CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXV.The Haven at Last—Home in the Thames.The“Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—The Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of thePrincess Alice—The OldDreadnought—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light-vessels—Its Masters.“Let the Rhine be blue and brightIn its path of liquid light,Where the red grapes fling a beamOf glory on the stream;Let the gorgeous beauty thereMingle all that’s rich and fair;Yet to me it ne’er could beLike that river great and free,The Thames! the mighty Thames!”The poet’s enthusiasm may be pardoned, for, although there are scores of rivers, considered only as such alone, that outvie the Thames, regarding it in its relation to the sea—aye, to the whole world—it stands pre-eminent and alone. To the sailor the Thames and the Mersey have an interest and importance which belong to the streams of no other country.The reader has, in spirit, voyaged with poor Jack to the farthest corners of the earth; he has seen much of his life of peril and heroism; he has noted that the hardships he endures are often unrequited, and that, after a long career of usefulness and bravery, he may lie on the shore“a sheer hulk,”valueless to himself, possibly to die and rot in poverty and distress. The charge of special improvidence cannot nowadays be hurled at the sailor, as it might have been in days of old. Even Jack’s improvidence was more excusable than the same fault in any other class whatever. The fact is—as such valuable institutions as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society have proved—that there was a great desire on the part of seamen to help themselves. The fortieth annual report of the Society (1879) states that[pg 273]48,000 mariners subscribe to the benefit fund organised under its auspices.80The history of this excellent association, which has now an income of nearly £29,000, is interesting.“A worthy, philanthropic medical man, Mr. John Rye, of Bath, had a servant who had formerly been a sailor, and was in the habit of reading the newspapers to his master. One morning their attention was arrested by an account of some fearful wrecks of fishing boats, with loss of life, on the north coast of Devon. The servant asked his master if there was any fund out of which help could be obtained to relieve the families of those men. The master replied that he supposed there was, but he would make inquiries from Admiral Sir Jahleen Brenton, then Governor of Greenwich Hospital; and from him he found that there was none. They then together drew up a prospectus, and presented it to the late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Cockburn, who most heartily took the matter up, and after circulating the appeal widely, called a public meeting in February, 1839, at which Sir George was appointed President, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed themselves into a committee, of which the worthy Chairman, Captain the Hon. Francis Maude, R.N., is now the sole survivor. The following month Her Majesty the Queen graciously consented to be the Patron of the Society; and so prosperous was the infant[pg 274]institution, that at the second anniversary, at which the late Sir Robert Peel consented to preside, the sum of £1,100 was collected. The Committee next set about to obtain the services of gentlemen to act as honorary agents, of whom there are now upwards of 1,000; and whose duties are to board, lodge, clothe, and forward to their homes all shipwrecked persons. The Committee meet every Friday in London to relieve the widows and orphans of the lost, not only at the time of their death, but by small annual payments. There were thus 9,601 persons relieved in 1879.”81THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.Sooth to say, and in strict justice, we must not forget how much has been done for the seaman on the banks of old Father Thames, both by Government and private liberality. An excellent home, the“Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen’s Institution”exists at Belvedere, in Kent, started under the auspices of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. This institution was inaugurated, with room for the reception of 400 persons of all grades of the mercantile marine, although nothing like that number has been as yet accommodated at any one time. The Society also grants out-pensions to those who have homes or friends.The most singular and characteristic and yet appropriate features of the building are a number of little cabins comfortably fitted, and so much like the real thing, that it requires only a very slight stretch of the imagination for Jack ashore to indulge in the fond delusion that he is at sea again. The large rooms are divided into wards, one for masters and mates, containing ten cabins, each six feet by seven feet, and perfect ventilation is secured by the partitions being open at the top. Each man, by this excellent arrangement, has his little cabin to himself, and all the sweetness of retirement should he be that way inclined. What a contrast is this to the ungainly, unhomely, and barren shelters of our Unions!It speaks well for the profession that most of the inmates have seen over forty or fifty years of service, which, judging from what we know of service in the maritime navy, might decidedly be called active. On being interrogated by a visitor, some of these veterans proved having most successfully braved the dangers of the deep.“How often have you been wrecked?”inquired the interviewer of our“ancient mariner.”“Why, let me see, sir”—then, counting half audibly—“one, two, three, four, five times, I think, sir.”The second, on being questioned, answered, simply,“Once in 1825, sir—going to Hamburg that was; and once in 1828, on the coast of Norway; and again on the coast of Java in ’42.”This man had also done some memorable deeds on shore, which fully made up for his being short by“two”wrecks of the other.Greenwich Hospital next demands our attention, as once the great home and asylum for the seamen of the navy, although now a hospital only. It was founded in the year 1694, in memory of Queen Mary, who had long designed the foundation of such an institution. It was also built as a monument of the great victory of La Hogue. Sir Christopher Wren furnished the designs and plans for the edifice gratuitously—a noble gift from a professional architect, and valuable to boot. The object of the foundation was“to encourage the seamen of this[pg 275]kingdom to continue the industry and skilfulness of their employments, by which they had for a long time distinguished themselves throughout the world;”“to encourage them to continue also their ancient reputation for the courage and constancy manifested in engagements for the defence and honour of their native country;”“to invite greater numbers of his Majesty’s subjects to betake themselves to the sea;”and so forth. In sooth, the condition of the Greenwich pensioner was not, for a long period, particularly enviable. On admission he was required to relinquish any pension he might have gained in the service. Maimed men received onlytenpencea day, and a shilling a week, intended for tobacco and the humbler comforts of life. The Commissioners at one time stated that“the wives are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable.”From the Hospital they received only the broken meat of the hall and the rations of men on leave of absence. The wives were often reduced to the parish. No wonder the poor old veteran used to be so glad for a sixpence or even a“screw”of tobacco in return for his tough yarns!The system has been entirely changed. At present all are out-pensioners, and when in good health can follow other employments. On the 26th September, 1865, the Greenwich exodus commenced. On that day nearly 200 out of the 900 pensioners of Greenwich Hospital who had accepted the Admiralty offer of pension allowance, in conformity with an Act passed in the previous session of Parliament, left that establishment for the various parts of the country they had selected for their future home. Since that time the whole have left; and the institution which, only a few years ago, had upwards of 2,000 inmates, now contains only a few hundred sick and disabled. Greenwich Hospital is a changed institution, and the system of rewarding those who have spent their lives in the service of their country is made more consistent with humanity, morality, and common sense. Instead of hundreds of elderly but still hale and athletic veterans wandering listlessly about the terraces and colonnades of Greenwich, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes overstepping the bounds of sobriety in the numerous public-houses of the neighbourhood, there are but a limited number of indoor-pensioners, and those are such as may be fittingly provided for in a place bearing the name of a hospital. They are disabled seamen in the strict sense of the term—poor worn-out old fellows who require to be taken care of, and who have, perhaps, no one but the nation to take care of them. The blind, the doting, the crippled, find comfortable board and lodging, and, without doubt, attentive nursing in the national hospital. But, as there are constantly new applications for admission, it is probable that there will always be a few hundreds in the establishment. On the first and third Thursday in each month a board sits at Somerset House to consider the claims of applicants for admission, and those who are passed are sent in an omnibus to the hospital. But for the large body of men who, though too old to reef top-sails and to work guns, are not too old to do something for their own living, and to wish for liberty and domestic life, there is the allowance before mentioned from the funds of the hospital, and the power of living where and how they please.“What the average pension granted may be,”said a writer in theCornhill Magazine,“we have no means of knowing, but if some of the men have a larger sum than £36 10s., so also many of them will have much less, and will be unable to command in their homes the standard of living with which the Hospital supplied them. They elect to go, we take it, partly because they know the government of the place is to be changed, that it is to become a[pg 276]hospital in the narrower sense of the word, and that there will be less freedom of ingress and egress for them henceforth; but this is only part of a more general feeling in favour of liberty among them, at which nobody who has inquired into their condition can wonder. The authorities at Greenwich Hospital have contrived to make a palace as dull as a prison. The men have had no amusements but a library inconveniently furnished. They have not been allowed to have flower-pots in their windows, nor to receive friends and visitors in private; and it is not many years ago since they were forbidden to walk on the terraces. Some of the punishments, too—such as being compelled to wear a yellow collar and do scavengers’ work—have been harsh and injudicious. All these things have combined with the monastic character of the place to give a character ofennuiand listlessness to the Greenwich pensioner’s life, which must have struck every observing visitor. Dulness has been relieved within the walls chiefly by temptation without.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.“Since the age when Queen Mary pictured to herself Greenwich as a place of pious repose, where the sailor might end his days in the fear of God, it has become the favourite haunt of the pleasure-loving cockney—an emporium of shrimps, a reservoir of beer. Those quaint figures—the‘geese’and‘blue-bottles’of local slang—lounging about under the trees of the park, and loitering through the streets in the dress of another age, have been regarded by the holiday-maker from the metropolis as parts of the amusements of the place. They have been paid for yarns in drink and stray shillings, and have found the doctrine that sailors lived only for grog and tobacco accepted by their admirers as one of the glories of the British navy. It has been well remarked that, as a whole, the old fellows have been more decent in their lives than we had a right to expect under the[pg 277]peculiar circumstances. But a chapter might be written on Greenwich morality and its effects on the parish rates, which nobody would care to bind up with the naval histories of Brenton or James, but which would help to reconcile the reader to the break-up of an institution which has had much in it to kindle the imagination and justify the pride of our countrymen.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.“The break-up is, after all, one in which people will acquiesce rather than one at which they will rejoice. It was a noble as well as a pious idea to gather under the roofs of a grand edifice—at once a dwelling-place and a naval monument, and placed on the shores of a river itself one of the chief sources of our maritime strength—the survivors of each generation of warriors against the enemy or the storm. Here the traditions of one age blended gradually with the experience of the next; stories of Shovel were passed on to those who fought under[pg 278]Hawke; the conqueror with Rodney lived to welcome the heroes of Trafalgar—not as bedridden or imbecile men, though they might be somewhat shattered—but still able to enjoy life, and to give the vividness of reality to the narratives of the past. All phases of naval service were represented. One of the‘saucyArethusa’s’smoked his pipe with an oldAgamemnon, and men who had first smelt powder on the Canadian lakes listened reverently to the recollections of those who had seenL’Orientexplode in thunder at the Nile. Greenwich Hospital will always be a great and useful institution—a mighty boon, whether to the sick nursed within or to the poor pensioned without its walls.”Before leaving Greenwich we must certainly pay a visit to the Observatory, a building which has such intimate relations with the sea. The account which follows is that of M. Esquiros,82who particularly studied all our institutions connected with maritime interests:—“I entered,”says he,“a well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were covered with charts, engravings, photographic portraits of the moon, and Donati’s famous comet of 1858. Mr. [now Sir George] Airy, the Astronomer Royal, is a man who has grown grey in the study of the stars; his energetic features indicate the incessant activity of the strong intellect which for more than a quarter of a century has upheld the reputation of Greenwich Observatory. On his writing-table were heaped a quantity of papers covered with calculations, and a maze of letters as to a thousand matters of business. A large iron cupboard contains all the precious documents which will, no doubt, one day serve to trace out the scientific history of the nineteenth century. Here, for instance, are preserved the letters and authentic documents which are destined to modify certain received opinions as to the discovery of the planet Neptune. In this cupboard may also be found the records of bygone errors and chimerical ideas, which one wonders to find reappearing in this enlightened age.“It is difficult to believe that many amongst the English still confound astronomy with judicial astrology; but Mr. Airy preserves a very curious collection—letters that he has received from all classes of persons, asking what his terms are fordrawing a horoscope. Sometimes it is a young man wishing to know‘who will be his wife;’at others it is a lady, on the eve of embarking in the great business of life, who desires to consult the stars. Postage-stamps are occasionally sent with these missives, and he or she who consults the oracle promises to make known, if necessary, the true day and hour of their birth. The fact is, that a great many people can scarcely understand how the astronomers can contemplate the vault of heaven by day and night without endeavouring to trace out the secret of human destiny. Some years back a young lady dressed in good taste applied at the door of the Observatory; she felt interested in one of her near relations, a sailor in the Pacific Ocean, from whom no news had been received for several years. After she had had a few minutes’ conversation with one of the assistants, she went away bathed in tears, because the stars were not able to tell her if the object of her affections were still alive.”On the ground that Greenwich Park now occupies there once stood an ancient tower, built about the year 1440, by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and uncle to King Henry VI. In the time of Elizabeth it was calledMirefleur. In 1642 the name of Greenwich Castle was[pg 279]given to it. Sir James Moore and Sir Christopher Wren pointed out the site of this fortress to Charles II. as the best place for the construction of an observatory. The old feudal tower was therefore pulled down, and over its remains was raised an edifice dedicated to the contemplation of the stars.“The building was scarcely finished ere Flamsteed was installed in it, with the title of Astronomer Royal, and an emolument of £100 a year. He presided over the new establishment for more than half a century, and spent more than £2,000 of his own money. His works will always be looked upon in England as the starting point of modern astronomy. He may be deemed the founder of Greenwich observatory. His successors were Halley, Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss, and Dr. Nevil Maskelyn, the author of four volumes, of which it is said by Delampre,‘that if, in consequence of some great revolution every record of science had been lost, with the exception of this collection, in it would be found materials quite sufficient for building up again the science of modern astronomy.’Maskelyn was followed by John Pond, who died in 1835; his place is now supplied by Mr. Airy.“The Astronomer Royal is nominated by the First Lord of the Treasury, and performs his functions under the warrant of the great seal of state; his salary is fixed at £800 per annum. One of his principal duties is to preserve for Greenwich observatory that character which the founder himself wished to impress upon it. The Astronomer Royal is therefore bound by the express terms of his commission,‘to devote himself with the greatest care to correcting the tables of the celestial movements, and to determine the positions of the fixed stars, in order to furnish the long-desired means of discovering the longitude at sea, and of thus bringing to perfection the art of navigation.’It is also necessary that he should reside in the observatory, and devote all his time to the duties of his office, never absenting himself for any long period without having previously obtained the sanction of the Lords of the Admiralty.“Consulted as he is by various branches of the Government, he is able to render assistance to the public service by his advice and information, well assured that he himself can never be affected by any of the changes in official power, or by any of the results of political conflict. His residence has a garden attached to it, which is parted off from the grounds of the park, and well planted with fruit-trees. He has under his control eight assistants, and ordinarily six computers.“It is curious to see these computers in their two offices, one situated on the ground floor near the study of the Astronomer Royal, and the other isolated in one of the quietest parts of the observatory, all sedately occupied in reckoning up, from morning to night, dull columns of figures.“Before describing what Greenwich observatoryis, it would be better perhaps to state first what it isnot. It relinquishes to other inquirers the task of discovering spots in the sun and mountains in the moon. The observations of the assistants are not directed either to the figures of the planets or to the extraordinary movements of the double stars, revolving one round the other in the depths of the firmament, or the mysteries of the nebulæ. What a firmness of character, what a truly English strength of will have these observers shown, in voluntarily drawing a veil over some of the most splendid wonders of the heavens! At the time of John Pond, a telescope twenty feet in length had been erected in the establishment at great expense,[pg 280]but as it was a strong attraction to visitors, he caused the instrument to be dismantled. About the year 1847 Mr. Lerebours offered to Greenwich observatory the largest refracting telescope which had ever been constructed. The temptation was certainly a great one; it would have been flattering to the self-esteem of the institution to have possessed a wonder of this sort, unique as it was in the world. Mr. Airy need only to have said the word, and the Lords of the Admiralty would assuredly have made the purchase. But the Astronomer, on the contrary, held the present aloof with a determined hand. What was it that he feared? The perfidious influence of such a siren, which, by concentrating attention on the beauties of the heavens, would perhaps have turned away the attention of the assistants from their daily task, and have compromised the success of the Observatory.“An observation of the sun takes place at least once a week at mid-day, in the transit circle room, and a large portion of the staff of the establishment take a part in it; but it is at night that one can form the best idea of the mode in which the transit of the heavenly bodies over the meridian is duly verified.“The first observations made with the new transit circle date from 1851, and, from that time to the present they have never been discontinued. The assistant who is appointed, aided by this instrument to watch the state of the heavens, is on guard for twenty-four hours,i.e., from three in the morning until three a.m. the next day. Except under extraordinary circumstances, the same duties are never assigned to an assistant two days running. Having already worked some hours after sunset, he goes home to take his evening meal, and when he returns into the transit circle room it is quite night. The shutters, which, during the day shut in a part of the ceiling, are now unclosed, and by means of this aperture the whole sky seems thrown open to the room.“Having consulted his list, and adjusted his telescope, he commences his steady gaze. His intentness can only be compared to that of a sportsman, or still better to that of a pointer dog, only, instead of a partridge or a woodcock, he is eagerly waiting to see a star get up. There it is at last! It comes into view quick and sudden as a meteor. Scarcely has it entered into the telegraphic field of sight than it appears to approach rapidly some objects which look like a series of transverse iron bars placed at equal distances from each other. These, however, in reality, are nothing but threads of the thickness of a spider’s web, stretched according to a system in the interior of the telescope, and wonderfully magnified by the power of the lenses.“The assistants are all astronomers by profession, and their eyes have been well trained by continual practice. How, then, can it happen, that their observations do not always prove accordant one with another? There is a physiological mystery hidden in the fact which it would be interesting to penetrate. Each observer, although operating with the same instrument and guided by the same plan, perceives a celestial phenomenon—as, for instance, the transit of a star—either sooner or later than another does. This variation is attributed to the idiosyncrasy of the sense of sight in each individual, or to the more or less prompt manner in which the eye telegraphs its impression to the brain. It must, of course, be quite understood that no considerable inequalities of time are in question here; it is, at the most, some fraction of a second that I am alluding to; but the astronomical transit observations are of so delicate a nature, that the slightest errors would destroy their worth. