Kitabı oku: «About My Father's Business», sayfa 5

The evening lowers over the outer world of Mint Street and Leman Street, and the great blank void of the Tower ditch is full of shadow. Standing again in the large entrance hall, which reminds one more of shipboard, now that the lights are dotted about it, leaving it still a little dim, I hear the trickling of a drinking-fountain, and associated with its fresh plash hear as pleasant a story as any yarn that ever the barber himself could have spun for my delight.

The fountain, which is of polished Aberdeen granite, was opened last November in proper style, a platform being erected, and the chair being taken by the Secretary to the "Metropolitan Drinking Fountains Association," supported by several ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Lee made an appropriate speech, and called attention to the gift, and pointed to the inscription; and it was quite an emphatic little observance for the inmates who had gathered in the hall on the occasion. And well it might be, for the fountain bears this modest inscription: – "The gift of William McNeil, Seaman, in appreciation of the great benefits he has derived on the various occasions during which he has made the Institution his Home, for upwards of 25 years."

I think very little more need be said for the Sailors' Home than is indicated by this plain, earnest testimony to its worth. Yet it is necessary to say one more word. This Sailors' Home is in a way self-supporting, and at present seeks only the kindly interest of the public in case it should ever need another response to an appeal for extending its sphere of usefulness. Not a farthing of profit is permitted to any individual engaged in it, and even fees to servants are prohibited, though the crimps and touts outside endeavour to bribe them sometimes, to induce sailors to go to the common lodging-houses, where land-rats seek their prey. All the profits, if there are any at all, are placed to a reserve fund for repairs, improvements, or extensions. At any rate, no public appeals are being made just now.

But there is another institution next door – another branch of the stem which has grown so sturdily from the seed planted by the good captain – the Destitute Sailors' Asylum. That is a place full of interest, though there is nothing to see there. Nothing but a clean yard, with means for washing and cleansing, and a purifying oven for removing possible infection from clothes, and a great bare room, just comfortably warmed in winter, and hung with rows of hammocks, like the 'tween-decks of a ship.

That is all; but in those hammocks, sometimes, poor starved and destitute sailors go to sleep, after they have been fed with soup and warmed and comforted; and in the morning, when they turn out, they are fed again with cocoa and bread, and if they are naked they are clothed. There are not very many applicants, for, strange as it may appear, since sailors' homes have come in fashion there are but few destitute seamen; but there need be no unrelieved destitute sailors at all in London, for anybody can send such a one to the Asylum in Well Street, London Docks, and he will be admitted. Here then, is an institution that may claim support.

CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS

One of the old Saxon commentators on the Holy Scriptures, in referring to the passage, "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and it shall be found after many days," ventures to suggest as a meaning – "Give succour to poor and afflicted seamen." Whatever may be the conclusions of critical Biblical expositors, there can be no doubt that the pious annotator was right in a true – that is, in a spiritual interpretation of the text.

Should it be necessary to appeal twice to the English nation – which has, as it were a savour of sea-salt in its very blood – to hold out a helping hand for those who, having struggled to keep our dominion by carrying the flag of British commerce all round the world, are themselves flung ashore, weak, old, and helpless, dependent on the goodwill of their countrymen to take them into some quiet harbour, where they may, as it were be laid up in ordinary and undergo some sort of repairs, even though they should never again be able to go a voyage? It is with feelings of something like regret that an average Englishman sees the old hull of a sea-going boat lie neglected and uncared for on the beach. Not without a pang can we witness the breaking-up of some stout old ship no longer seaworthy. Yet, unhappily, we have hitherto given scant attention to the needs of those old and infirm seamen, who having for many years contributed out of their wages to the funds of the Naval Hospital at Greenwich, and having been again mulcted of some subscriptions which were to have been specially devoted to found an asylum for themselves, are left with little to look forward to but the workhouse ward when, crippled, sick, or feeble with age, they could no longer tread the deck or crack a biscuit.

