
In the bright, glowing summer-tide, when the sun warms bloodless
creatures into renewed life, our English sea-coast abounds with
visitors, among whom near and dear friends, parents, children, slowly
and painfully winning their way back to health and strength are the
objects of peculiar care. In all our large towns people who have money
to spend are, at least, beginning to make up their minds where they
shall take their autumn holiday;--in many quiet health-resorts wealthy
invalids, and some who are not wealthy, have already passed the early
spring and summer;--at a score of pleasant watering-places, where the
cool sparkling waves break upon the "ribbed sea-sand," troops of
children are already browning in the sun, scores of hearts feel a throb
of grateful joy as the glow of health begins to touch cheeks lately
pale, and dull eyes brighten under the clear blue sky.
Thousands upon thousands are then on their way to that great restorer,
the sea, if it be only for a few hours by excursion train. England might
seem to have gathered all its children at its borders, and very soon we
hear how empty London is, while a new excuse for a holiday will be that
there is "nothing doing" and "nobody is in town." And yet throughout the
busy streets a throng continues to hurry onward in restless activity.
Only well-accustomed observers could see any considerable difference in
the great thoroughfares of London. Shops and factories look busy enough,
and if nothing is doing, there is a mighty pretence of work, while the
nobodies are a formidable portion of the population when regarded in the
aggregate.
Early in August the census of our large towns still further diminishes.
Prosperous tradesmen, noting the decrease of customers, begin to prepare
to take part in the general exodus. "Gentlefolks" have concluded
bargains for furnished houses on the coast and put their dining and
drawing-rooms into brown holland. In West-End streets and squares the
front blinds are drawn, and all inquiries are answered from the areas,
where charwomen supplement the duties of servants on board wages.
"London is empty," the newspapers say, and in every large town in the
kingdom the great outgoing leaves whole districts comparatively
untenanted. Yet what a vast population remains; what a great army of
toiling men and women who go about their daily work, and keep up the
unceasing buzz of the industrial hive. What troops of children, who,
except for Sunday-school treats, would scarcely spend a day amidst green
fields, or learn how to make a daisy-chain, or hear the soft summer wind
rustling the leaves of overhanging trees.
It would perhaps astonish us if we could have set down for us in plain
figures how many men and women in England have never seen the sea; how
many people have never spent a week away from home, or had a real long
holiday in all their lives. It may be happy for them if they are not
compelled by sudden sickness or accident, to fall out of the ranks, and
to leave the plough sticking in the furrow. It is not all for pleasure
and careless enjoyment that the thousands of our wealthy brethren and
sisters go to the terraced houses, or handsomely appointed mansions,
which await them all round the English shore. Into how many eyes tears
must need spring, when the prayers for all who are in sorrow, need, or
adversity are read in seaside churches on a summer's Sunday. By what
sick-beds, and couches set at windows whence wistful eyes may look out
upon the changeful glory of wood and sea and sky, anxious hearts are
throbbing. What silent tears and low murmuring cries on behalf of dear
ones on whose pale cheeks the July roses never more may bloom, mark the
watches of the silent night, when the waves sob wakefully upon the
beach. What thrills of hope and joy contend with obtrusive fears as, the
golden spears of dawn break through the impenetrable slate-blue sky, and
a touch of strength and healing is seen to have left its mark upon a
brow on which the morning kiss is pressed with a keen throb that is
itself almost a pang.
The first faltering footsteps back to life after a long illness or a
severe shock, how they need careful guidance. Let the stronger arm, the
helping hand, the encouraging eye be ready, or they may fail before the
goal of safety be reached.
"All that is now wanted is strength, careful nursing, plenty of
nourishment, pure air--the seaside if possible, and perhaps the south
coast would be best." Welcome tidings, even though they herald slow
recovery, inch by inch and day by day, while watchful patience measures
out the time by meat and drink, and the money that will buy the means of
comfort or of pleasure, becomes but golden sand running through the
hour-glass, which marks each happy change.