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary to establish an average or standard, and each observer gets to know[pg 281]precisely how far his visual faculties vary from the ideal. Hence arises a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, which, however, is commonly asked among astronomers themselves—‘What is the value of your personal equation?’This inquiry is answered by a figure expressing the particular amount of deviation from the standard. The most singular thing is, that the value of the personal equation is different in the same individual as regards the various celestial bodies. Some can very quickly discern the phenomena of a fixed star who are much slower in perceiving those of the moon, andvice versâ. In order to obviate the inconvenience which might result from the variations in personal equations, they also have recourse to a very ingenious plan. An eye-piece with two tubes allows two assistants simultaneously to observe the passage of the same star over the same threads in the instrument;[pg 282]they both listen to the ticking of the clock marking the seconds, and separately calculate the results of their observations, which are afterwards compared. To obtain a greater degree of certitude, they occasionally exchange places. In this way the slightest chances of error are eliminated. The aberrations of the instrument must also be taken into account. Notwithstanding its excellence and the solidity with which it is fixed to stone walls sunk into the ground, it sometimes is affected by slight vibrations, which can only be attributed to theterra firmaon which it is constructed. Mr. Airy has noticed this same phenomenon at Cambridge, whence he has come to the conclusion‘that the surface of the earth, commonly regarded as the base of all solidity, is itself in movement.’THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.“‘I am going to show you the clock which sets the time for all England,’said the Astronomer Royal to me, as he conducted me into a little room occupying one of the oldest parts of the edifice. Covered with its simple mahogany case, thisMother clock, as it is called, is not unlike one of those venerable wooden-cased clocks that one meets with sometimes in the old English manor-houses. No one, however, could fail to discover that the mechanism in this time-keeper is new and uncommon. Its chief characteristic is that it possesses two distinct attributes. In the first place it marks the time most exactly; and, in the next, it communicates this power to other clocks as well. It has therefore been called theMother clock, because it animates in the Observatory eight of itsdaughters. Its dial is divided into three circles, one of which marks the hours, another the minutes, and a third the seconds. One hand only moves round each of these dials, and thus points out the generally-accepted measures of time.“The Observatory transmits signals every hour to the telegraph-office in Lothbury, in the City of London, whence, by a network of galvanic wires, the knowledge of the true time is spread along the lines of railway to the extremities of Great Britain. This vast Æolian harp covers thus with its chords nearly the whole surface of the British Isles, and vibrates in unison with one prime mover.“As regards the true time, these telegraphic wires have a double mission. The current leaving Greenwich transmits the signal given by the clock at the Observatory, and what is called a return current then communicates the errors of the other clock on which theMotherhas just acted.‘I would never undertake to regulate a clock from which I did not get regular replies,’said the Astronomer Royal; and just as we were passing in front of a galvanic apparatus,‘Stop!’he added,‘the great clock at Westminster is at this very moment giving me an account of itself; it goes well, and is only the twentieth part of a second slow. Twice a day in this way it keeps me informed of the state of its health.’”Below Greenwich one of the saddest catastrophes of the century occurred in 1879, one which has its lessons for all who voyage. We refer to the loss of thePrincess Alice. A pleasure steamer, one of the largest and best known of the London Steam-packet Company, with some 700 happy merrymakers, a large proportion of whom were children, left London Bridge on Tuesday morning, September 3rd, 1878, for Gravesend and Sheerness, and everything, even the temper of our uncertain climate,[pg 283]combined to make the day one of real and innocent pleasure. How true is it that danger is never so near as when we deem it farthest off. It was eight o’clock in the evening when thePrincess Alicehove in sight off Woolwich Arsenal, with her living freight of gladsome excursionists. The song that comes when toil ceases, the careless laugh and harmless jest were going round; eager eyes watched the dim lights of home glinting through the purple September twilight, and no whispered thought of peril dulled the harmony of the day, when a large steam collier, theBywell Castle, loomed darkly in the gloom.Those who feared the least and knew the most from experience were the first to see the danger—the danger that, in the time, no human skill or ingenuity could avert. ThePrincess Alice, steaming on at good speed, had attained an impetus, and, together with the adverse tide and confined space, defeated the ready efforts of the commanders of both vessels, and the collision came. There was no time to think—no time to act; there was a fearful cracking and tearing, during which it seemed that theBywell Castlewould walk right through the ill-fated pleasure-boat, and in that dread and awe-inspiring moment the startled eye saw its fate, and the happy heart was stilled in horror. Only five minutes from the time the vessels struck, and all that was then thePrincess Alicelay cradled in the mud at the bottom of the Thames.Save for the few who clambered on to theBywell Castle, and the proportionately fewer who could swim ashore, the entire human freight was hurled into the black and fœtid river, or carried down in the cabins and saloon of the submerged sepulchre. How terribly was this proved when the wreck was raised! The unfortunate passengers were found packed together at the foot of the companion ladders with no time to move hand or foot, with no air to breathe, stifled where they stood.COLLISION OF THE BYWELL CASTLE AND THE PRINCESS ALICE.COLLISION OF THEBYWELL CASTLEAND THEPRINCESS ALICE.Collisions amongst iron ships have been so painfully frequent of late years that it is impossible to conjecture what may be the result of this wholesale loss of life in the future. It is doubtful, however, whether any previous accident ever equalled in its harrowing results the loss of thePrincess Alice. Excepting the fatal accident to theGrosser Kurfürst, the running down of theNorthfleetoff Dungeness by the Spanish steamerMurillo, comes next in horror to the cutting in two of thePrincess Alice. This terrible affair, and the heartless conduct of the commander of the Spanish steamer, will make the night of the 22nd of January, 1873, ever memorable in the dark annals of the sea; 293 persons went down with the ill-fated passenger ship. A sad case was that of theLady Elgin, run into by a schooner on Lake Michigan on September 8th, 1860. TheLady Elginwas an excursion steamer with 400 souls on board; she sank within fifteen minutes of the collision and with the loss of 287 people. Then, again, in 1854, in this fatal month of September, on the 27th, theArctic, a ship of the Collins line, came into collision with the screw steamerVestain a fog. This time the scene of the tragic disaster was the coast of Newfoundland; out of a list of 368 all told, 323 were lost, among whom were the Duc de Grammont and the Duc de Guynes. In the same year we have to record the loss of theCity of Glasgowwith 480 persons on board; and theLady Nugent, a British transport, which carried reinforcements for the army at Rangoon; the total loss in this case was 400. Neither of these ships was ever heard of after leaving port; a fate as terrible and mysterious as that[pg 285]which befell theCity of Bostonand thePacific, the former of which left Liverpool on the 23rd of January, 1856, with 186; while theCity of Bostonhad 191 persons on board when she sailed from Halifax, N.S., on January 26, 1870. Who amongst the living does not remember that black-letter day when news arrived in England of the capsizing of theCaptainoff Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870, with Captain Burgoyne and a complement of 500 all told, which remains the greatest calamity that has yet befallen the British Navy.The army, however, suffered a loss nearly as appalling in the foundering of theBirkenheadoff the Cape of Good Hope, where a contingent, made up from the 12th Lancers, 23rd and 92nd Foot, helped to make up the 438 lives destroyed on that occasion, February 26, 1852. Nor were the greatest horrors entirely occasioned by the unruly elements and the sometimes pitiless sea, for added to these ever-impending dangers was the incombatable enemy—fire. The most heart-rending on record of these marine conflagrations was that which destroyed the S.S.Austriaon its way from Hamburg to New York, U.S., on September 23, 1858. By this fire, out of 528 passengers and crew, 461 were either burnt to death or drowned; how many met the more horrible death of burning can never be known, nor is it well for the mind to dwell upon the painful subject. Going back a little farther we find the record of the burning of theOcean Monarchin Abergele Bay, August 24, 1848, with loss of 178 lives. Then we have the S.S.London, which went down in the Bay of Biscay on January 11, 1866, carrying down with her to a watery grave 239 out of a complement of 258. The wrecks of theAtlanticand theRoyal Charterare conspicuous in the black list: the latter, an Australian clipper ship, was smashed to pieces on the coast of Anglesea on October 26, 1859, when, while some forty people or so managed to get on shore, 459 of men, women, and children, were added to the ocean sepulchre. TheAtlantic, of the White Star Line, struck on a sunken rock off Nova Scotia, April 1, 1873, and 481 out of 931 were lost. TheAnnie Jane, of Liverpool, swells the death-roll by 393, by being driven on shore at Barra Island, one of the Hebrides, on September 29, 1853; while thePomona, another emigrant ship, through carelessness in the reckoning, went ashore on the Wexford coast on April 28, 1859, losing 386 lives. And this sad list only represents the more prominent cases which occurred during thirty years.Although the chief outward and visible sign of usefulness of the Seamen’s Hospital Society exists no longer on the Thames, many of our readers knew the oldDreadnoughtwell. She was the largest floating hospital in the world, and no other ship housed so cosmopolitan a crew as could be found among her 200 patients. Dysentery, scurvy, hepatic diseases in most varieties, and typhoid, were among the medical specialities to be seen on board, and it is probable that Budd gained much of his experience of enteric fever from this ship, which received annually from sixty to seventy cases of the disease. The surgical practice was equally useful, and we believe that the first resection (that of the shoulder) in London was performed by Busk on theDreadnought. A large number of men, now teaching in our schools, gleaned useful knowledge here, and (an important matter in surgery) learnt how to do little things well. Although in maintaining a necessary and constant communication with the shore, there were the usual perils of water, including a strong current, a crowded stream, ice, &c., no person engaged directly or indirectly in the business of the ship[pg 286]was ever drowned during the half century that she and her predecessors were moored off Greenwich. The late Dr. Rooke, one of the ablest and kindest of theDreadnought’sofficers, nobly earned the Humane Society’s medal by saving a boy who fell off a barge close at hand; three patients jumped overboard at different times, in a state of delirium, but all were rescued and recovered. There were convivial gatherings now and again in the snug recess of the admiral’s cabin, used as a mess room by the medical staff. TheDreadnoughtsuffered many blows from without, and was run into seriously on several occasions. But the old ship stood it all, and was missed by the bargemen, who made a cushion of her wherewith to cannon off to the opposite shore. There can be no doubt that the managing committee of the Seamen’s Hospital Society acted wisely in removing their clients to a home on shore, so that we need not say altogether regretfully, although truly,“Take her all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.”Of all the hospitals there is none so interesting as a sailor’s, and that at Greenwich, which represents the oldDreadnoughtfloating hospital, is particularly so. It is here Jack ashore is seen at his best, and his best is very good indeed as a general thing, especially when all the good qualities are developed as they are when he settles down to enjoy the autumn calm of his life, which generally begins in the hospital. Not only are there seamen from every clime, and every creed, too, here, but one ward is occupied by a few old naval pensioners. In this ward the first thing that attracts the eye, and is placed prominently over the fire-place, is Dibdin’s simple legend of the“Sweet little cherub that sits up aloft.”Every inmate of this ward could tell his interesting yarn of personal experiences of the Battle and the Breeze. One old fellow is both blind and deaf, and still happy and contented under the sympathetic care of an ancient cherub, who has sailed through three-quarters of a century of life’s uncertain tide. Why the blind tar should be called“the nightingale”has not been clearly stated, though the fact remains the same, and may possibly refer to great vocal powers. His messmate has been through enough battles to fill a volume; while another, an octogenarian marine, speaks with pride of the part he took in theChesapeakeaffair, which was beaten and capturedthirteen minutesafter the first gun was fired by the weather-beatenShannon.“You see,”he is wont to say, as he straightens himself,“by my military cut that I’m not a regular tar, though I’ve been in as many cutting-out parties as any a’most, and had the grape and canister pelting round me like hailstones, pretty nigh as often as I remembers feeling real hailstones. But I remembers best when the king—God bless him!—sent out thirty barrels of porter, that me and the rest of us might drink his majesty’s health in; that was in the time of the war with Ameriky, and good times they was too,”a little bit of individual opinion that no one would dream of controverting here. Next come we to another pensioner, who sits over the fire hugging his feeble knees, and who is just in the last year of his ninth decade.Hetells you of the part he took in 1805, in the capture of two French frigates, and some of the latent fire returns as he speaks of it; for it was a fight that lasted three days and nights before victory was fairly ours.Take the wardsen masse, and we see peering out of the medley the delicate sallow skin and long black hair of the Greek, who is estimated by every British commander at seventy-five per cent. below the English tar in hauling power and endurance, while the South Sea Islander, the Scandinavian, the dusky Turk, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, Spaniards,[pg 287]Americans, Chinamen, are here side by side with the hardy sons of our own isles. In one corridor there is even a Fantee, with the mark of his tribe upon his ebon-hued forehead, but minus feet, having lost them through their being frost-bitten in the Black Sea. Another and more painful case is that of a poor fellow wrecked off Cape Horn, who, drifting for fourteen days in an open boat, reached shore only to find that he must purchase life at the cost of both nether limbs. The surgical operator was an unskilled sailor, the instrument a rough ship’s knife, with which he succeeded in performing successfully the dangerous operation, but with what torture to the sufferer can too vividly be imagined. He is cheerful enough now as he potters about on his stumps, full of dry humour and as cheerful as any able-bodied man could be. The light occupations of these disabled sons of the sea are varied and congenial to their different tastes, and their labour is chiefly confined to decorating the wards of the hospital. Amongst the many inscriptions are a beautiful white wreath with“Albert the Good”on it, and Nelson’s famous last signal. One German sailor lad has entirely decorated one ward with a taste and elegance simply surprising. This boy is an original, seeing that he went all the way to Jerusalem to learn English!“In Hamburg, his native place, he heard other boys, and occasionally travellers, say that there was a good school there where English was taught. Thereupon, seizing his opportunity, he worked his passage from Hamburg to Alexandria, took ship to Jaffa, and induced the German Consul to forward him to the Holy City.”Evidently he did not think there was anything remarkable in this singular method of acquiring our language!83The Thames Church Mission is a society established to minister to the spiritual necessities of the vast fluctuating population of the Thames, consisting of seamen, bargemen, steamboat-men, fishermen, &c. Services are held on board troop, emigrant, and passenger ships, screw colliers, and every description of vessels; also in the mission and reading-room which has been opened for seamen, &c., by the bank of the river at Bugsby, near East Greenwich. Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books are sold at reduced prices, and tracts distributed. A chaplain (licensed by the Bishop of London to visit ministerially and officiate on board all ships and vessels on the Thames), four missionaries, and five seamen colporteurs, constitute the missionary staff. The Mission undertakes the sale of Scriptures to English and foreign seamen, and gives Testaments to emigrants on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society; it places on board emigrant ships packets of tracts, and distributes the cards and circulars of the Sailor’s Home among seamen arriving in the Thames. The field of operation extends from London Bridge to the anchorages below Gravesend. The chaplain also holds Sabbath services on board the training shipsArethusa,Chichester, andCornwall, and has weekly classes with the boys; and the missionaries act as honorary agents for enrolling members of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. There are many other excellent institutions for the seamen’s benefit, from London city to Gravesend town, but which cannot be described with the space at our command.Every reader knows the Trinity House, but he may not be aware of its value to the seaman, the voyager, and the interests of commerce. The Trinity House, as it stands on Tower Hill, was built towards the end of the last century by Samuel Wyatt. It is of the Ionic order, and has some busts of naval heroes, whose deeds, like themselves, are of the past.[pg 288]Amongst its many interesting pictures is a very large Gainsborough, representing the Trinity Board of that day. This picture, by the way, is upwards of twenty feet in length, and, if merit go by measurement, is necessarily a very great picture. The Board of Trinity House has control of the beaconage and pilotage of the United Kingdom. The Corporation existed fully one hundred years before its original charter, which was granted in 1514, and was at that early date known simply as the“Shipmen and Mariners of England”—a voluntary and influential association of some standing, and at that time protected maritime interests and gave substantial relief to the aged and indigent of the seafaring community.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.Henry VIII. was the first king who granted it a Royal Charter, in 1514, in recognition of its well-tried merit. In this charter it is described as the“Guild or Fraternity of the most glorious and undividable Trinity of St. Clement.”The Charter of James I. and all subsequent charters are granted to“The Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity of St. Clement, in the parish of Deptford, in the county of Kent.”The motto of the Corporation isTrinitas in unitate. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House are not always exempt from undertaking stern and unpleasant duties afloat, as was instanced in that terrible time of trial—the mutiny of the Nore, in 1799, when they destroyed or removed every beacon and buoy that could guide the mutinous[pg 289]fleet out to sea. Its culminating recognition was by an Act of Parliament in 1836. The honorary members of this Court are men of distinction, including some of the members of the Royal Family. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh became its Master in 1866. The duties of the Corporation are described in their charter as follows:—“To treat and conclude upon all and singular articles anywise concerning the science or art of marines; to maintain in perfect working order all the lighthouses, floating-lights, and fog-signal stations on the coast of England, and to lay down, maintain, renew, and modify all the buoys, beacons, and sea-signals; to regulate the supply of stores, the appointment of keepers, and constantly to inspect the stations; to examine and license pilots for a large portion of our coasts, and to investigate generally into all matters of pilotage; to act as nautical advisers with the judge of the High Court of Admiralty: to survey and inspect the channels of the Thames and the shoals of the North Sea, and other points of the coast at which shifting, scouring, growth, or waste of sand may affect the navigation, and require to be watched and notified; to supply shipping in the Thames with ballast. The Elder Brethren have also to perform the duty of accompanying the Sovereign on sea voyages.”The light-vessels of the Corporation are nearly fifty in number, while there are more than eighty lighthouses. The buoys on our coasts must not be omitted. The number in position can scarcely be approximated, while in addition—in case of casualties—there must be kept in reserve fully one-half the number in position. There are also some sixty odd beacons of different kinds. The working staff of the Trinity House is composed of district superintendents, buoy-keepers, store-keepers, local agents, lighthouse-keepers, crews of floating-lights, watchmen, fog-signal attendants,84crews of steam and sailing vessels, altogether making a total of nearly a thousand men.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.In 1837 the Duke of Wellington was Master of the Trinity House; in 1852 Prince Albert held that office, and Viscount Palmerston in 1862. Then came (1866), as already mentioned, the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Prince of Wales headed the list of a long roll of Brethren, to say nothing of the numerous dukes and earls who have gladly accepted the same honour. The Trinity House Corporation has successfully withstood several most searching Parliamentary investigations, only to come out with triumphantly flying colours, which added to the confidence generally reposed in it.