It is true that there are now hospitals or sick-asylums in connection with some of the sailors' homes at our seaports, and to the general hospitals any sailor can be admitted if he should be able to procure a letter from a governor. The 'tween-decks of the Dreadnought no longer form the sole hospital for invalided merchant seamen in the Port of London; but even reckoning all that has been done for sailors, and fresh from a visit to that great building where three hundred hale and hearty seamen of the great mercantile navy find a home, we are left to wonder that so little has been accomplished for those old tars who, having lived for threescore years or more, going to and fro upon the great deep, can find no certain anchorage, except within the walls of some union where they may at last succeed in claiming a settlement. Surely there is no figure which occupies a more prominent place in English history than that of the sailor – not the man-o'-war's man only – but the merchant seaman, the descendant of those followers of the great old navigators who were called "merchant adventurers," and who practically founded for Great Britain new empires beyond the sea. In the poetry, the songs, the literature, the political records, the social chronicles, the domestic narratives of England, the sailor holds a place, and even at our holiday seasons, when our children cluster on the shingly shore or the far-stretching brown sands of the coast, we find still that we belong to a nation of which the sailor long stood as the chosen representative. Nay, in the midst of the life of a great city we cannot fail to be reminded of the daring and the enterprise which has helped to make London what it is.

The poet, who, standing on the bridge at midnight, and listening to the chime of the hour, found his imagination occupied with serious images and his memory with solemn recollections, would have been no less moved to profound contemplation had he been a temporary occupant of one of the great structures that span the silent highway of the Thames. There is something in the flow of a broad and rapid stream which has a peculiar association with thoughts of the struggle and toil of human life, and as we look on the ever-moving tide, we ask ourselves what have we done for the brave old toil-worn men who have seen the wonders of the great deep for so many years, and have brought so much to us that we can scarcely speak of food or drink without some reminder of their toilsome lives and long voyages? Well, a little has been done, – very little when we reflect how much yet remains to be accomplished; and yet much, regarded as a fair opportunity for doing a great deal more. I have already recounted some part of the sad story of what a provident Government did when it thought to undertake the affairs of poor improvident Jack. How it collected his money, and neglected to give him the benefit of the enforced subscription; how it administered and laid claim to his poor little effects and arrears of pay, if he died abroad and nobody came forward to establish a right to them; how it demanded additional contributions from his monthly wages, in order to show him how to establish a relief fund; and how somehow the scheme went "by the board" (of Trade), and the balance of the money was lost in the gulf of the estimates.

As long ago as 1860 it became clear to a number of leading merchants, shipowners, and officers of the mercantile marine that nothing was to be looked for from the State when the subject of making an effort to provide for aged and infirm sailors was again urgently brought forward; but it was determined to make a definite movement, and "The Shipwrecked Mariners' Society," which had then 40,000 officers and seamen among its subscribers, was appealed to as a body having the power to form the required association.

It was not till 1867, however, that the actual work of providing an asylum for old sailors was commenced. The society had then put down the sum of £5,000 as a good beginning, a committee had been appointed, of which the late honoured Paymaster Francis Lean was the indefatigable honorary secretary, and Captain Thomas Tribe the secretary, whilst the list of patrons, presidents, vice-presidents, and supporters included many eminent noblemen and gentlemen who took a true interest in the undertaking.

Several public meetings were held, and "a Pension and Widows' Fund" was first established. Then the committee began to look about them for a suitable house in which to begin their real business, and had their attention directed to a large building at that time for sale, situated on the breezy height above Erith, and formerly well known as the residence of Sir Culling Eardley, who had named it Belvidere. The property, including twenty-three acres of surrounding land, cost £12,148, and £5,000 having already been subscribed, the balance of £7,148 was borrowed at five per cent. interest. Not till the 5th of May, 1866, however, was the institution inaugurated and handed over to a committee of management.

It is admirably suggestive of its present occupation, this fine roomy old mansion, standing on the sheltered side, but near the top, of the lofty eminence, whence such a magnificent view may be obtained, not only of the surrounding country, but of the mighty river where it widens and rushes towards the sea. Here on the broad sloping green, where the tall flagstaff with its rigging supports the Union Jack, the old fellows stroll in the sun or look out with a knowing weather-eye towards the shipping going down stream, or sit to smoke and gossip on the bench beneath their spreading tree opposite the great cedar, while the cow of the institution chews the cud with a serious look, as though it had someway caught the thoughtful expression that characterises "turning a quid." A hundred infirm sailors, each of whom is more than sixty years old, are serenely at their moorings in that spacious square-built house, where the long wards are divided into cabins, each with its neat furniture, and many of them ornamented with the curious knick-knacks, and strange waifs and strays of former voyages which sailors like to have about them. There is of course a sick-ward, where those who are permanently disabled, or are suffering from illness, receive medical attention and a special diet; but the majority of the inmates are comparatively hearty still, though they are disabled, and can no longer "hand reef and steer."