Yes; but what of the poor and feeble, the faint-hearted who, having
neither oil nor wine, nor the twopence wherewith to pay for lodging at
the inn, must need lie there by the way-side, if no hand is stretched
out to help them?
While at those famous health-resorts, the names of which are to be read
at every railway station, and in the advertisement sheets of every
newspaper, hundreds and thousands are coming back from weakness to
strength, there are hundreds and thousands still who are discharged from
our great metropolitan hospitals, to creep to rooms in dim, close courts
and alleys, where all the tending care that can be given them must be
snatched from the hours of labour necessary to buy medicine and food.
How many a poor sorrowing soul has said with a sigh, "Oh! if I could
only send you to the sea-side. The doctors all say fresh air's the great
thing; but what's the use? they say the same of pure milk and meat and
wine."
It may be the father who has met with an accident, and cannot get over
the shock of a surgical operation--or rheumatic fever may have left
mother, son, or daughter in that terrible condition of utter
prostration, when it seems as though we were in momentary danger of
floating away into a fainting unconsciousness, which not being oblivion,
engages us in a struggle beyond our waking powers.
Alas! in the great summer excursion to the coast these poor fainting
brethren and sisters are too seldom remembered. Here and there a
building is pointed out as an infirmary, a sea-side hospital, or even as
a retreat for convalescents, but the latter institutions are so few, and
the best of them are so inadequately supported, that they have never yet
been able to prove by startling figures the great benefits which they
confer upon those who are received within their walls.
One of the oldest of these truly beneficent Institutions, "The Sea-side
Convalescent Hospital at Seaford," has just completed a new, plain, but
commodious building, not far from the still plainer House which has for
many years been the Home of its grateful patients. So let us pay a visit
to the old place just before its inmates are transferred to more ample
quarters, to provide for which new subscriptions are needed, and fresh
efforts are being made. The visit will show us how, in an unpretentious
way, and without costly appliances, such a charitable effort may be
worthily maintained.
Curiously enough, Seaford itself is an illustration of declension from
strength to weakness, and of the early stages of recovery; for though it
is one of the famous Cinque Ports, it has for nearly 200 years been an
unnoted retreat.
But it is still a place of old, odd customs, such as the election of the
chief of the municipality at an assembly of freemen at a certain
gate-post in the town, to which they are marshalled by an officer
bearing a mace surmounted with the arms of Queen Elizabeth. It is
famous, too, for Roman and other antiquities, and its queer little
church dedicated to St. Leonard, has some rare specimens of quaint
carving and a peal of bells which are peculiarly musical, while the
sounding of the complines on a still summer's night is good to hear. In
fact, for a mere cluster of houses forming an unpretentious and secluded
town, almost without shops to attract attention, with scarcely the
suspicion of a high street, and destitute of a grand hotel, Seaford is
remarkably interesting for its legendary lore, as a good many people
know, who have discovered its greatest attraction, and take lodgings at
the dull little place, where even the martello tower is deserted. The
chief recommendation of the place, however, is its healthfulness, and
the grand air which blows off the sea to the broad stretch of shingly
beach, and the range of cliff and down-land which stretches as far as
Beachy Head, and rises just outside the town into one or two bluffs,
about which the sea-gulls whirl and scream, as the evening sun dips into
the sparkling blue of the water. It is just at the foot of the boldest
of these ascents that we see an old-fashioned mansion, once known as
Corsica Hall, but now more distinctly associated with the name of the
Convalescent Hospital, of which it has long been the temporary home, the
London offices of the charity being at No. 8, Charing Cross, London.
The institution, which was founded in 1860, has for its president the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and for its patronesses the Duchess of
Cambridge and the Duchess of Teck, and it has done its quiet work
efficiently and well, under difficulties which must have required
staunch interest on the part of its committee.