CHAPTER XXV.The Haven at Last—Home in the Thames.The“Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—The Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of thePrincess Alice—The OldDreadnought—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light-vessels—Its Masters.“Let the Rhine be blue and brightIn its path of liquid light,Where the red grapes fling a beamOf glory on the stream;Let the gorgeous beauty thereMingle all that’s rich and fair;Yet to me it ne’er could beLike that river great and free,The Thames! the mighty Thames!”The poet’s enthusiasm may be pardoned, for, although there are scores of rivers, considered only as such alone, that outvie the Thames, regarding it in its relation to the sea—aye, to the whole world—it stands pre-eminent and alone. To the sailor the Thames and the Mersey have an interest and importance which belong to the streams of no other country.The reader has, in spirit, voyaged with poor Jack to the farthest corners of the earth; he has seen much of his life of peril and heroism; he has noted that the hardships he endures are often unrequited, and that, after a long career of usefulness and bravery, he may lie on the shore“a sheer hulk,”valueless to himself, possibly to die and rot in poverty and distress. The charge of special improvidence cannot nowadays be hurled at the sailor, as it might have been in days of old. Even Jack’s improvidence was more excusable than the same fault in any other class whatever. The fact is—as such valuable institutions as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society have proved—that there was a great desire on the part of seamen to help themselves. The fortieth annual report of the Society (1879) states that[pg 273]48,000 mariners subscribe to the benefit fund organised under its auspices.80The history of this excellent association, which has now an income of nearly £29,000, is interesting.“A worthy, philanthropic medical man, Mr. John Rye, of Bath, had a servant who had formerly been a sailor, and was in the habit of reading the newspapers to his master. One morning their attention was arrested by an account of some fearful wrecks of fishing boats, with loss of life, on the north coast of Devon. The servant asked his master if there was any fund out of which help could be obtained to relieve the families of those men. The master replied that he supposed there was, but he would make inquiries from Admiral Sir Jahleen Brenton, then Governor of Greenwich Hospital; and from him he found that there was none. They then together drew up a prospectus, and presented it to the late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Cockburn, who most heartily took the matter up, and after circulating the appeal widely, called a public meeting in February, 1839, at which Sir George was appointed President, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed themselves into a committee, of which the worthy Chairman, Captain the Hon. Francis Maude, R.N., is now the sole survivor. The following month Her Majesty the Queen graciously consented to be the Patron of the Society; and so prosperous was the infant[pg 274]institution, that at the second anniversary, at which the late Sir Robert Peel consented to preside, the sum of £1,100 was collected. The Committee next set about to obtain the services of gentlemen to act as honorary agents, of whom there are now upwards of 1,000; and whose duties are to board, lodge, clothe, and forward to their homes all shipwrecked persons. The Committee meet every Friday in London to relieve the widows and orphans of the lost, not only at the time of their death, but by small annual payments. There were thus 9,601 persons relieved in 1879.”81THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.Sooth to say, and in strict justice, we must not forget how much has been done for the seaman on the banks of old Father Thames, both by Government and private liberality. An excellent home, the“Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen’s Institution”exists at Belvedere, in Kent, started under the auspices of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. This institution was inaugurated, with room for the reception of 400 persons of all grades of the mercantile marine, although nothing like that number has been as yet accommodated at any one time. The Society also grants out-pensions to those who have homes or friends.The most singular and characteristic and yet appropriate features of the building are a number of little cabins comfortably fitted, and so much like the real thing, that it requires only a very slight stretch of the imagination for Jack ashore to indulge in the fond delusion that he is at sea again. The large rooms are divided into wards, one for masters and mates, containing ten cabins, each six feet by seven feet, and perfect ventilation is secured by the partitions being open at the top. Each man, by this excellent arrangement, has his little cabin to himself, and all the sweetness of retirement should he be that way inclined. What a contrast is this to the ungainly, unhomely, and barren shelters of our Unions!It speaks well for the profession that most of the inmates have seen over forty or fifty years of service, which, judging from what we know of service in the maritime navy, might decidedly be called active. On being interrogated by a visitor, some of these veterans proved having most successfully braved the dangers of the deep.“How often have you been wrecked?”inquired the interviewer of our“ancient mariner.”“Why, let me see, sir”—then, counting half audibly—“one, two, three, four, five times, I think, sir.”The second, on being questioned, answered, simply,“Once in 1825, sir—going to Hamburg that was; and once in 1828, on the coast of Norway; and again on the coast of Java in ’42.”This man had also done some memorable deeds on shore, which fully made up for his being short by“two”wrecks of the other.Greenwich Hospital next demands our attention, as once the great home and asylum for the seamen of the navy, although now a hospital only. It was founded in the year 1694, in memory of Queen Mary, who had long designed the foundation of such an institution. It was also built as a monument of the great victory of La Hogue. Sir Christopher Wren furnished the designs and plans for the edifice gratuitously—a noble gift from a professional architect, and valuable to boot. The object of the foundation was“to encourage the seamen of this[pg 275]kingdom to continue the industry and skilfulness of their employments, by which they had for a long time distinguished themselves throughout the world;”“to encourage them to continue also their ancient reputation for the courage and constancy manifested in engagements for the defence and honour of their native country;”“to invite greater numbers of his Majesty’s subjects to betake themselves to the sea;”and so forth. In sooth, the condition of the Greenwich pensioner was not, for a long period, particularly enviable. On admission he was required to relinquish any pension he might have gained in the service. Maimed men received onlytenpencea day, and a shilling a week, intended for tobacco and the humbler comforts of life. The Commissioners at one time stated that“the wives are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable.”From the Hospital they received only the broken meat of the hall and the rations of men on leave of absence. The wives were often reduced to the parish. No wonder the poor old veteran used to be so glad for a sixpence or even a“screw”of tobacco in return for his tough yarns!The system has been entirely changed. At present all are out-pensioners, and when in good health can follow other employments. On the 26th September, 1865, the Greenwich exodus commenced. On that day nearly 200 out of the 900 pensioners of Greenwich Hospital who had accepted the Admiralty offer of pension allowance, in conformity with an Act passed in the previous session of Parliament, left that establishment for the various parts of the country they had selected for their future home. Since that time the whole have left; and the institution which, only a few years ago, had upwards of 2,000 inmates, now contains only a few hundred sick and disabled. Greenwich Hospital is a changed institution, and the system of rewarding those who have spent their lives in the service of their country is made more consistent with humanity, morality, and common sense. Instead of hundreds of elderly but still hale and athletic veterans wandering listlessly about the terraces and colonnades of Greenwich, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes overstepping the bounds of sobriety in the numerous public-houses of the neighbourhood, there are but a limited number of indoor-pensioners, and those are such as may be fittingly provided for in a place bearing the name of a hospital. They are disabled seamen in the strict sense of the term—poor worn-out old fellows who require to be taken care of, and who have, perhaps, no one but the nation to take care of them. The blind, the doting, the crippled, find comfortable board and lodging, and, without doubt, attentive nursing in the national hospital. But, as there are constantly new applications for admission, it is probable that there will always be a few hundreds in the establishment. On the first and third Thursday in each month a board sits at Somerset House to consider the claims of applicants for admission, and those who are passed are sent in an omnibus to the hospital. But for the large body of men who, though too old to reef top-sails and to work guns, are not too old to do something for their own living, and to wish for liberty and domestic life, there is the allowance before mentioned from the funds of the hospital, and the power of living where and how they please.“What the average pension granted may be,”said a writer in theCornhill Magazine,“we have no means of knowing, but if some of the men have a larger sum than £36 10s., so also many of them will have much less, and will be unable to command in their homes the standard of living with which the Hospital supplied them. They elect to go, we take it, partly because they know the government of the place is to be changed, that it is to become a[pg 276]hospital in the narrower sense of the word, and that there will be less freedom of ingress and egress for them henceforth; but this is only part of a more general feeling in favour of liberty among them, at which nobody who has inquired into their condition can wonder. The authorities at Greenwich Hospital have contrived to make a palace as dull as a prison. The men have had no amusements but a library inconveniently furnished. They have not been allowed to have flower-pots in their windows, nor to receive friends and visitors in private; and it is not many years ago since they were forbidden to walk on the terraces. Some of the punishments, too—such as being compelled to wear a yellow collar and do scavengers’ work—have been harsh and injudicious. All these things have combined with the monastic character of the place to give a character ofennuiand listlessness to the Greenwich pensioner’s life, which must have struck every observing visitor. Dulness has been relieved within the walls chiefly by temptation without.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.“Since the age when Queen Mary pictured to herself Greenwich as a place of pious repose, where the sailor might end his days in the fear of God, it has become the favourite haunt of the pleasure-loving cockney—an emporium of shrimps, a reservoir of beer. Those quaint figures—the‘geese’and‘blue-bottles’of local slang—lounging about under the trees of the park, and loitering through the streets in the dress of another age, have been regarded by the holiday-maker from the metropolis as parts of the amusements of the place. They have been paid for yarns in drink and stray shillings, and have found the doctrine that sailors lived only for grog and tobacco accepted by their admirers as one of the glories of the British navy. It has been well remarked that, as a whole, the old fellows have been more decent in their lives than we had a right to expect under the[pg 277]peculiar circumstances. But a chapter might be written on Greenwich morality and its effects on the parish rates, which nobody would care to bind up with the naval histories of Brenton or James, but which would help to reconcile the reader to the break-up of an institution which has had much in it to kindle the imagination and justify the pride of our countrymen.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.“The break-up is, after all, one in which people will acquiesce rather than one at which they will rejoice. It was a noble as well as a pious idea to gather under the roofs of a grand edifice—at once a dwelling-place and a naval monument, and placed on the shores of a river itself one of the chief sources of our maritime strength—the survivors of each generation of warriors against the enemy or the storm. Here the traditions of one age blended gradually with the experience of the next; stories of Shovel were passed on to those who fought under[pg 278]Hawke; the conqueror with Rodney lived to welcome the heroes of Trafalgar—not as bedridden or imbecile men, though they might be somewhat shattered—but still able to enjoy life, and to give the vividness of reality to the narratives of the past. All phases of naval service were represented. One of the‘saucyArethusa’s’smoked his pipe with an oldAgamemnon, and men who had first smelt powder on the Canadian lakes listened reverently to the recollections of those who had seenL’Orientexplode in thunder at the Nile. Greenwich Hospital will always be a great and useful institution—a mighty boon, whether to the sick nursed within or to the poor pensioned without its walls.”Before leaving Greenwich we must certainly pay a visit to the Observatory, a building which has such intimate relations with the sea. The account which follows is that of M. Esquiros,82who particularly studied all our institutions connected with maritime interests:—“I entered,”says he,“a well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were covered with charts, engravings, photographic portraits of the moon, and Donati’s famous comet of 1858. Mr. [now Sir George] Airy, the Astronomer Royal, is a man who has grown grey in the study of the stars; his energetic features indicate the incessant activity of the strong intellect which for more than a quarter of a century has upheld the reputation of Greenwich Observatory. On his writing-table were heaped a quantity of papers covered with calculations, and a maze of letters as to a thousand matters of business. A large iron cupboard contains all the precious documents which will, no doubt, one day serve to trace out the scientific history of the nineteenth century. Here, for instance, are preserved the letters and authentic documents which are destined to modify certain received opinions as to the discovery of the planet Neptune. In this cupboard may also be found the records of bygone errors and chimerical ideas, which one wonders to find reappearing in this enlightened age.“It is difficult to believe that many amongst the English still confound astronomy with judicial astrology; but Mr. Airy preserves a very curious collection—letters that he has received from all classes of persons, asking what his terms are fordrawing a horoscope. Sometimes it is a young man wishing to know‘who will be his wife;’at others it is a lady, on the eve of embarking in the great business of life, who desires to consult the stars. Postage-stamps are occasionally sent with these missives, and he or she who consults the oracle promises to make known, if necessary, the true day and hour of their birth. The fact is, that a great many people can scarcely understand how the astronomers can contemplate the vault of heaven by day and night without endeavouring to trace out the secret of human destiny. Some years back a young lady dressed in good taste applied at the door of the Observatory; she felt interested in one of her near relations, a sailor in the Pacific Ocean, from whom no news had been received for several years. After she had had a few minutes’ conversation with one of the assistants, she went away bathed in tears, because the stars were not able to tell her if the object of her affections were still alive.”On the ground that Greenwich Park now occupies there once stood an ancient tower, built about the year 1440, by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and uncle to King Henry VI. In the time of Elizabeth it was calledMirefleur. In 1642 the name of Greenwich Castle was[pg 279]given to it. Sir James Moore and Sir Christopher Wren pointed out the site of this fortress to Charles II. as the best place for the construction of an observatory. The old feudal tower was therefore pulled down, and over its remains was raised an edifice dedicated to the contemplation of the stars.“The building was scarcely finished ere Flamsteed was installed in it, with the title of Astronomer Royal, and an emolument of £100 a year. He presided over the new establishment for more than half a century, and spent more than £2,000 of his own money. His works will always be looked upon in England as the starting point of modern astronomy. He may be deemed the founder of Greenwich observatory. His successors were Halley, Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss, and Dr. Nevil Maskelyn, the author of four volumes, of which it is said by Delampre,‘that if, in consequence of some great revolution every record of science had been lost, with the exception of this collection, in it would be found materials quite sufficient for building up again the science of modern astronomy.’Maskelyn was followed by John Pond, who died in 1835; his place is now supplied by Mr. Airy.“The Astronomer Royal is nominated by the First Lord of the Treasury, and performs his functions under the warrant of the great seal of state; his salary is fixed at £800 per annum. One of his principal duties is to preserve for Greenwich observatory that character which the founder himself wished to impress upon it. The Astronomer Royal is therefore bound by the express terms of his commission,‘to devote himself with the greatest care to correcting the tables of the celestial movements, and to determine the positions of the fixed stars, in order to furnish the long-desired means of discovering the longitude at sea, and of thus bringing to perfection the art of navigation.’It is also necessary that he should reside in the observatory, and devote all his time to the duties of his office, never absenting himself for any long period without having previously obtained the sanction of the Lords of the Admiralty.“Consulted as he is by various branches of the Government, he is able to render assistance to the public service by his advice and information, well assured that he himself can never be affected by any of the changes in official power, or by any of the results of political conflict. His residence has a garden attached to it, which is parted off from the grounds of the park, and well planted with fruit-trees. He has under his control eight assistants, and ordinarily six computers.“It is curious to see these computers in their two offices, one situated on the ground floor near the study of the Astronomer Royal, and the other isolated in one of the quietest parts of the observatory, all sedately occupied in reckoning up, from morning to night, dull columns of figures.“Before describing what Greenwich observatoryis, it would be better perhaps to state first what it isnot. It relinquishes to other inquirers the task of discovering spots in the sun and mountains in the moon. The observations of the assistants are not directed either to the figures of the planets or to the extraordinary movements of the double stars, revolving one round the other in the depths of the firmament, or the mysteries of the nebulæ. What a firmness of character, what a truly English strength of will have these observers shown, in voluntarily drawing a veil over some of the most splendid wonders of the heavens! At the time of John Pond, a telescope twenty feet in length had been erected in the establishment at great expense,[pg 280]but as it was a strong attraction to visitors, he caused the instrument to be dismantled. About the year 1847 Mr. Lerebours offered to Greenwich observatory the largest refracting telescope which had ever been constructed. The temptation was certainly a great one; it would have been flattering to the self-esteem of the institution to have possessed a wonder of this sort, unique as it was in the world. Mr. Airy need only to have said the word, and the Lords of the Admiralty would assuredly have made the purchase. But the Astronomer, on the contrary, held the present aloof with a determined hand. What was it that he feared? The perfidious influence of such a siren, which, by concentrating attention on the beauties of the heavens, would perhaps have turned away the attention of the assistants from their daily task, and have compromised the success of the Observatory.“An observation of the sun takes place at least once a week at mid-day, in the transit circle room, and a large portion of the staff of the establishment take a part in it; but it is at night that one can form the best idea of the mode in which the transit of the heavenly bodies over the meridian is duly verified.“The first observations made with the new transit circle date from 1851, and, from that time to the present they have never been discontinued. The assistant who is appointed, aided by this instrument to watch the state of the heavens, is on guard for twenty-four hours,i.e., from three in the morning until three a.m. the next day. Except under extraordinary circumstances, the same duties are never assigned to an assistant two days running. Having already worked some hours after sunset, he goes home to take his evening meal, and when he returns into the transit circle room it is quite night. The shutters, which, during the day shut in a part of the ceiling, are now unclosed, and by means of this aperture the whole sky seems thrown open to the room.“Having consulted his list, and adjusted his telescope, he commences his steady gaze. His intentness can only be compared to that of a sportsman, or still better to that of a pointer dog, only, instead of a partridge or a woodcock, he is eagerly waiting to see a star get up. There it is at last! It comes into view quick and sudden as a meteor. Scarcely has it entered into the telegraphic field of sight than it appears to approach rapidly some objects which look like a series of transverse iron bars placed at equal distances from each other. These, however, in reality, are nothing but threads of the thickness of a spider’s web, stretched according to a system in the interior of the telescope, and wonderfully magnified by the power of the lenses.“The assistants are all astronomers by profession, and their eyes have been well trained by continual practice. How, then, can it happen, that their observations do not always prove accordant one with another? There is a physiological mystery hidden in the fact which it would be interesting to penetrate. Each observer, although operating with the same instrument and guided by the same plan, perceives a celestial phenomenon—as, for instance, the transit of a star—either sooner or later than another does. This variation is attributed to the idiosyncrasy of the sense of sight in each individual, or to the more or less prompt manner in which the eye telegraphs its impression to the brain. It must, of course, be quite understood that no considerable inequalities of time are in question here; it is, at the most, some fraction of a second that I am alluding to; but the astronomical transit observations are of so delicate a nature, that the slightest errors would destroy their worth. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary to establish an average or standard, and each observer gets to know[pg 281]precisely how far his visual faculties vary from the ideal. Hence arises a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, which, however, is commonly asked among astronomers themselves—‘What is the value of your personal equation?’This inquiry is answered by a figure expressing the particular amount of deviation from the standard. The most singular thing is, that the value of the personal equation is different in the same individual as regards the various celestial bodies. Some can very quickly discern the phenomena of a fixed star who are much slower in perceiving those of the moon, andvice versâ. In order to obviate the inconvenience which might result from the variations in personal equations, they also have recourse to a very ingenious plan. An eye-piece with two tubes allows two assistants simultaneously to observe the passage of the same star over the same threads in the instrument;[pg 282]they both listen to the ticking of the clock marking the seconds, and separately calculate the results of their observations, which are afterwards compared. To obtain a greater degree of certitude, they occasionally exchange places. In this way the slightest chances of error are eliminated. The aberrations of the instrument must also be taken into account. Notwithstanding its excellence and the solidity with which it is fixed to stone walls sunk into the ground, it sometimes is affected by slight vibrations, which can only be attributed to theterra firmaon which it is constructed. Mr. Airy has noticed this same phenomenon at Cambridge, whence he has come to the conclusion‘that the surface of the earth, commonly regarded as the base of all solidity, is itself in movement.’THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.“‘I am going to show you the clock which sets the time for all England,’said the Astronomer Royal to me, as he conducted me into a little room occupying one of the oldest parts of the edifice. Covered with its simple mahogany case, thisMother clock, as it is called, is not unlike one of those venerable wooden-cased clocks that one meets with sometimes in the old English manor-houses. No one, however, could fail to discover that the mechanism in this time-keeper is new and uncommon. Its chief characteristic is that it possesses two distinct attributes. In the first place it marks the time most exactly; and, in the next, it communicates this power to other clocks as well. It has therefore been called theMother clock, because it animates in the Observatory eight of itsdaughters. Its dial is divided into three circles, one of which marks the hours, another the minutes, and a third the seconds. One hand only moves round each of these dials, and thus points out the generally-accepted measures of time.“The Observatory transmits signals every hour to the telegraph-office in Lothbury, in the City of London, whence, by a network of galvanic wires, the knowledge of the true time is spread along the lines of railway to the extremities of Great Britain. This vast Æolian harp covers thus with its chords nearly the whole surface of the British Isles, and vibrates in unison with one prime mover.“As regards the true time, these telegraphic wires have a double mission. The current leaving Greenwich transmits the signal given by the clock at the Observatory, and what is called a return current then communicates the errors of the other clock on which theMotherhas just acted.‘I would never undertake to regulate a clock from which I did not get regular replies,’said the Astronomer Royal; and just as we were passing in front of a galvanic apparatus,‘Stop!’he added,‘the great clock at Westminster is at this very moment giving me an account of itself; it goes well, and is only the twentieth part of a second slow. Twice a day in this way it keeps me informed of the state of its health.’”Below Greenwich one of the saddest catastrophes of the century occurred in 1879, one which has its lessons for all who voyage. We refer to the loss of thePrincess Alice. A pleasure steamer, one of the largest and best known of the London Steam-packet Company, with some 700 happy merrymakers, a large proportion of whom were children, left London Bridge on Tuesday morning, September 3rd, 1878, for Gravesend and Sheerness, and everything, even the temper of our uncertain climate,[pg 283]combined to make the day one of real and innocent pleasure. How true is it that danger is never so near as when we deem it farthest off. It was eight o’clock in the evening when thePrincess Alicehove in sight off Woolwich Arsenal, with her living freight of gladsome excursionists. The song that comes when toil ceases, the careless laugh and harmless jest were going round; eager eyes watched the dim lights of home glinting through the purple September twilight, and no whispered thought of peril dulled the harmony of the day, when a large steam collier, theBywell Castle, loomed darkly in the gloom.Those who feared the least and knew the most from experience were the first to see the danger—the danger that, in the time, no human skill or ingenuity could avert. ThePrincess Alice, steaming on at good speed, had attained an impetus, and, together with the adverse tide and confined space, defeated the ready efforts of the commanders of both vessels, and the collision came. There was no time to think—no time to act; there was a fearful cracking and tearing, during which it seemed that theBywell Castlewould walk right through the ill-fated pleasure-boat, and in that dread and awe-inspiring moment the startled eye saw its fate, and the happy heart was stilled in horror. Only five minutes from the time the vessels struck, and all that was then thePrincess Alicelay cradled in the mud at the bottom of the Thames.Save for the few who clambered on to theBywell Castle, and the proportionately fewer who could swim ashore, the entire human freight was hurled into the black and fœtid river, or carried down in the cabins and saloon of the submerged sepulchre. How terribly was this proved when the wreck was raised! The unfortunate passengers were found packed together at the foot of the companion ladders with no time to move hand or foot, with no air to breathe, stifled where they stood.COLLISION OF THE BYWELL CASTLE AND THE PRINCESS ALICE.COLLISION OF THEBYWELL CASTLEAND THEPRINCESS ALICE.Collisions amongst iron ships have been so painfully frequent of late years that it is impossible to conjecture what may be the result of this wholesale loss of life in the future. It is doubtful, however, whether any previous accident ever equalled in its harrowing results the loss of thePrincess Alice. Excepting the fatal accident to theGrosser Kurfürst, the running down of theNorthfleetoff Dungeness by the Spanish steamerMurillo, comes next in horror to the cutting in two of thePrincess Alice. This terrible affair, and the heartless conduct of the commander of the Spanish steamer, will make the night of the 22nd of January, 1873, ever memorable in the dark annals of the sea; 293 persons went down with the ill-fated passenger ship. A sad case was that of theLady Elgin, run into by a schooner on Lake Michigan on September 8th, 1860. TheLady Elginwas an excursion steamer with 400 souls on board; she sank within fifteen minutes of the collision and with the loss of 287 people. Then, again, in 1854, in this fatal month of September, on the 27th, theArctic, a ship of the Collins line, came into collision with the screw steamerVestain a fog. This time the scene of the tragic disaster was the coast of Newfoundland; out of a list of 368 all told, 323 were lost, among whom were the Duc de Grammont and the Duc de Guynes. In the same year we have to record the loss of theCity of Glasgowwith 480 persons on board; and theLady Nugent, a British transport, which carried reinforcements for the army at Rangoon; the total loss in this case was 400. Neither of these ships was ever heard of after leaving port; a fate as terrible and mysterious as that[pg 285]which befell theCity of Bostonand thePacific, the former of which left Liverpool on the 23rd of January, 1856, with 186; while theCity of Bostonhad 191 persons on board when she sailed from Halifax, N.S., on January 26, 1870. Who amongst the living does not remember that black-letter day when news arrived in England of the capsizing of theCaptainoff Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870, with Captain Burgoyne and a complement of 500 all told, which remains the greatest calamity that has yet befallen the British Navy.The army, however, suffered a loss nearly as appalling in the foundering of theBirkenheadoff the Cape of Good Hope, where a contingent, made up from the 12th Lancers, 23rd and 92nd Foot, helped to make up the 438 lives destroyed on that occasion, February 26, 1852. Nor were the greatest horrors entirely occasioned by the unruly elements and the sometimes pitiless sea, for added to these ever-impending dangers was the incombatable enemy—fire. The most heart-rending on record of these marine conflagrations was that which destroyed the S.S.Austriaon its way from Hamburg to New York, U.S., on September 23, 1858. By this fire, out of 528 passengers and crew, 461 were either burnt to death or drowned; how many met the more horrible death of burning can never be known, nor is it well for the mind to dwell upon the painful subject. Going back a little farther we find the record of the burning of theOcean Monarchin Abergele Bay, August 24, 1848, with loss of 178 lives. Then we have the S.S.London, which went down in the Bay of Biscay on January 11, 1866, carrying down with her to a watery grave 239 out of a complement of 258. The wrecks of theAtlanticand theRoyal Charterare conspicuous in the black list: the latter, an Australian clipper ship, was smashed to pieces on the coast of Anglesea on October 26, 1859, when, while some forty people or so managed to get on shore, 459 of men, women, and children, were added to the ocean sepulchre. TheAtlantic, of the White Star Line, struck on a sunken rock off Nova Scotia, April 1, 1873, and 481 out of 931 were lost. TheAnnie Jane, of Liverpool, swells the death-roll by 393, by being driven on shore at Barra Island, one of the Hebrides, on September 29, 1853; while thePomona, another emigrant ship, through carelessness in the reckoning, went ashore on the Wexford coast on April 28, 1859, losing 386 lives. And this sad list only represents the more prominent cases which occurred during thirty years.Although the chief outward and visible sign of usefulness of the Seamen’s Hospital Society exists no longer on the Thames, many of our readers knew the oldDreadnoughtwell. She was the largest floating hospital in the world, and no other ship housed so cosmopolitan a crew as could be found among her 200 patients. Dysentery, scurvy, hepatic diseases in most varieties, and typhoid, were among the medical specialities to be seen on board, and it is probable that Budd gained much of his experience of enteric fever from this ship, which received annually from sixty to seventy cases of the disease. The surgical practice was equally useful, and we believe that the first resection (that of the shoulder) in London was performed by Busk on theDreadnought. A large number of men, now teaching in our schools, gleaned useful knowledge here, and (an important matter in surgery) learnt how to do little things well. Although in maintaining a necessary and constant communication with the shore, there were the usual perils of water, including a strong current, a crowded stream, ice, &c., no person engaged directly or indirectly in the business of the ship[pg 286]was ever drowned during the half century that she and her predecessors were moored off Greenwich. The late Dr. Rooke, one of the ablest and kindest of theDreadnought’sofficers, nobly earned the Humane Society’s medal by saving a boy who fell off a barge close at hand; three patients jumped overboard at different times, in a state of delirium, but all were rescued and recovered. There were convivial gatherings now and again in the snug recess of the admiral’s cabin, used as a mess room by the medical staff. TheDreadnoughtsuffered many blows from without, and was run into seriously on several occasions. But the old ship stood it all, and was missed by the bargemen, who made a cushion of her wherewith to cannon off to the opposite shore. There can be no doubt that the managing committee of the Seamen’s Hospital Society acted wisely in removing their clients to a home on shore, so that we need not say altogether regretfully, although truly,“Take her all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.”Of all the hospitals there is none so interesting as a sailor’s, and that at Greenwich, which represents the oldDreadnoughtfloating hospital, is particularly so. It is here Jack ashore is seen at his best, and his best is very good indeed as a general thing, especially when all the good qualities are developed as they are when he settles down to enjoy the autumn calm of his life, which generally begins in the hospital. Not only are there seamen from every clime, and every creed, too, here, but one ward is occupied by a few old naval pensioners. In this ward the first thing that attracts the eye, and is placed prominently over the fire-place, is Dibdin’s simple legend of the“Sweet little cherub that sits up aloft.”Every inmate of this ward could tell his interesting yarn of personal experiences of the Battle and the Breeze. One old fellow is both blind and deaf, and still happy and contented under the sympathetic care of an ancient cherub, who has sailed through three-quarters of a century of life’s uncertain tide. Why the blind tar should be called“the nightingale”has not been clearly stated, though the fact remains the same, and may possibly refer to great vocal powers. His messmate has been through enough battles to fill a volume; while another, an octogenarian marine, speaks with pride of the part he took in theChesapeakeaffair, which was beaten and capturedthirteen minutesafter the first gun was fired by the weather-beatenShannon.“You see,”he is wont to say, as he straightens himself,“by my military cut that I’m not a regular tar, though I’ve been in as many cutting-out parties as any a’most, and had the grape and canister pelting round me like hailstones, pretty nigh as often as I remembers feeling real hailstones. But I remembers best when the king—God bless him!—sent out thirty barrels of porter, that me and the rest of us might drink his majesty’s health in; that was in the time of the war with Ameriky, and good times they was too,”a little bit of individual opinion that no one would dream of controverting here. Next come we to another pensioner, who sits over the fire hugging his feeble knees, and who is just in the last year of his ninth decade.Hetells you of the part he took in 1805, in the capture of two French frigates, and some of the latent fire returns as he speaks of it; for it was a fight that lasted three days and nights before victory was fairly ours.Take the wardsen masse, and we see peering out of the medley the delicate sallow skin and long black hair of the Greek, who is estimated by every British commander at seventy-five per cent. below the English tar in hauling power and endurance, while the South Sea Islander, the Scandinavian, the dusky Turk, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, Spaniards,[pg 287]Americans, Chinamen, are here side by side with the hardy sons of our own isles. In one corridor there is even a Fantee, with the mark of his tribe upon his ebon-hued forehead, but minus feet, having lost them through their being frost-bitten in the Black Sea. Another and more painful case is that of a poor fellow wrecked off Cape Horn, who, drifting for fourteen days in an open boat, reached shore only to find that he must purchase life at the cost of both nether limbs. The surgical operator was an unskilled sailor, the instrument a rough ship’s knife, with which he succeeded in performing successfully the dangerous operation, but with what torture to the sufferer can too vividly be imagined. He is cheerful enough now as he potters about on his stumps, full of dry humour and as cheerful as any able-bodied man could be. The light occupations of these disabled sons of the sea are varied and congenial to their different tastes, and their labour is chiefly confined to decorating the wards of the hospital. Amongst the many inscriptions are a beautiful white wreath with“Albert the Good”on it, and Nelson’s famous last signal. One German sailor lad has entirely decorated one ward with a taste and elegance simply surprising. This boy is an original, seeing that he went all the way to Jerusalem to learn English!“In Hamburg, his native place, he heard other boys, and occasionally travellers, say that there was a good school there where English was taught. Thereupon, seizing his opportunity, he worked his passage from Hamburg to Alexandria, took ship to Jaffa, and induced the German Consul to forward him to the Holy City.”Evidently he did not think there was anything remarkable in this singular method of acquiring our language!83The Thames Church Mission is a society established to minister to the spiritual necessities of the vast fluctuating population of the Thames, consisting of seamen, bargemen, steamboat-men, fishermen, &c. Services are held on board troop, emigrant, and passenger ships, screw colliers, and every description of vessels; also in the mission and reading-room which has been opened for seamen, &c., by the bank of the river at Bugsby, near East Greenwich. Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books are sold at reduced prices, and tracts distributed. A chaplain (licensed by the Bishop of London to visit ministerially and officiate on board all ships and vessels on the Thames), four missionaries, and five seamen colporteurs, constitute the missionary staff. The Mission undertakes the sale of Scriptures to English and foreign seamen, and gives Testaments to emigrants on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society; it places on board emigrant ships packets of tracts, and distributes the cards and circulars of the Sailor’s Home among seamen arriving in the Thames. The field of operation extends from London Bridge to the anchorages below Gravesend. The chaplain also holds Sabbath services on board the training shipsArethusa,Chichester, andCornwall, and has weekly classes with the boys; and the missionaries act as honorary agents for enrolling members of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. There are many other excellent institutions for the seamen’s benefit, from London city to Gravesend town, but which cannot be described with the space at our command.Every reader knows the Trinity House, but he may not be aware of its value to the seaman, the voyager, and the interests of commerce. The Trinity House, as it stands on Tower Hill, was built towards the end of the last century by Samuel Wyatt. It is of the Ionic order, and has some busts of naval heroes, whose deeds, like themselves, are of the past.[pg 288]Amongst its many interesting pictures is a very large Gainsborough, representing the Trinity Board of that day. This picture, by the way, is upwards of twenty feet in length, and, if merit go by measurement, is necessarily a very great picture. The Board of Trinity House has control of the beaconage and pilotage of the United Kingdom. The Corporation existed fully one hundred years before its original charter, which was granted in 1514, and was at that early date known simply as the“Shipmen and Mariners of England”—a voluntary and influential association of some standing, and at that time protected maritime interests and gave substantial relief to the aged and indigent of the seafaring community.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.Henry VIII. was the first king who granted it a Royal Charter, in 1514, in recognition of its well-tried merit. In this charter it is described as the“Guild or Fraternity of the most glorious and undividable Trinity of St. Clement.”The Charter of James I. and all subsequent charters are granted to“The Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity of St. Clement, in the parish of Deptford, in the county of Kent.”The motto of the Corporation isTrinitas in unitate. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House are not always exempt from undertaking stern and unpleasant duties afloat, as was instanced in that terrible time of trial—the mutiny of the Nore, in 1799, when they destroyed or removed every beacon and buoy that could guide the mutinous[pg 289]fleet out to sea. Its culminating recognition was by an Act of Parliament in 1836. The honorary members of this Court are men of distinction, including some of the members of the Royal Family. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh became its Master in 1866. The duties of the Corporation are described in their charter as follows:—“To treat and conclude upon all and singular articles anywise concerning the science or art of marines; to maintain in perfect working order all the lighthouses, floating-lights, and fog-signal stations on the coast of England, and to lay down, maintain, renew, and modify all the buoys, beacons, and sea-signals; to regulate the supply of stores, the appointment of keepers, and constantly to inspect the stations; to examine and license pilots for a large portion of our coasts, and to investigate generally into all matters of pilotage; to act as nautical advisers with the judge of the High Court of Admiralty: to survey and inspect the channels of the Thames and the shoals of the North Sea, and other points of the coast at which shifting, scouring, growth, or waste of sand may affect the navigation, and require to be watched and notified; to supply shipping in the Thames with ballast. The Elder Brethren have also to perform the duty of accompanying the Sovereign on sea voyages.”The light-vessels of the Corporation are nearly fifty in number, while there are more than eighty lighthouses. The buoys on our coasts must not be omitted. The number in position can scarcely be approximated, while in addition—in case of casualties—there must be kept in reserve fully one-half the number in position. There are also some sixty odd beacons of different kinds. The working staff of the Trinity House is composed of district superintendents, buoy-keepers, store-keepers, local agents, lighthouse-keepers, crews of floating-lights, watchmen, fog-signal attendants,84crews of steam and sailing vessels, altogether making a total of nearly a thousand men.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.In 1837 the Duke of Wellington was Master of the Trinity House; in 1852 Prince Albert held that office, and Viscount Palmerston in 1862. Then came (1866), as already mentioned, the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Prince of Wales headed the list of a long roll of Brethren, to say nothing of the numerous dukes and earls who have gladly accepted the same honour. The Trinity House Corporation has successfully withstood several most searching Parliamentary investigations, only to come out with triumphantly flying colours, which added to the confidence generally reposed in it.