There are a hundred inmates in this admirable asylum, and ninety pensioners who are with their friends at the various outports of the kingdom, each receiving a pension of £1 a month, called the "Mariners' National Pension Fund," the working management of which, with the "Widows' Annuity Fund," is made over to the "Shipwrecked Mariners' Society."

A hundred and ninety worn-out and disabled seamen now provided for or assisted, and a total of above 300 relieved since the opening of the institution. A good and noble work truly. But can it be called by so great a name as National, when we know how large a number of old sailors are yet homeless, and that at the last election there were 153 candidates who could not be assisted because of the want of funds to relieve their distress? Looking at the number of men (2,000 to 5,000) lost at sea or by shipwreck every year, and at the inquiry which has been made, through the efforts of Mr. Plimsoll and others, with respect to the conditions under which the service of the mercantile marine of this country is carried on, is it not a reproach to us that during the nineteen years since this institution was founded, so little has been done? Year by year it has been hoped that the Board of Trade would relinquish its claim to take possession of the effects of sailors dying abroad, and would transfer the £1,200 a year represented by this property to the funds of the society, but hitherto the committee have waited in vain. The donations from all sources are comparatively few; and though the annual subscriptions are numerous, they are rapidly absorbed.

Many masters, mates, seamen, engineers and firemen pay to this institution a subscription of five shillings a year, for which they have a vote at each annual election; or any such subscriber may leave his votes to accumulate for his own benefit when he shall have reached the age of sixty years, and becomes a candidate for admission.

One-fifth of the candidates admitted are nominated by the committee on the ground of their necessities or special claims to the benefit of the charity, while general subscribers or donors have privileges of election according to the amount contributed. Perhaps one of the most touching records of the subscription list is, that not only did the cadets of the mercantile training-ship Worcester contribute something like £100 in one official year, but that the little fellows on board the union training-ship Goliath lying off Grays, have joined their officers and their commander, Captain Bourchier, to send offerings to the aid of the ancient mariners, of whom they are the very latest representatives. On many a good ship these small collections are made for the same object, and at the Sailors' Home in Well Street there is a box for stray contributions; but much more has yet to be done. Perhaps it is far to go to see this great house on the hill, but most of us have caught a glimpse of its tall towers and its flagstaff in our excursions down the silent highway of London's river, and it might be well to think how little effort is required to give to each cabin its inmate, and to fill the dining-room with tables, each with its "mess" of six or eight old salts, who are ready to greet you heartily if you pay them a visit, and to salute you with a grave seamanlike respect. Would you like to know how this rare old crew lives in the big house under the lee of the wind-blown hill? To begin with, the men who are not invalids turn out at eight in winter and half-past seven in summer, and after making beds and having a good wash, go down to prayers and breakfast at nine or half-past eight, breakfast consisting of coffee or cocoa and bread-and-butter.

At ten o'clock the ward-men, who are appointed in rotation, go to clean wards and make all tidy, each inmate being, however, responsible for the neatness of his own cabin, in which nobody is allowed to drive nails in bulkheads or walls, and no cutting or carving of woodwork is permitted. The men not for the time employed in tidying up or airing bedding, &c., can, if they choose, go into the industrial ward, where they can work at several occupations for their own profit, as they are only charged for cost of materials. Dinner is served in the several messes by the appointed messmen at one o'clock, and consists on Sundays of roast beef, vegetables, and plum-pudding, and on week-days of roast or boiled meat, soup, vegetables, with one day a week salt fish, onions, potatoes, and plain suet-pudding, and in summer an occasional salad. A pint of beer is allowed for each man. The afternoon may be devoted either to work, or to recreation in the reading and smoking rooms, or in the grounds. Tea and bread-and-butter are served at half-past five in summer and at six in winter, and there is often a supper of bread-and-cheese and watercresses or radishes. The evening is devoted to recreation, and at half-past nine in winter, and ten in summer, after prayers, lights are put out, and every one retires for the night.

None of the inmates are expected to work in the industrial wards, and of course there are various servants and attendants, all of whom are chosen by preference from the families of sailors, or have themselves been at sea. The whole place is kept so orderly, and everything is so ship-shape, that there is neither waste nor confusion, and yet every man there is at liberty to go in and out when he pleases, on condition of being in at meal-times, and at the time for evening prayers, any one desiring to remain away being required to ask permission of the manager. It must be mentioned, too, that there is an allowance of ninepence a week spending money for each inmate.