CHAPTER XXV.The Haven at Last—Home in the Thames.The“Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—The Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of thePrincess Alice—The OldDreadnought—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light-vessels—Its Masters.“Let the Rhine be blue and brightIn its path of liquid light,Where the red grapes fling a beamOf glory on the stream;Let the gorgeous beauty thereMingle all that’s rich and fair;Yet to me it ne’er could beLike that river great and free,The Thames! the mighty Thames!”The poet’s enthusiasm may be pardoned, for, although there are scores of rivers, considered only as such alone, that outvie the Thames, regarding it in its relation to the sea—aye, to the whole world—it stands pre-eminent and alone. To the sailor the Thames and the Mersey have an interest and importance which belong to the streams of no other country.The reader has, in spirit, voyaged with poor Jack to the farthest corners of the earth; he has seen much of his life of peril and heroism; he has noted that the hardships he endures are often unrequited, and that, after a long career of usefulness and bravery, he may lie on the shore“a sheer hulk,”valueless to himself, possibly to die and rot in poverty and distress. The charge of special improvidence cannot nowadays be hurled at the sailor, as it might have been in days of old. Even Jack’s improvidence was more excusable than the same fault in any other class whatever. The fact is—as such valuable institutions as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society have proved—that there was a great desire on the part of seamen to help themselves. The fortieth annual report of the Society (1879) states that[pg 273]48,000 mariners subscribe to the benefit fund organised under its auspices.80The history of this excellent association, which has now an income of nearly £29,000, is interesting.“A worthy, philanthropic medical man, Mr. John Rye, of Bath, had a servant who had formerly been a sailor, and was in the habit of reading the newspapers to his master. One morning their attention was arrested by an account of some fearful wrecks of fishing boats, with loss of life, on the north coast of Devon. The servant asked his master if there was any fund out of which help could be obtained to relieve the families of those men. The master replied that he supposed there was, but he would make inquiries from Admiral Sir Jahleen Brenton, then Governor of Greenwich Hospital; and from him he found that there was none. They then together drew up a prospectus, and presented it to the late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Cockburn, who most heartily took the matter up, and after circulating the appeal widely, called a public meeting in February, 1839, at which Sir George was appointed President, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed themselves into a committee, of which the worthy Chairman, Captain the Hon. Francis Maude, R.N., is now the sole survivor. The following month Her Majesty the Queen graciously consented to be the Patron of the Society; and so prosperous was the infant[pg 274]institution, that at the second anniversary, at which the late Sir Robert Peel consented to preside, the sum of £1,100 was collected. The Committee next set about to obtain the services of gentlemen to act as honorary agents, of whom there are now upwards of 1,000; and whose duties are to board, lodge, clothe, and forward to their homes all shipwrecked persons. The Committee meet every Friday in London to relieve the widows and orphans of the lost, not only at the time of their death, but by small annual payments. There were thus 9,601 persons relieved in 1879.”81THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.Sooth to say, and in strict justice, we must not forget how much has been done for the seaman on the banks of old Father Thames, both by Government and private liberality. An excellent home, the“Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen’s Institution”exists at Belvedere, in Kent, started under the auspices of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. This institution was inaugurated, with room for the reception of 400 persons of all grades of the mercantile marine, although nothing like that number has been as yet accommodated at any one time. The Society also grants out-pensions to those who have homes or friends.The most singular and characteristic and yet appropriate features of the building are a number of little cabins comfortably fitted, and so much like the real thing, that it requires only a very slight stretch of the imagination for Jack ashore to indulge in the fond delusion that he is at sea again. The large rooms are divided into wards, one for masters and mates, containing ten cabins, each six feet by seven feet, and perfect ventilation is secured by the partitions being open at the top. Each man, by this excellent arrangement, has his little cabin to himself, and all the sweetness of retirement should he be that way inclined. What a contrast is this to the ungainly, unhomely, and barren shelters of our Unions!It speaks well for the profession that most of the inmates have seen over forty or fifty years of service, which, judging from what we know of service in the maritime navy, might decidedly be called active. On being interrogated by a visitor, some of these veterans proved having most successfully braved the dangers of the deep.“How often have you been wrecked?”inquired the interviewer of our“ancient mariner.”“Why, let me see, sir”—then, counting half audibly—“one, two, three, four, five times, I think, sir.”The second, on being questioned, answered, simply,“Once in 1825, sir—going to Hamburg that was; and once in 1828, on the coast of Norway; and again on the coast of Java in ’42.”This man had also done some memorable deeds on shore, which fully made up for his being short by“two”wrecks of the other.Greenwich Hospital next demands our attention, as once the great home and asylum for the seamen of the navy, although now a hospital only. It was founded in the year 1694, in memory of Queen Mary, who had long designed the foundation of such an institution. It was also built as a monument of the great victory of La Hogue. Sir Christopher Wren furnished the designs and plans for the edifice gratuitously—a noble gift from a professional architect, and valuable to boot. The object of the foundation was“to encourage the seamen of this[pg 275]kingdom to continue the industry and skilfulness of their employments, by which they had for a long time distinguished themselves throughout the world;”“to encourage them to continue also their ancient reputation for the courage and constancy manifested in engagements for the defence and honour of their native country;”“to invite greater numbers of his Majesty’s subjects to betake themselves to the sea;”and so forth. In sooth, the condition of the Greenwich pensioner was not, for a long period, particularly enviable. On admission he was required to relinquish any pension he might have gained in the service. Maimed men received onlytenpencea day, and a shilling a week, intended for tobacco and the humbler comforts of life. The Commissioners at one time stated that“the wives are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable.”From the Hospital they received only the broken meat of the hall and the rations of men on leave of absence. The wives were often reduced to the parish. No wonder the poor old veteran used to be so glad for a sixpence or even a“screw”of tobacco in return for his tough yarns!The system has been entirely changed. At present all are out-pensioners, and when in good health can follow other employments. On the 26th September, 1865, the Greenwich exodus commenced. On that day nearly 200 out of the 900 pensioners of Greenwich Hospital who had accepted the Admiralty offer of pension allowance, in conformity with an Act passed in the previous session of Parliament, left that establishment for the various parts of the country they had selected for their future home. Since that time the whole have left; and the institution which, only a few years ago, had upwards of 2,000 inmates, now contains only a few hundred sick and disabled. Greenwich Hospital is a changed institution, and the system of rewarding those who have spent their lives in the service of their country is made more consistent with humanity, morality, and common sense. Instead of hundreds of elderly but still hale and athletic veterans wandering listlessly about the terraces and colonnades of Greenwich, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes overstepping the bounds of sobriety in the numerous public-houses of the neighbourhood, there are but a limited number of indoor-pensioners, and those are such as may be fittingly provided for in a place bearing the name of a hospital. They are disabled seamen in the strict sense of the term—poor worn-out old fellows who require to be taken care of, and who have, perhaps, no one but the nation to take care of them. The blind, the doting, the crippled, find comfortable board and lodging, and, without doubt, attentive nursing in the national hospital. But, as there are constantly new applications for admission, it is probable that there will always be a few hundreds in the establishment. On the first and third Thursday in each month a board sits at Somerset House to consider the claims of applicants for admission, and those who are passed are sent in an omnibus to the hospital. But for the large body of men who, though too old to reef top-sails and to work guns, are not too old to do something for their own living, and to wish for liberty and domestic life, there is the allowance before mentioned from the funds of the hospital, and the power of living where and how they please.“What the average pension granted may be,”said a writer in theCornhill Magazine,“we have no means of knowing, but if some of the men have a larger sum than £36 10s., so also many of them will have much less, and will be unable to command in their homes the standard of living with which the Hospital supplied them. They elect to go, we take it, partly because they know the government of the place is to be changed, that it is to become a[pg 276]hospital in the narrower sense of the word, and that there will be less freedom of ingress and egress for them henceforth; but this is only part of a more general feeling in favour of liberty among them, at which nobody who has inquired into their condition can wonder. The authorities at Greenwich Hospital have contrived to make a palace as dull as a prison. The men have had no amusements but a library inconveniently furnished. They have not been allowed to have flower-pots in their windows, nor to receive friends and visitors in private; and it is not many years ago since they were forbidden to walk on the terraces. Some of the punishments, too—such as being compelled to wear a yellow collar and do scavengers’ work—have been harsh and injudicious. All these things have combined with the monastic character of the place to give a character ofennuiand listlessness to the Greenwich pensioner’s life, which must have struck every observing visitor. Dulness has been relieved within the walls chiefly by temptation without.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.“Since the age when Queen Mary pictured to herself Greenwich as a place of pious repose, where the sailor might end his days in the fear of God, it has become the favourite haunt of the pleasure-loving cockney—an emporium of shrimps, a reservoir of beer. Those quaint figures—the‘geese’and‘blue-bottles’of local slang—lounging about under the trees of the park, and loitering through the streets in the dress of another age, have been regarded by the holiday-maker from the metropolis as parts of the amusements of the place. They have been paid for yarns in drink and stray shillings, and have found the doctrine that sailors lived only for grog and tobacco accepted by their admirers as one of the glories of the British navy. It has been well remarked that, as a whole, the old fellows have been more decent in their lives than we had a right to expect under the[pg 277]peculiar circumstances. But a chapter might be written on Greenwich morality and its effects on the parish rates, which nobody would care to bind up with the naval histories of Brenton or James, but which would help to reconcile the reader to the break-up of an institution which has had much in it to kindle the imagination and justify the pride of our countrymen.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.“The break-up is, after all, one in which people will acquiesce rather than one at which they will rejoice. It was a noble as well as a pious idea to gather under the roofs of a grand edifice—at once a dwelling-place and a naval monument, and placed on the shores of a river itself one of the chief sources of our maritime strength—the survivors of each generation of warriors against the enemy or the storm. Here the traditions of one age blended gradually with the experience of the next; stories of Shovel were passed on to those who fought under[pg 278]Hawke; the conqueror with Rodney lived to welcome the heroes of Trafalgar—not as bedridden or imbecile men, though they might be somewhat shattered—but still able to enjoy life, and to give the vividness of reality to the narratives of the past. All phases of naval service were represented. One of the‘saucyArethusa’s’smoked his pipe with an oldAgamemnon, and men who had first smelt powder on the Canadian lakes listened reverently to the recollections of those who had seenL’Orientexplode in thunder at the Nile. Greenwich Hospital will always be a great and useful institution—a mighty boon, whether to the sick nursed within or to the poor pensioned without its walls.”Before leaving Greenwich we must certainly pay a visit to the Observatory, a building which has such intimate relations with the sea. The account which follows is that of M. Esquiros,82who particularly studied all our institutions connected with maritime interests:—“I entered,”says he,“a well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were covered with charts, engravings, photographic portraits of the moon, and Donati’s famous comet of 1858. Mr. [now Sir George] Airy, the Astronomer Royal, is a man who has grown grey in the study of the stars; his energetic features indicate the incessant activity of the strong intellect which for more than a quarter of a century has upheld the reputation of Greenwich Observatory. On his writing-table were heaped a quantity of papers covered with calculations, and a maze of letters as to a thousand matters of business. A large iron cupboard contains all the precious documents which will, no doubt, one day serve to trace out the scientific history of the nineteenth century. Here, for instance, are preserved the letters and authentic documents which are destined to modify certain received opinions as to the discovery of the planet Neptune. In this cupboard may also be found the records of bygone errors and chimerical ideas, which one wonders to find reappearing in this enlightened age.“It is difficult to believe that many amongst the English still confound astronomy with judicial astrology; but Mr. Airy preserves a very curious collection—letters that he has received from all classes of persons, asking what his terms are fordrawing a horoscope. Sometimes it is a young man wishing to know‘who will be his wife;’at others it is a lady, on the eve of embarking in the great business of life, who desires to consult the stars. Postage-stamps are occasionally sent with these missives, and he or she who consults the oracle promises to make known, if necessary, the true day and hour of their birth. The fact is, that a great many people can scarcely understand how the astronomers can contemplate the vault of heaven by day and night without endeavouring to trace out the secret of human destiny. Some years back a young lady dressed in good taste applied at the door of the Observatory; she felt interested in one of her near relations, a sailor in the Pacific Ocean, from whom no news had been received for several years. After she had had a few minutes’ conversation with one of the assistants, she went away bathed in tears, because the stars were not able to tell her if the object of her affections were still alive.”On the ground that Greenwich Park now occupies there once stood an ancient tower, built about the year 1440, by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and uncle to King Henry VI. In the time of Elizabeth it was calledMirefleur. In 1642 the name of Greenwich Castle was[pg 279]given to it. Sir James Moore and Sir Christopher Wren pointed out the site of this fortress to Charles II. as the best place for the construction of an observatory. The old feudal tower was therefore pulled down, and over its remains was raised an edifice dedicated to the contemplation of the stars.“The building was scarcely finished ere Flamsteed was installed in it, with the title of Astronomer Royal, and an emolument of £100 a year. He presided over the new establishment for more than half a century, and spent more than £2,000 of his own money. His works will always be looked upon in England as the starting point of modern astronomy. He may be deemed the founder of Greenwich observatory. His successors were Halley, Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss, and Dr. Nevil Maskelyn, the author of four volumes, of which it is said by Delampre,‘that if, in consequence of some great revolution every record of science had been lost, with the exception of this collection, in it would be found materials quite sufficient for building up again the science of modern astronomy.’Maskelyn was followed by John Pond, who died in 1835; his place is now supplied by Mr. Airy.“The Astronomer Royal is nominated by the First Lord of the Treasury, and performs his functions under the warrant of the great seal of state; his salary is fixed at £800 per annum. One of his principal duties is to preserve for Greenwich observatory that character which the founder himself wished to impress upon it. The Astronomer Royal is therefore bound by the express terms of his commission,‘to devote himself with the greatest care to correcting the tables of the celestial movements, and to determine the positions of the fixed stars, in order to furnish the long-desired means of discovering the longitude at sea, and of thus bringing to perfection the art of navigation.’It is also necessary that he should reside in the observatory, and devote all his time to the duties of his office, never absenting himself for any long period without having previously obtained the sanction of the Lords of the Admiralty.“Consulted as he is by various branches of the Government, he is able to render assistance to the public service by his advice and information, well assured that he himself can never be affected by any of the changes in official power, or by any of the results of political conflict. His residence has a garden attached to it, which is parted off from the grounds of the park, and well planted with fruit-trees. He has under his control eight assistants, and ordinarily six computers.“It is curious to see these computers in their two offices, one situated on the ground floor near the study of the Astronomer Royal, and the other isolated in one of the quietest parts of the observatory, all sedately occupied in reckoning up, from morning to night, dull columns of figures.“Before describing what Greenwich observatoryis, it would be better perhaps to state first what it isnot. It relinquishes to other inquirers the task of discovering spots in the sun and mountains in the moon. The observations of the assistants are not directed either to the figures of the planets or to the extraordinary movements of the double stars, revolving one round the other in the depths of the firmament, or the mysteries of the nebulæ. What a firmness of character, what a truly English strength of will have these observers shown, in voluntarily drawing a veil over some of the most splendid wonders of the heavens! At the time of John Pond, a telescope twenty feet in length had been erected in the establishment at great expense,[pg 280]but as it was a strong attraction to visitors, he caused the instrument to be dismantled. About the year 1847 Mr. Lerebours offered to Greenwich observatory the largest refracting telescope which had ever been constructed. The temptation was certainly a great one; it would have been flattering to the self-esteem of the institution to have possessed a wonder of this sort, unique as it was in the world. Mr. Airy need only to have said the word, and the Lords of the Admiralty would assuredly have made the purchase. But the Astronomer, on the contrary, held the present aloof with a determined hand. What was it that he feared? The perfidious influence of such a siren, which, by concentrating attention on the beauties of the heavens, would perhaps have turned away the attention of the assistants from their daily task, and have compromised the success of the Observatory.“An observation of the sun takes place at least once a week at mid-day, in the transit circle room, and a large portion of the staff of the establishment take a part in it; but it is at night that one can form the best idea of the mode in which the transit of the heavenly bodies over the meridian is duly verified.“The first observations made with the new transit circle date from 1851, and, from that time to the present they have never been discontinued. The assistant who is appointed, aided by this instrument to watch the state of the heavens, is on guard for twenty-four hours,i.e., from three in the morning until three a.m. the next day. Except under extraordinary circumstances, the same duties are never assigned to an assistant two days running. Having already worked some hours after sunset, he goes home to take his evening meal, and when he returns into the transit circle room it is quite night. The shutters, which, during the day shut in a part of the ceiling, are now unclosed, and by means of this aperture the whole sky seems thrown open to the room.“Having consulted his list, and adjusted his telescope, he commences his steady gaze. His intentness can only be compared to that of a sportsman, or still better to that of a pointer dog, only, instead of a partridge or a woodcock, he is eagerly waiting to see a star get up. There it is at last! It comes into view quick and sudden as a meteor. Scarcely has it entered into the telegraphic field of sight than it appears to approach rapidly some objects which look like a series of transverse iron bars placed at equal distances from each other. These, however, in reality, are nothing but threads of the thickness of a spider’s web, stretched according to a system in the interior of the telescope, and wonderfully magnified by the power of the lenses.“The assistants are all astronomers by profession, and their eyes have been well trained by continual practice. How, then, can it happen, that their observations do not always prove accordant one with another? There is a physiological mystery hidden in the fact which it would be interesting to penetrate. Each observer, although operating with the same instrument and guided by the same plan, perceives a celestial phenomenon—as, for instance, the transit of a star—either sooner or later than another does. This variation is attributed to the idiosyncrasy of the sense of sight in each individual, or to the more or less prompt manner in which the eye telegraphs its impression to the brain. It must, of course, be quite understood that no considerable inequalities of time are in question here; it is, at the most, some fraction of a second that I am alluding to; but the astronomical transit observations are of so delicate a nature, that the slightest errors would destroy their worth. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary to establish an average or standard, and each observer gets to know[pg 281]precisely how far his visual faculties vary from the ideal. Hence arises a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, which, however, is commonly asked among astronomers themselves—‘What is the value of your personal equation?’This inquiry is answered by a figure expressing the particular amount of deviation from the standard. The most singular thing is, that the value of the personal equation is different in the same individual as regards the various celestial bodies. Some can very quickly discern the phenomena of a fixed star who are much slower in perceiving those of the moon, andvice versâ. In order to obviate the inconvenience which might result from the variations in personal equations, they also have recourse to a very ingenious plan. An eye-piece with two tubes allows two assistants simultaneously to observe the passage of the same star over the same threads in the instrument;[pg 282]they both listen to the ticking of the clock marking the seconds, and separately calculate the results of their observations, which are afterwards compared. To obtain a greater degree of certitude, they occasionally exchange places. In this way the slightest chances of error are eliminated. The aberrations of the instrument must also be taken into account. Notwithstanding its excellence and the solidity with which it is fixed to stone walls sunk into the ground, it sometimes is affected by slight vibrations, which can only be attributed to theterra firmaon which it is constructed. Mr. Airy has noticed this same phenomenon at Cambridge, whence he has come to the conclusion‘that the surface of the earth, commonly regarded as the base of all solidity, is itself in movement.’THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.“‘I am going to show you the clock which sets the time for all England,’said the Astronomer Royal to me, as he conducted me into a little room occupying one of the oldest parts of the edifice. Covered with its simple mahogany case, thisMother clock, as it is called, is not unlike one of those venerable wooden-cased clocks that one meets with sometimes in the old English manor-houses. No one, however, could fail to discover that the mechanism in this time-keeper is new and uncommon. Its chief characteristic is that it possesses two distinct attributes. In the first place it marks the time most exactly; and, in the next, it communicates this power to other clocks as well. It has therefore been called theMother clock, because it animates in the Observatory eight of itsdaughters. Its dial is divided into three circles, one of which marks the hours, another the minutes, and a third the seconds. One hand only moves round each of these dials, and thus points out the generally-accepted measures of time.“The Observatory transmits signals every hour to the telegraph-office in Lothbury, in the City of London, whence, by a network of galvanic wires, the knowledge of the true time is spread along the lines of railway to the extremities of Great Britain. This vast Æolian harp covers thus with its chords nearly the whole surface of the British Isles, and vibrates in unison with one prime mover.“As regards the true time, these telegraphic wires have a double mission. The current leaving Greenwich transmits the signal given by the clock at the Observatory, and what is called a return current then communicates the errors of the other clock on which theMotherhas just acted.‘I would never undertake to regulate a clock from which I did not get regular replies,’said the Astronomer Royal; and just as we were passing in front of a galvanic apparatus,‘Stop!’he added,‘the great clock at Westminster is at this very moment giving me an account of itself; it goes well, and is only the twentieth part of a second slow. Twice a day in this way it keeps me informed of the state of its health.’”Below Greenwich one of the saddest catastrophes of the century occurred in 1879, one which has its lessons for all who voyage. We refer to the loss of thePrincess Alice. A pleasure steamer, one of the largest and best known of the London Steam-packet Company, with some 700 happy merrymakers, a large proportion of whom were children, left London Bridge on Tuesday morning, September 3rd, 1878, for Gravesend and Sheerness, and everything, even the temper of our uncertain climate,[pg 283]combined to make the day one of real and innocent pleasure. How true is it that danger is never so near as when we deem it farthest off. It was eight o’clock in the evening when thePrincess Alicehove in sight off Woolwich Arsenal, with her living freight of gladsome excursionists. The song that comes when toil ceases, the careless laugh and harmless jest were going round; eager eyes watched the dim lights of home glinting through the purple September twilight, and no whispered thought of peril dulled the harmony of the day, when a large steam collier, theBywell Castle, loomed darkly in the gloom.Those who feared the least and knew the most from experience were the first to see the danger—the danger that, in the time, no human skill or ingenuity could avert. ThePrincess Alice, steaming on at good speed, had attained an impetus, and, together with the adverse tide and confined space, defeated the ready efforts of the commanders of both vessels, and the collision came. There was no time to think—no time to act; there was a fearful cracking and tearing, during which it seemed that theBywell Castlewould walk right through the ill-fated pleasure-boat, and in that dread and awe-inspiring moment the startled eye saw its fate, and the happy heart was stilled in horror. Only five minutes from the time the vessels struck, and all that was then thePrincess Alicelay cradled in the mud at the bottom of the Thames.Save for the few who clambered on to theBywell Castle, and the proportionately fewer who could swim ashore, the entire human freight was hurled into the black and fœtid river, or carried down in the cabins and saloon of the submerged sepulchre. How terribly was this proved when the wreck was raised! The unfortunate passengers were found packed together at the foot of the companion ladders with no time to move hand or foot, with no air to breathe, stifled where they stood.COLLISION OF THE BYWELL CASTLE AND THE PRINCESS ALICE.COLLISION OF THEBYWELL CASTLEAND THEPRINCESS ALICE.Collisions amongst iron ships have been so painfully frequent of late years that it is impossible to conjecture what may be the result of this wholesale loss of life in the future. It is doubtful, however, whether any previous accident ever equalled in its harrowing results the loss of thePrincess Alice. Excepting the fatal accident to theGrosser Kurfürst, the running down of theNorthfleetoff Dungeness by the Spanish steamerMurillo, comes next in horror to the cutting in two of thePrincess Alice. This terrible affair, and the heartless conduct of the commander of the Spanish steamer, will make the night of the 22nd of January, 1873, ever memorable in the dark annals of the sea; 293 persons went down with the ill-fated passenger ship. A sad case was that of theLady Elgin, run into by a schooner on Lake Michigan on September 8th, 1860. TheLady Elginwas an excursion steamer with 400 souls on board; she sank within fifteen minutes of the collision and with the loss of 287 people. Then, again, in 1854, in this fatal month of September, on the 27th, theArctic, a ship of the Collins line, came into collision with the screw steamerVestain a fog. This time the scene of the tragic disaster was the coast of Newfoundland; out of a list of 368 all told, 323 were lost, among whom were the Duc de Grammont and the Duc de Guynes. In the same year we have to record the loss of theCity of Glasgowwith 480 persons on board; and theLady Nugent, a British transport, which carried reinforcements for the army at Rangoon; the total loss in this case was 400. Neither of these ships was ever heard of after leaving port; a fate as terrible and mysterious as that[pg 285]which befell theCity of Bostonand thePacific, the former of which left Liverpool on the 23rd of January, 1856, with 186; while theCity of Bostonhad 191 persons on board when she sailed from Halifax, N.S., on January 26, 1870. Who amongst the living does not remember that black-letter day when news arrived in England of the capsizing of theCaptainoff Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870, with Captain Burgoyne and a complement of 500 all told, which remains the greatest calamity that has yet befallen the British Navy.The army, however, suffered a loss nearly as appalling in the foundering of theBirkenheadoff the Cape of Good Hope, where a contingent, made up from the 12th Lancers, 23rd and 92nd Foot, helped to make up the 438 lives destroyed on that occasion, February 26, 1852. Nor were the greatest horrors entirely occasioned by the unruly elements and the sometimes pitiless sea, for added to these ever-impending dangers was the incombatable enemy—fire. The most heart-rending on record of these marine conflagrations was that which destroyed the S.S.Austriaon its way from Hamburg to New York, U.S., on September 23, 1858. By this fire, out of 528 passengers and crew, 461 were either burnt to death or drowned; how many met the more horrible death of burning can never be known, nor is it well for the mind to dwell upon the painful subject. Going back a little farther we find the record of the burning of theOcean Monarchin Abergele Bay, August 24, 1848, with loss of 178 lives. Then we have the S.S.London, which went down in the Bay of Biscay on January 11, 1866, carrying down with her to a watery grave 239 out of a complement of 258. The wrecks of theAtlanticand theRoyal Charterare conspicuous in the black list: the latter, an Australian clipper ship, was smashed to pieces on the coast of Anglesea on October 26, 1859, when, while some forty people or so managed to get on shore, 459 of men, women, and children, were added to the ocean sepulchre. TheAtlantic, of the White Star Line, struck on a sunken rock off Nova Scotia, April 1, 1873, and 481 out of 931 were lost. TheAnnie Jane, of Liverpool, swells the death-roll by 393, by being driven on shore at Barra Island, one of the Hebrides, on September 29, 1853; while thePomona, another emigrant ship, through carelessness in the reckoning, went ashore on the Wexford coast on April 28, 1859, losing 386 lives. And this sad list only represents the more prominent cases which occurred during thirty years.Although the chief outward and visible sign of usefulness of the Seamen’s Hospital Society exists no longer on the Thames, many of our readers knew the oldDreadnoughtwell. She was the largest floating hospital in the world, and no other ship housed so cosmopolitan a crew as could be found among her 200 patients. Dysentery, scurvy, hepatic diseases in most varieties, and typhoid, were among the medical specialities to be seen on board, and it is probable that Budd gained much of his experience of enteric fever from this ship, which received annually from sixty to seventy cases of the disease. The surgical practice was equally useful, and we believe that the first resection (that of the shoulder) in London was performed by Busk on theDreadnought. A large number of men, now teaching in our schools, gleaned useful knowledge here, and (an important matter in surgery) learnt how to do little things well. Although in maintaining a necessary and constant communication with the shore, there were the usual perils of water, including a strong current, a crowded stream, ice, &c., no person engaged directly or indirectly in the business of the ship[pg 286]was ever drowned during the half century that she and her predecessors were moored off Greenwich. The late Dr. Rooke, one of the ablest and kindest of theDreadnought’sofficers, nobly earned the Humane Society’s medal by saving a boy who fell off a barge close at hand; three patients jumped overboard at different times, in a state of delirium, but all were rescued and recovered. There were convivial gatherings now and again in the snug recess of the admiral’s cabin, used as a mess room by the medical staff. TheDreadnoughtsuffered many blows from without, and was run into seriously on several occasions. But the old ship stood it all, and was missed by the bargemen, who made a cushion of her wherewith to cannon off to the opposite shore. There can be no doubt that the managing committee of the Seamen’s Hospital Society acted wisely in removing their clients to a home on shore, so that we need not say altogether regretfully, although truly,“Take her all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.”Of all the hospitals there is none so interesting as a sailor’s, and that at Greenwich, which represents the oldDreadnoughtfloating hospital, is particularly so. It is here Jack ashore is seen at his best, and his best is very good indeed as a general thing, especially when all the good qualities are developed as they are when he settles down to enjoy the autumn calm of his life, which generally begins in the hospital. Not only are there seamen from every clime, and every creed, too, here, but one ward is occupied by a few old naval pensioners. In this ward the first thing that attracts the eye, and is placed prominently over the fire-place, is Dibdin’s simple legend of the“Sweet little cherub that sits up aloft.”Every inmate of this ward could tell his interesting yarn of personal experiences of the Battle and the Breeze. One old fellow is both blind and deaf, and still happy and contented under the sympathetic care of an ancient cherub, who has sailed through three-quarters of a century of life’s uncertain tide. Why the blind tar should be called“the nightingale”has not been clearly stated, though the fact remains the same, and may possibly refer to great vocal powers. His messmate has been through enough battles to fill a volume; while another, an octogenarian marine, speaks with pride of the part he took in theChesapeakeaffair, which was beaten and capturedthirteen minutesafter the first gun was fired by the weather-beatenShannon.“You see,”he is wont to say, as he straightens himself,“by my military cut that I’m not a regular tar, though I’ve been in as many cutting-out parties as any a’most, and had the grape and canister pelting round me like hailstones, pretty nigh as often as I remembers feeling real hailstones. But I remembers best when the king—God bless him!—sent out thirty barrels of porter, that me and the rest of us might drink his majesty’s health in; that was in the time of the war with Ameriky, and good times they was too,”a little bit of individual opinion that no one would dream of controverting here. Next come we to another pensioner, who sits over the fire hugging his feeble knees, and who is just in the last year of his ninth decade.Hetells you of the part he took in 1805, in the capture of two French frigates, and some of the latent fire returns as he speaks of it; for it was a fight that lasted three days and nights before victory was fairly ours.Take the wardsen masse, and we see peering out of the medley the delicate sallow skin and long black hair of the Greek, who is estimated by every British commander at seventy-five per cent. below the English tar in hauling power and endurance, while the South Sea Islander, the Scandinavian, the dusky Turk, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, Spaniards,[pg 287]Americans, Chinamen, are here side by side with the hardy sons of our own isles. In one corridor there is even a Fantee, with the mark of his tribe upon his ebon-hued forehead, but minus feet, having lost them through their being frost-bitten in the Black Sea. Another and more painful case is that of a poor fellow wrecked off Cape Horn, who, drifting for fourteen days in an open boat, reached shore only to find that he must purchase life at the cost of both nether limbs. The surgical operator was an unskilled sailor, the instrument a rough ship’s knife, with which he succeeded in performing successfully the dangerous operation, but with what torture to the sufferer can too vividly be imagined. He is cheerful enough now as he potters about on his stumps, full of dry humour and as cheerful as any able-bodied man could be. The light occupations of these disabled sons of the sea are varied and congenial to their different tastes, and their labour is chiefly confined to decorating the wards of the hospital. Amongst the many inscriptions are a beautiful white wreath with“Albert the Good”on it, and Nelson’s famous last signal. One German sailor lad has entirely decorated one ward with a taste and elegance simply surprising. This boy is an original, seeing that he went all the way to Jerusalem to learn English!“In Hamburg, his native place, he heard other boys, and occasionally travellers, say that there was a good school there where English was taught. Thereupon, seizing his opportunity, he worked his passage from Hamburg to Alexandria, took ship to Jaffa, and induced the German Consul to forward him to the Holy City.”Evidently he did not think there was anything remarkable in this singular method of acquiring our language!83The Thames Church Mission is a society established to minister to the spiritual necessities of the vast fluctuating population of the Thames, consisting of seamen, bargemen, steamboat-men, fishermen, &c. Services are held on board troop, emigrant, and passenger ships, screw colliers, and every description of vessels; also in the mission and reading-room which has been opened for seamen, &c., by the bank of the river at Bugsby, near East Greenwich. Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books are sold at reduced prices, and tracts distributed. A chaplain (licensed by the Bishop of London to visit ministerially and officiate on board all ships and vessels on the Thames), four missionaries, and five seamen colporteurs, constitute the missionary staff. The Mission undertakes the sale of Scriptures to English and foreign seamen, and gives Testaments to emigrants on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society; it places on board emigrant ships packets of tracts, and distributes the cards and circulars of the Sailor’s Home among seamen arriving in the Thames. The field of operation extends from London Bridge to the anchorages below Gravesend. The chaplain also holds Sabbath services on board the training shipsArethusa,Chichester, andCornwall, and has weekly classes with the boys; and the missionaries act as honorary agents for enrolling members of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. There are many other excellent institutions for the seamen’s benefit, from London city to Gravesend town, but which cannot be described with the space at our command.Every reader knows the Trinity House, but he may not be aware of its value to the seaman, the voyager, and the interests of commerce. The Trinity House, as it stands on Tower Hill, was built towards the end of the last century by Samuel Wyatt. It is of the Ionic order, and has some busts of naval heroes, whose deeds, like themselves, are of the past.[pg 288]Amongst its many interesting pictures is a very large Gainsborough, representing the Trinity Board of that day. This picture, by the way, is upwards of twenty feet in length, and, if merit go by measurement, is necessarily a very great picture. The Board of Trinity House has control of the beaconage and pilotage of the United Kingdom. The Corporation existed fully one hundred years before its original charter, which was granted in 1514, and was at that early date known simply as the“Shipmen and Mariners of England”—a voluntary and influential association of some standing, and at that time protected maritime interests and gave substantial relief to the aged and indigent of the seafaring community.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.Henry VIII. was the first king who granted it a Royal Charter, in 1514, in recognition of its well-tried merit. In this charter it is described as the“Guild or Fraternity of the most glorious and undividable Trinity of St. Clement.”The Charter of James I. and all subsequent charters are granted to“The Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity of St. Clement, in the parish of Deptford, in the county of Kent.”The motto of the Corporation isTrinitas in unitate. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House are not always exempt from undertaking stern and unpleasant duties afloat, as was instanced in that terrible time of trial—the mutiny of the Nore, in 1799, when they destroyed or removed every beacon and buoy that could guide the mutinous[pg 289]fleet out to sea. Its culminating recognition was by an Act of Parliament in 1836. The honorary members of this Court are men of distinction, including some of the members of the Royal Family. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh became its Master in 1866. The duties of the Corporation are described in their charter as follows:—“To treat and conclude upon all and singular articles anywise concerning the science or art of marines; to maintain in perfect working order all the lighthouses, floating-lights, and fog-signal stations on the coast of England, and to lay down, maintain, renew, and modify all the buoys, beacons, and sea-signals; to regulate the supply of stores, the appointment of keepers, and constantly to inspect the stations; to examine and license pilots for a large portion of our coasts, and to investigate generally into all matters of pilotage; to act as nautical advisers with the judge of the High Court of Admiralty: to survey and inspect the channels of the Thames and the shoals of the North Sea, and other points of the coast at which shifting, scouring, growth, or waste of sand may affect the navigation, and require to be watched and notified; to supply shipping in the Thames with ballast. The Elder Brethren have also to perform the duty of accompanying the Sovereign on sea voyages.”The light-vessels of the Corporation are nearly fifty in number, while there are more than eighty lighthouses. The buoys on our coasts must not be omitted. The number in position can scarcely be approximated, while in addition—in case of casualties—there must be kept in reserve fully one-half the number in position. There are also some sixty odd beacons of different kinds. The working staff of the Trinity House is composed of district superintendents, buoy-keepers, store-keepers, local agents, lighthouse-keepers, crews of floating-lights, watchmen, fog-signal attendants,84crews of steam and sailing vessels, altogether making a total of nearly a thousand men.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.In 1837 the Duke of Wellington was Master of the Trinity House; in 1852 Prince Albert held that office, and Viscount Palmerston in 1862. Then came (1866), as already mentioned, the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Prince of Wales headed the list of a long roll of Brethren, to say nothing of the numerous dukes and earls who have gladly accepted the same honour. The Trinity House Corporation has successfully withstood several most searching Parliamentary investigations, only to come out with triumphantly flying colours, which added to the confidence generally reposed in it.

The“Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—The Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of thePrincess Alice—The OldDreadnought—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light-vessels—Its Masters.

The“Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—The Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of thePrincess Alice—The OldDreadnought—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light-vessels—Its Masters.

“Let the Rhine be blue and brightIn its path of liquid light,Where the red grapes fling a beamOf glory on the stream;Let the gorgeous beauty thereMingle all that’s rich and fair;Yet to me it ne’er could beLike that river great and free,The Thames! the mighty Thames!”

“Let the Rhine be blue and bright

In its path of liquid light,

Where the red grapes fling a beam

Of glory on the stream;

Let the gorgeous beauty there

Mingle all that’s rich and fair;

Yet to me it ne’er could be

Like that river great and free,

The Thames! the mighty Thames!”

The poet’s enthusiasm may be pardoned, for, although there are scores of rivers, considered only as such alone, that outvie the Thames, regarding it in its relation to the sea—aye, to the whole world—it stands pre-eminent and alone. To the sailor the Thames and the Mersey have an interest and importance which belong to the streams of no other country.

The reader has, in spirit, voyaged with poor Jack to the farthest corners of the earth; he has seen much of his life of peril and heroism; he has noted that the hardships he endures are often unrequited, and that, after a long career of usefulness and bravery, he may lie on the shore“a sheer hulk,”valueless to himself, possibly to die and rot in poverty and distress. The charge of special improvidence cannot nowadays be hurled at the sailor, as it might have been in days of old. Even Jack’s improvidence was more excusable than the same fault in any other class whatever. The fact is—as such valuable institutions as the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society have proved—that there was a great desire on the part of seamen to help themselves. The fortieth annual report of the Society (1879) states that[pg 273]48,000 mariners subscribe to the benefit fund organised under its auspices.80The history of this excellent association, which has now an income of nearly £29,000, is interesting.“A worthy, philanthropic medical man, Mr. John Rye, of Bath, had a servant who had formerly been a sailor, and was in the habit of reading the newspapers to his master. One morning their attention was arrested by an account of some fearful wrecks of fishing boats, with loss of life, on the north coast of Devon. The servant asked his master if there was any fund out of which help could be obtained to relieve the families of those men. The master replied that he supposed there was, but he would make inquiries from Admiral Sir Jahleen Brenton, then Governor of Greenwich Hospital; and from him he found that there was none. They then together drew up a prospectus, and presented it to the late Admiral of the Fleet, Sir George Cockburn, who most heartily took the matter up, and after circulating the appeal widely, called a public meeting in February, 1839, at which Sir George was appointed President, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen formed themselves into a committee, of which the worthy Chairman, Captain the Hon. Francis Maude, R.N., is now the sole survivor. The following month Her Majesty the Queen graciously consented to be the Patron of the Society; and so prosperous was the infant[pg 274]institution, that at the second anniversary, at which the late Sir Robert Peel consented to preside, the sum of £1,100 was collected. The Committee next set about to obtain the services of gentlemen to act as honorary agents, of whom there are now upwards of 1,000; and whose duties are to board, lodge, clothe, and forward to their homes all shipwrecked persons. The Committee meet every Friday in London to relieve the widows and orphans of the lost, not only at the time of their death, but by small annual payments. There were thus 9,601 persons relieved in 1879.”81

THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.

THE HOME FOR AGED MERCHANT SEAMEN, BELVEDERE, KENT.

Sooth to say, and in strict justice, we must not forget how much has been done for the seaman on the banks of old Father Thames, both by Government and private liberality. An excellent home, the“Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen’s Institution”exists at Belvedere, in Kent, started under the auspices of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. This institution was inaugurated, with room for the reception of 400 persons of all grades of the mercantile marine, although nothing like that number has been as yet accommodated at any one time. The Society also grants out-pensions to those who have homes or friends.

The most singular and characteristic and yet appropriate features of the building are a number of little cabins comfortably fitted, and so much like the real thing, that it requires only a very slight stretch of the imagination for Jack ashore to indulge in the fond delusion that he is at sea again. The large rooms are divided into wards, one for masters and mates, containing ten cabins, each six feet by seven feet, and perfect ventilation is secured by the partitions being open at the top. Each man, by this excellent arrangement, has his little cabin to himself, and all the sweetness of retirement should he be that way inclined. What a contrast is this to the ungainly, unhomely, and barren shelters of our Unions!

It speaks well for the profession that most of the inmates have seen over forty or fifty years of service, which, judging from what we know of service in the maritime navy, might decidedly be called active. On being interrogated by a visitor, some of these veterans proved having most successfully braved the dangers of the deep.

“How often have you been wrecked?”inquired the interviewer of our“ancient mariner.”

“Why, let me see, sir”—then, counting half audibly—“one, two, three, four, five times, I think, sir.”

The second, on being questioned, answered, simply,“Once in 1825, sir—going to Hamburg that was; and once in 1828, on the coast of Norway; and again on the coast of Java in ’42.”This man had also done some memorable deeds on shore, which fully made up for his being short by“two”wrecks of the other.

Greenwich Hospital next demands our attention, as once the great home and asylum for the seamen of the navy, although now a hospital only. It was founded in the year 1694, in memory of Queen Mary, who had long designed the foundation of such an institution. It was also built as a monument of the great victory of La Hogue. Sir Christopher Wren furnished the designs and plans for the edifice gratuitously—a noble gift from a professional architect, and valuable to boot. The object of the foundation was“to encourage the seamen of this[pg 275]kingdom to continue the industry and skilfulness of their employments, by which they had for a long time distinguished themselves throughout the world;”“to encourage them to continue also their ancient reputation for the courage and constancy manifested in engagements for the defence and honour of their native country;”“to invite greater numbers of his Majesty’s subjects to betake themselves to the sea;”and so forth. In sooth, the condition of the Greenwich pensioner was not, for a long period, particularly enviable. On admission he was required to relinquish any pension he might have gained in the service. Maimed men received onlytenpencea day, and a shilling a week, intended for tobacco and the humbler comforts of life. The Commissioners at one time stated that“the wives are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable.”From the Hospital they received only the broken meat of the hall and the rations of men on leave of absence. The wives were often reduced to the parish. No wonder the poor old veteran used to be so glad for a sixpence or even a“screw”of tobacco in return for his tough yarns!

The system has been entirely changed. At present all are out-pensioners, and when in good health can follow other employments. On the 26th September, 1865, the Greenwich exodus commenced. On that day nearly 200 out of the 900 pensioners of Greenwich Hospital who had accepted the Admiralty offer of pension allowance, in conformity with an Act passed in the previous session of Parliament, left that establishment for the various parts of the country they had selected for their future home. Since that time the whole have left; and the institution which, only a few years ago, had upwards of 2,000 inmates, now contains only a few hundred sick and disabled. Greenwich Hospital is a changed institution, and the system of rewarding those who have spent their lives in the service of their country is made more consistent with humanity, morality, and common sense. Instead of hundreds of elderly but still hale and athletic veterans wandering listlessly about the terraces and colonnades of Greenwich, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes overstepping the bounds of sobriety in the numerous public-houses of the neighbourhood, there are but a limited number of indoor-pensioners, and those are such as may be fittingly provided for in a place bearing the name of a hospital. They are disabled seamen in the strict sense of the term—poor worn-out old fellows who require to be taken care of, and who have, perhaps, no one but the nation to take care of them. The blind, the doting, the crippled, find comfortable board and lodging, and, without doubt, attentive nursing in the national hospital. But, as there are constantly new applications for admission, it is probable that there will always be a few hundreds in the establishment. On the first and third Thursday in each month a board sits at Somerset House to consider the claims of applicants for admission, and those who are passed are sent in an omnibus to the hospital. But for the large body of men who, though too old to reef top-sails and to work guns, are not too old to do something for their own living, and to wish for liberty and domestic life, there is the allowance before mentioned from the funds of the hospital, and the power of living where and how they please.

“What the average pension granted may be,”said a writer in theCornhill Magazine,“we have no means of knowing, but if some of the men have a larger sum than £36 10s., so also many of them will have much less, and will be unable to command in their homes the standard of living with which the Hospital supplied them. They elect to go, we take it, partly because they know the government of the place is to be changed, that it is to become a[pg 276]hospital in the narrower sense of the word, and that there will be less freedom of ingress and egress for them henceforth; but this is only part of a more general feeling in favour of liberty among them, at which nobody who has inquired into their condition can wonder. The authorities at Greenwich Hospital have contrived to make a palace as dull as a prison. The men have had no amusements but a library inconveniently furnished. They have not been allowed to have flower-pots in their windows, nor to receive friends and visitors in private; and it is not many years ago since they were forbidden to walk on the terraces. Some of the punishments, too—such as being compelled to wear a yellow collar and do scavengers’ work—have been harsh and injudicious. All these things have combined with the monastic character of the place to give a character ofennuiand listlessness to the Greenwich pensioner’s life, which must have struck every observing visitor. Dulness has been relieved within the walls chiefly by temptation without.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL.GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

“Since the age when Queen Mary pictured to herself Greenwich as a place of pious repose, where the sailor might end his days in the fear of God, it has become the favourite haunt of the pleasure-loving cockney—an emporium of shrimps, a reservoir of beer. Those quaint figures—the‘geese’and‘blue-bottles’of local slang—lounging about under the trees of the park, and loitering through the streets in the dress of another age, have been regarded by the holiday-maker from the metropolis as parts of the amusements of the place. They have been paid for yarns in drink and stray shillings, and have found the doctrine that sailors lived only for grog and tobacco accepted by their admirers as one of the glories of the British navy. It has been well remarked that, as a whole, the old fellows have been more decent in their lives than we had a right to expect under the[pg 277]peculiar circumstances. But a chapter might be written on Greenwich morality and its effects on the parish rates, which nobody would care to bind up with the naval histories of Brenton or James, but which would help to reconcile the reader to the break-up of an institution which has had much in it to kindle the imagination and justify the pride of our countrymen.

GREENWICH PENSIONERS.GREENWICH PENSIONERS.

GREENWICH PENSIONERS.

“The break-up is, after all, one in which people will acquiesce rather than one at which they will rejoice. It was a noble as well as a pious idea to gather under the roofs of a grand edifice—at once a dwelling-place and a naval monument, and placed on the shores of a river itself one of the chief sources of our maritime strength—the survivors of each generation of warriors against the enemy or the storm. Here the traditions of one age blended gradually with the experience of the next; stories of Shovel were passed on to those who fought under[pg 278]Hawke; the conqueror with Rodney lived to welcome the heroes of Trafalgar—not as bedridden or imbecile men, though they might be somewhat shattered—but still able to enjoy life, and to give the vividness of reality to the narratives of the past. All phases of naval service were represented. One of the‘saucyArethusa’s’smoked his pipe with an oldAgamemnon, and men who had first smelt powder on the Canadian lakes listened reverently to the recollections of those who had seenL’Orientexplode in thunder at the Nile. Greenwich Hospital will always be a great and useful institution—a mighty boon, whether to the sick nursed within or to the poor pensioned without its walls.”

Before leaving Greenwich we must certainly pay a visit to the Observatory, a building which has such intimate relations with the sea. The account which follows is that of M. Esquiros,82who particularly studied all our institutions connected with maritime interests:—

“I entered,”says he,“a well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were covered with charts, engravings, photographic portraits of the moon, and Donati’s famous comet of 1858. Mr. [now Sir George] Airy, the Astronomer Royal, is a man who has grown grey in the study of the stars; his energetic features indicate the incessant activity of the strong intellect which for more than a quarter of a century has upheld the reputation of Greenwich Observatory. On his writing-table were heaped a quantity of papers covered with calculations, and a maze of letters as to a thousand matters of business. A large iron cupboard contains all the precious documents which will, no doubt, one day serve to trace out the scientific history of the nineteenth century. Here, for instance, are preserved the letters and authentic documents which are destined to modify certain received opinions as to the discovery of the planet Neptune. In this cupboard may also be found the records of bygone errors and chimerical ideas, which one wonders to find reappearing in this enlightened age.

“It is difficult to believe that many amongst the English still confound astronomy with judicial astrology; but Mr. Airy preserves a very curious collection—letters that he has received from all classes of persons, asking what his terms are fordrawing a horoscope. Sometimes it is a young man wishing to know‘who will be his wife;’at others it is a lady, on the eve of embarking in the great business of life, who desires to consult the stars. Postage-stamps are occasionally sent with these missives, and he or she who consults the oracle promises to make known, if necessary, the true day and hour of their birth. The fact is, that a great many people can scarcely understand how the astronomers can contemplate the vault of heaven by day and night without endeavouring to trace out the secret of human destiny. Some years back a young lady dressed in good taste applied at the door of the Observatory; she felt interested in one of her near relations, a sailor in the Pacific Ocean, from whom no news had been received for several years. After she had had a few minutes’ conversation with one of the assistants, she went away bathed in tears, because the stars were not able to tell her if the object of her affections were still alive.”

On the ground that Greenwich Park now occupies there once stood an ancient tower, built about the year 1440, by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and uncle to King Henry VI. In the time of Elizabeth it was calledMirefleur. In 1642 the name of Greenwich Castle was[pg 279]given to it. Sir James Moore and Sir Christopher Wren pointed out the site of this fortress to Charles II. as the best place for the construction of an observatory. The old feudal tower was therefore pulled down, and over its remains was raised an edifice dedicated to the contemplation of the stars.

“The building was scarcely finished ere Flamsteed was installed in it, with the title of Astronomer Royal, and an emolument of £100 a year. He presided over the new establishment for more than half a century, and spent more than £2,000 of his own money. His works will always be looked upon in England as the starting point of modern astronomy. He may be deemed the founder of Greenwich observatory. His successors were Halley, Bradley, Nathaniel Bliss, and Dr. Nevil Maskelyn, the author of four volumes, of which it is said by Delampre,‘that if, in consequence of some great revolution every record of science had been lost, with the exception of this collection, in it would be found materials quite sufficient for building up again the science of modern astronomy.’Maskelyn was followed by John Pond, who died in 1835; his place is now supplied by Mr. Airy.

“The Astronomer Royal is nominated by the First Lord of the Treasury, and performs his functions under the warrant of the great seal of state; his salary is fixed at £800 per annum. One of his principal duties is to preserve for Greenwich observatory that character which the founder himself wished to impress upon it. The Astronomer Royal is therefore bound by the express terms of his commission,‘to devote himself with the greatest care to correcting the tables of the celestial movements, and to determine the positions of the fixed stars, in order to furnish the long-desired means of discovering the longitude at sea, and of thus bringing to perfection the art of navigation.’It is also necessary that he should reside in the observatory, and devote all his time to the duties of his office, never absenting himself for any long period without having previously obtained the sanction of the Lords of the Admiralty.

“Consulted as he is by various branches of the Government, he is able to render assistance to the public service by his advice and information, well assured that he himself can never be affected by any of the changes in official power, or by any of the results of political conflict. His residence has a garden attached to it, which is parted off from the grounds of the park, and well planted with fruit-trees. He has under his control eight assistants, and ordinarily six computers.

“It is curious to see these computers in their two offices, one situated on the ground floor near the study of the Astronomer Royal, and the other isolated in one of the quietest parts of the observatory, all sedately occupied in reckoning up, from morning to night, dull columns of figures.

“Before describing what Greenwich observatoryis, it would be better perhaps to state first what it isnot. It relinquishes to other inquirers the task of discovering spots in the sun and mountains in the moon. The observations of the assistants are not directed either to the figures of the planets or to the extraordinary movements of the double stars, revolving one round the other in the depths of the firmament, or the mysteries of the nebulæ. What a firmness of character, what a truly English strength of will have these observers shown, in voluntarily drawing a veil over some of the most splendid wonders of the heavens! At the time of John Pond, a telescope twenty feet in length had been erected in the establishment at great expense,[pg 280]but as it was a strong attraction to visitors, he caused the instrument to be dismantled. About the year 1847 Mr. Lerebours offered to Greenwich observatory the largest refracting telescope which had ever been constructed. The temptation was certainly a great one; it would have been flattering to the self-esteem of the institution to have possessed a wonder of this sort, unique as it was in the world. Mr. Airy need only to have said the word, and the Lords of the Admiralty would assuredly have made the purchase. But the Astronomer, on the contrary, held the present aloof with a determined hand. What was it that he feared? The perfidious influence of such a siren, which, by concentrating attention on the beauties of the heavens, would perhaps have turned away the attention of the assistants from their daily task, and have compromised the success of the Observatory.

“An observation of the sun takes place at least once a week at mid-day, in the transit circle room, and a large portion of the staff of the establishment take a part in it; but it is at night that one can form the best idea of the mode in which the transit of the heavenly bodies over the meridian is duly verified.

“The first observations made with the new transit circle date from 1851, and, from that time to the present they have never been discontinued. The assistant who is appointed, aided by this instrument to watch the state of the heavens, is on guard for twenty-four hours,i.e., from three in the morning until three a.m. the next day. Except under extraordinary circumstances, the same duties are never assigned to an assistant two days running. Having already worked some hours after sunset, he goes home to take his evening meal, and when he returns into the transit circle room it is quite night. The shutters, which, during the day shut in a part of the ceiling, are now unclosed, and by means of this aperture the whole sky seems thrown open to the room.

“Having consulted his list, and adjusted his telescope, he commences his steady gaze. His intentness can only be compared to that of a sportsman, or still better to that of a pointer dog, only, instead of a partridge or a woodcock, he is eagerly waiting to see a star get up. There it is at last! It comes into view quick and sudden as a meteor. Scarcely has it entered into the telegraphic field of sight than it appears to approach rapidly some objects which look like a series of transverse iron bars placed at equal distances from each other. These, however, in reality, are nothing but threads of the thickness of a spider’s web, stretched according to a system in the interior of the telescope, and wonderfully magnified by the power of the lenses.

“The assistants are all astronomers by profession, and their eyes have been well trained by continual practice. How, then, can it happen, that their observations do not always prove accordant one with another? There is a physiological mystery hidden in the fact which it would be interesting to penetrate. Each observer, although operating with the same instrument and guided by the same plan, perceives a celestial phenomenon—as, for instance, the transit of a star—either sooner or later than another does. This variation is attributed to the idiosyncrasy of the sense of sight in each individual, or to the more or less prompt manner in which the eye telegraphs its impression to the brain. It must, of course, be quite understood that no considerable inequalities of time are in question here; it is, at the most, some fraction of a second that I am alluding to; but the astronomical transit observations are of so delicate a nature, that the slightest errors would destroy their worth. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary to establish an average or standard, and each observer gets to know[pg 281]precisely how far his visual faculties vary from the ideal. Hence arises a question, incomprehensible to the uninitiated, which, however, is commonly asked among astronomers themselves—‘What is the value of your personal equation?’This inquiry is answered by a figure expressing the particular amount of deviation from the standard. The most singular thing is, that the value of the personal equation is different in the same individual as regards the various celestial bodies. Some can very quickly discern the phenomena of a fixed star who are much slower in perceiving those of the moon, andvice versâ. In order to obviate the inconvenience which might result from the variations in personal equations, they also have recourse to a very ingenious plan. An eye-piece with two tubes allows two assistants simultaneously to observe the passage of the same star over the same threads in the instrument;[pg 282]they both listen to the ticking of the clock marking the seconds, and separately calculate the results of their observations, which are afterwards compared. To obtain a greater degree of certitude, they occasionally exchange places. In this way the slightest chances of error are eliminated. The aberrations of the instrument must also be taken into account. Notwithstanding its excellence and the solidity with which it is fixed to stone walls sunk into the ground, it sometimes is affected by slight vibrations, which can only be attributed to theterra firmaon which it is constructed. Mr. Airy has noticed this same phenomenon at Cambridge, whence he has come to the conclusion‘that the surface of the earth, commonly regarded as the base of all solidity, is itself in movement.’

THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.

THE GREAT EQUATORIAL TELESCOPE IN THE DOME, GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.

“‘I am going to show you the clock which sets the time for all England,’said the Astronomer Royal to me, as he conducted me into a little room occupying one of the oldest parts of the edifice. Covered with its simple mahogany case, thisMother clock, as it is called, is not unlike one of those venerable wooden-cased clocks that one meets with sometimes in the old English manor-houses. No one, however, could fail to discover that the mechanism in this time-keeper is new and uncommon. Its chief characteristic is that it possesses two distinct attributes. In the first place it marks the time most exactly; and, in the next, it communicates this power to other clocks as well. It has therefore been called theMother clock, because it animates in the Observatory eight of itsdaughters. Its dial is divided into three circles, one of which marks the hours, another the minutes, and a third the seconds. One hand only moves round each of these dials, and thus points out the generally-accepted measures of time.

“The Observatory transmits signals every hour to the telegraph-office in Lothbury, in the City of London, whence, by a network of galvanic wires, the knowledge of the true time is spread along the lines of railway to the extremities of Great Britain. This vast Æolian harp covers thus with its chords nearly the whole surface of the British Isles, and vibrates in unison with one prime mover.

“As regards the true time, these telegraphic wires have a double mission. The current leaving Greenwich transmits the signal given by the clock at the Observatory, and what is called a return current then communicates the errors of the other clock on which theMotherhas just acted.‘I would never undertake to regulate a clock from which I did not get regular replies,’said the Astronomer Royal; and just as we were passing in front of a galvanic apparatus,‘Stop!’he added,‘the great clock at Westminster is at this very moment giving me an account of itself; it goes well, and is only the twentieth part of a second slow. Twice a day in this way it keeps me informed of the state of its health.’”

Below Greenwich one of the saddest catastrophes of the century occurred in 1879, one which has its lessons for all who voyage. We refer to the loss of thePrincess Alice. A pleasure steamer, one of the largest and best known of the London Steam-packet Company, with some 700 happy merrymakers, a large proportion of whom were children, left London Bridge on Tuesday morning, September 3rd, 1878, for Gravesend and Sheerness, and everything, even the temper of our uncertain climate,[pg 283]combined to make the day one of real and innocent pleasure. How true is it that danger is never so near as when we deem it farthest off. It was eight o’clock in the evening when thePrincess Alicehove in sight off Woolwich Arsenal, with her living freight of gladsome excursionists. The song that comes when toil ceases, the careless laugh and harmless jest were going round; eager eyes watched the dim lights of home glinting through the purple September twilight, and no whispered thought of peril dulled the harmony of the day, when a large steam collier, theBywell Castle, loomed darkly in the gloom.

Those who feared the least and knew the most from experience were the first to see the danger—the danger that, in the time, no human skill or ingenuity could avert. ThePrincess Alice, steaming on at good speed, had attained an impetus, and, together with the adverse tide and confined space, defeated the ready efforts of the commanders of both vessels, and the collision came. There was no time to think—no time to act; there was a fearful cracking and tearing, during which it seemed that theBywell Castlewould walk right through the ill-fated pleasure-boat, and in that dread and awe-inspiring moment the startled eye saw its fate, and the happy heart was stilled in horror. Only five minutes from the time the vessels struck, and all that was then thePrincess Alicelay cradled in the mud at the bottom of the Thames.

Save for the few who clambered on to theBywell Castle, and the proportionately fewer who could swim ashore, the entire human freight was hurled into the black and fœtid river, or carried down in the cabins and saloon of the submerged sepulchre. How terribly was this proved when the wreck was raised! The unfortunate passengers were found packed together at the foot of the companion ladders with no time to move hand or foot, with no air to breathe, stifled where they stood.

COLLISION OF THE BYWELL CASTLE AND THE PRINCESS ALICE.COLLISION OF THEBYWELL CASTLEAND THEPRINCESS ALICE.

COLLISION OF THEBYWELL CASTLEAND THEPRINCESS ALICE.

Collisions amongst iron ships have been so painfully frequent of late years that it is impossible to conjecture what may be the result of this wholesale loss of life in the future. It is doubtful, however, whether any previous accident ever equalled in its harrowing results the loss of thePrincess Alice. Excepting the fatal accident to theGrosser Kurfürst, the running down of theNorthfleetoff Dungeness by the Spanish steamerMurillo, comes next in horror to the cutting in two of thePrincess Alice. This terrible affair, and the heartless conduct of the commander of the Spanish steamer, will make the night of the 22nd of January, 1873, ever memorable in the dark annals of the sea; 293 persons went down with the ill-fated passenger ship. A sad case was that of theLady Elgin, run into by a schooner on Lake Michigan on September 8th, 1860. TheLady Elginwas an excursion steamer with 400 souls on board; she sank within fifteen minutes of the collision and with the loss of 287 people. Then, again, in 1854, in this fatal month of September, on the 27th, theArctic, a ship of the Collins line, came into collision with the screw steamerVestain a fog. This time the scene of the tragic disaster was the coast of Newfoundland; out of a list of 368 all told, 323 were lost, among whom were the Duc de Grammont and the Duc de Guynes. In the same year we have to record the loss of theCity of Glasgowwith 480 persons on board; and theLady Nugent, a British transport, which carried reinforcements for the army at Rangoon; the total loss in this case was 400. Neither of these ships was ever heard of after leaving port; a fate as terrible and mysterious as that[pg 285]which befell theCity of Bostonand thePacific, the former of which left Liverpool on the 23rd of January, 1856, with 186; while theCity of Bostonhad 191 persons on board when she sailed from Halifax, N.S., on January 26, 1870. Who amongst the living does not remember that black-letter day when news arrived in England of the capsizing of theCaptainoff Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870, with Captain Burgoyne and a complement of 500 all told, which remains the greatest calamity that has yet befallen the British Navy.

The army, however, suffered a loss nearly as appalling in the foundering of theBirkenheadoff the Cape of Good Hope, where a contingent, made up from the 12th Lancers, 23rd and 92nd Foot, helped to make up the 438 lives destroyed on that occasion, February 26, 1852. Nor were the greatest horrors entirely occasioned by the unruly elements and the sometimes pitiless sea, for added to these ever-impending dangers was the incombatable enemy—fire. The most heart-rending on record of these marine conflagrations was that which destroyed the S.S.Austriaon its way from Hamburg to New York, U.S., on September 23, 1858. By this fire, out of 528 passengers and crew, 461 were either burnt to death or drowned; how many met the more horrible death of burning can never be known, nor is it well for the mind to dwell upon the painful subject. Going back a little farther we find the record of the burning of theOcean Monarchin Abergele Bay, August 24, 1848, with loss of 178 lives. Then we have the S.S.London, which went down in the Bay of Biscay on January 11, 1866, carrying down with her to a watery grave 239 out of a complement of 258. The wrecks of theAtlanticand theRoyal Charterare conspicuous in the black list: the latter, an Australian clipper ship, was smashed to pieces on the coast of Anglesea on October 26, 1859, when, while some forty people or so managed to get on shore, 459 of men, women, and children, were added to the ocean sepulchre. TheAtlantic, of the White Star Line, struck on a sunken rock off Nova Scotia, April 1, 1873, and 481 out of 931 were lost. TheAnnie Jane, of Liverpool, swells the death-roll by 393, by being driven on shore at Barra Island, one of the Hebrides, on September 29, 1853; while thePomona, another emigrant ship, through carelessness in the reckoning, went ashore on the Wexford coast on April 28, 1859, losing 386 lives. And this sad list only represents the more prominent cases which occurred during thirty years.

Although the chief outward and visible sign of usefulness of the Seamen’s Hospital Society exists no longer on the Thames, many of our readers knew the oldDreadnoughtwell. She was the largest floating hospital in the world, and no other ship housed so cosmopolitan a crew as could be found among her 200 patients. Dysentery, scurvy, hepatic diseases in most varieties, and typhoid, were among the medical specialities to be seen on board, and it is probable that Budd gained much of his experience of enteric fever from this ship, which received annually from sixty to seventy cases of the disease. The surgical practice was equally useful, and we believe that the first resection (that of the shoulder) in London was performed by Busk on theDreadnought. A large number of men, now teaching in our schools, gleaned useful knowledge here, and (an important matter in surgery) learnt how to do little things well. Although in maintaining a necessary and constant communication with the shore, there were the usual perils of water, including a strong current, a crowded stream, ice, &c., no person engaged directly or indirectly in the business of the ship[pg 286]was ever drowned during the half century that she and her predecessors were moored off Greenwich. The late Dr. Rooke, one of the ablest and kindest of theDreadnought’sofficers, nobly earned the Humane Society’s medal by saving a boy who fell off a barge close at hand; three patients jumped overboard at different times, in a state of delirium, but all were rescued and recovered. There were convivial gatherings now and again in the snug recess of the admiral’s cabin, used as a mess room by the medical staff. TheDreadnoughtsuffered many blows from without, and was run into seriously on several occasions. But the old ship stood it all, and was missed by the bargemen, who made a cushion of her wherewith to cannon off to the opposite shore. There can be no doubt that the managing committee of the Seamen’s Hospital Society acted wisely in removing their clients to a home on shore, so that we need not say altogether regretfully, although truly,“Take her all in all, we shall not look upon her like again.”

Of all the hospitals there is none so interesting as a sailor’s, and that at Greenwich, which represents the oldDreadnoughtfloating hospital, is particularly so. It is here Jack ashore is seen at his best, and his best is very good indeed as a general thing, especially when all the good qualities are developed as they are when he settles down to enjoy the autumn calm of his life, which generally begins in the hospital. Not only are there seamen from every clime, and every creed, too, here, but one ward is occupied by a few old naval pensioners. In this ward the first thing that attracts the eye, and is placed prominently over the fire-place, is Dibdin’s simple legend of the“Sweet little cherub that sits up aloft.”Every inmate of this ward could tell his interesting yarn of personal experiences of the Battle and the Breeze. One old fellow is both blind and deaf, and still happy and contented under the sympathetic care of an ancient cherub, who has sailed through three-quarters of a century of life’s uncertain tide. Why the blind tar should be called“the nightingale”has not been clearly stated, though the fact remains the same, and may possibly refer to great vocal powers. His messmate has been through enough battles to fill a volume; while another, an octogenarian marine, speaks with pride of the part he took in theChesapeakeaffair, which was beaten and capturedthirteen minutesafter the first gun was fired by the weather-beatenShannon.

“You see,”he is wont to say, as he straightens himself,“by my military cut that I’m not a regular tar, though I’ve been in as many cutting-out parties as any a’most, and had the grape and canister pelting round me like hailstones, pretty nigh as often as I remembers feeling real hailstones. But I remembers best when the king—God bless him!—sent out thirty barrels of porter, that me and the rest of us might drink his majesty’s health in; that was in the time of the war with Ameriky, and good times they was too,”a little bit of individual opinion that no one would dream of controverting here. Next come we to another pensioner, who sits over the fire hugging his feeble knees, and who is just in the last year of his ninth decade.Hetells you of the part he took in 1805, in the capture of two French frigates, and some of the latent fire returns as he speaks of it; for it was a fight that lasted three days and nights before victory was fairly ours.

Take the wardsen masse, and we see peering out of the medley the delicate sallow skin and long black hair of the Greek, who is estimated by every British commander at seventy-five per cent. below the English tar in hauling power and endurance, while the South Sea Islander, the Scandinavian, the dusky Turk, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, Spaniards,[pg 287]Americans, Chinamen, are here side by side with the hardy sons of our own isles. In one corridor there is even a Fantee, with the mark of his tribe upon his ebon-hued forehead, but minus feet, having lost them through their being frost-bitten in the Black Sea. Another and more painful case is that of a poor fellow wrecked off Cape Horn, who, drifting for fourteen days in an open boat, reached shore only to find that he must purchase life at the cost of both nether limbs. The surgical operator was an unskilled sailor, the instrument a rough ship’s knife, with which he succeeded in performing successfully the dangerous operation, but with what torture to the sufferer can too vividly be imagined. He is cheerful enough now as he potters about on his stumps, full of dry humour and as cheerful as any able-bodied man could be. The light occupations of these disabled sons of the sea are varied and congenial to their different tastes, and their labour is chiefly confined to decorating the wards of the hospital. Amongst the many inscriptions are a beautiful white wreath with“Albert the Good”on it, and Nelson’s famous last signal. One German sailor lad has entirely decorated one ward with a taste and elegance simply surprising. This boy is an original, seeing that he went all the way to Jerusalem to learn English!“In Hamburg, his native place, he heard other boys, and occasionally travellers, say that there was a good school there where English was taught. Thereupon, seizing his opportunity, he worked his passage from Hamburg to Alexandria, took ship to Jaffa, and induced the German Consul to forward him to the Holy City.”Evidently he did not think there was anything remarkable in this singular method of acquiring our language!83

The Thames Church Mission is a society established to minister to the spiritual necessities of the vast fluctuating population of the Thames, consisting of seamen, bargemen, steamboat-men, fishermen, &c. Services are held on board troop, emigrant, and passenger ships, screw colliers, and every description of vessels; also in the mission and reading-room which has been opened for seamen, &c., by the bank of the river at Bugsby, near East Greenwich. Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books are sold at reduced prices, and tracts distributed. A chaplain (licensed by the Bishop of London to visit ministerially and officiate on board all ships and vessels on the Thames), four missionaries, and five seamen colporteurs, constitute the missionary staff. The Mission undertakes the sale of Scriptures to English and foreign seamen, and gives Testaments to emigrants on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society; it places on board emigrant ships packets of tracts, and distributes the cards and circulars of the Sailor’s Home among seamen arriving in the Thames. The field of operation extends from London Bridge to the anchorages below Gravesend. The chaplain also holds Sabbath services on board the training shipsArethusa,Chichester, andCornwall, and has weekly classes with the boys; and the missionaries act as honorary agents for enrolling members of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. There are many other excellent institutions for the seamen’s benefit, from London city to Gravesend town, but which cannot be described with the space at our command.

Every reader knows the Trinity House, but he may not be aware of its value to the seaman, the voyager, and the interests of commerce. The Trinity House, as it stands on Tower Hill, was built towards the end of the last century by Samuel Wyatt. It is of the Ionic order, and has some busts of naval heroes, whose deeds, like themselves, are of the past.[pg 288]Amongst its many interesting pictures is a very large Gainsborough, representing the Trinity Board of that day. This picture, by the way, is upwards of twenty feet in length, and, if merit go by measurement, is necessarily a very great picture. The Board of Trinity House has control of the beaconage and pilotage of the United Kingdom. The Corporation existed fully one hundred years before its original charter, which was granted in 1514, and was at that early date known simply as the“Shipmen and Mariners of England”—a voluntary and influential association of some standing, and at that time protected maritime interests and gave substantial relief to the aged and indigent of the seafaring community.

TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.

TRINITY HOUSE, LONDON.

Henry VIII. was the first king who granted it a Royal Charter, in 1514, in recognition of its well-tried merit. In this charter it is described as the“Guild or Fraternity of the most glorious and undividable Trinity of St. Clement.”The Charter of James I. and all subsequent charters are granted to“The Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity of St. Clement, in the parish of Deptford, in the county of Kent.”The motto of the Corporation isTrinitas in unitate. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House are not always exempt from undertaking stern and unpleasant duties afloat, as was instanced in that terrible time of trial—the mutiny of the Nore, in 1799, when they destroyed or removed every beacon and buoy that could guide the mutinous[pg 289]fleet out to sea. Its culminating recognition was by an Act of Parliament in 1836. The honorary members of this Court are men of distinction, including some of the members of the Royal Family. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh became its Master in 1866. The duties of the Corporation are described in their charter as follows:—

“To treat and conclude upon all and singular articles anywise concerning the science or art of marines; to maintain in perfect working order all the lighthouses, floating-lights, and fog-signal stations on the coast of England, and to lay down, maintain, renew, and modify all the buoys, beacons, and sea-signals; to regulate the supply of stores, the appointment of keepers, and constantly to inspect the stations; to examine and license pilots for a large portion of our coasts, and to investigate generally into all matters of pilotage; to act as nautical advisers with the judge of the High Court of Admiralty: to survey and inspect the channels of the Thames and the shoals of the North Sea, and other points of the coast at which shifting, scouring, growth, or waste of sand may affect the navigation, and require to be watched and notified; to supply shipping in the Thames with ballast. The Elder Brethren have also to perform the duty of accompanying the Sovereign on sea voyages.”

The light-vessels of the Corporation are nearly fifty in number, while there are more than eighty lighthouses. The buoys on our coasts must not be omitted. The number in position can scarcely be approximated, while in addition—in case of casualties—there must be kept in reserve fully one-half the number in position. There are also some sixty odd beacons of different kinds. The working staff of the Trinity House is composed of district superintendents, buoy-keepers, store-keepers, local agents, lighthouse-keepers, crews of floating-lights, watchmen, fog-signal attendants,84crews of steam and sailing vessels, altogether making a total of nearly a thousand men.

THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.

THE SIREN FOG-HORN, FOR WARNING SHIPS OFF THE COAST.

In 1837 the Duke of Wellington was Master of the Trinity House; in 1852 Prince Albert held that office, and Viscount Palmerston in 1862. Then came (1866), as already mentioned, the Duke of Edinburgh, while the Prince of Wales headed the list of a long roll of Brethren, to say nothing of the numerous dukes and earls who have gladly accepted the same honour. The Trinity House Corporation has successfully withstood several most searching Parliamentary investigations, only to come out with triumphantly flying colours, which added to the confidence generally reposed in it.

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