The men are comfortably clothed, in a decent sailorly fashion, and many of the old fellows have still the bright, alert, active look that belongs to the "smart hands," among whom some of them were reckoned nearly half a century ago. The most ancient of these mariners at the time of my first visit was ninety-two years old, and it so happened that I saw him on his birthday. He came up the broad flight of stairs to speak to me, with a foot that had not lost all its lightness, while the eye that was left to him (he had lost one by accident twenty years before) was as bright and open as a sailor's should be. This is a long time ago, and William Coverdale (that was his name) has probably gone to his rest. Significantly enough, at the time of my latest visit, the oldest representative of the last muster-roll was James Nelson, a master mariner of Downpatrick, eighty-five years of age; while bo's'n Blanchard is eighty-one; able seaman John Hall, eighty; William Terry (A. B.), eighty-two, and masters, mates, quartermasters, cooks, and stewards, ranged over seventy. With many of them this is the incurable disability that keeps them ashore; the sort of complaint which is common to sailors and landsmen alike if they live long enough – that of old age. It will come one day, let us hope, to the young Prince, whom we may regard as the Royal representative of the English liking for the sea. For the asylum for old and infirm sailors at Greenhithe has not been called Belvidere for some years now. Prince Alfred went to look at it one day, and asked leave to become its patron, since which it has been called "The Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen's Institution" – rather a long name, but then it ought to mean so much.

WITH THE FEEBLE AND FAINT-HEARTED

Is there any condition wherein we feel greater need of human help and true loving sympathy than in the slow, feeble creeping from sickness to complete convalescence, when the pulse of life beats low, and the failing foot yet lacks power to step across that dim barrier between health and sickness – not far from the valley of the shadow of death?

In the bright, glowing summer-tide, when the sun warms bloodless creatures into renewed life, our English sea-coast abounds with visitors, among whom near and dear friends, parents, children, slowly and painfully winning their way back to health and strength are the objects of peculiar care. In all our large towns people who have money to spend are, at least, beginning to make up their minds where they shall take their autumn holiday; – in many quiet health-resorts wealthy invalids, and some who are not wealthy, have already passed the early spring and summer; – at a score of pleasant watering-places, where the cool sparkling waves break upon the "ribbed sea-sand," troops of children are already browning in the sun, scores of hearts feel a throb of grateful joy as the glow of health begins to touch cheeks lately pale, and dull eyes brighten under the clear blue sky.

Thousands upon thousands are then on their way to that great restorer, the sea, if it be only for a few hours by excursion train. England might seem to have gathered all its children at its borders, and very soon we hear how empty London is, while a new excuse for a holiday will be that there is "nothing doing" and "nobody is in town." And yet throughout the busy streets a throng continues to hurry onward in restless activity. Only well-accustomed observers could see any considerable difference in the great thoroughfares of London. Shops and factories look busy enough, and if nothing is doing, there is a mighty pretence of work, while the nobodies are a formidable portion of the population when regarded in the aggregate.

Early in August the census of our large towns still further diminishes. Prosperous tradesmen, noting the decrease of customers, begin to prepare to take part in the general exodus. "Gentlefolks" have concluded bargains for furnished houses on the coast and put their dining and drawing-rooms into brown holland. In West-End streets and squares the front blinds are drawn, and all inquiries are answered from the areas, where charwomen supplement the duties of servants on board wages. "London is empty," the newspapers say, and in every large town in the kingdom the great outgoing leaves whole districts comparatively untenanted. Yet what a vast population remains; what a great army of toiling men and women who go about their daily work, and keep up the unceasing buzz of the industrial hive. What troops of children, who, except for Sunday-school treats, would scarcely spend a day amidst green fields, or learn how to make a daisy-chain, or hear the soft summer wind rustling the leaves of overhanging trees.

It would perhaps astonish us if we could have set down for us in plain figures how many men and women in England have never seen the sea; how many people have never spent a week away from home, or had a real long holiday in all their lives. It may be happy for them if they are not compelled by sudden sickness or accident, to fall out of the ranks, and to leave the plough sticking in the furrow. It is not all for pleasure and careless enjoyment that the thousands of our wealthy brethren and sisters go to the terraced houses, or handsomely appointed mansions, which await them all round the English shore. Into how many eyes tears must need spring, when the prayers for all who are in sorrow, need, or adversity are read in seaside churches on a summer's Sunday. By what sick-beds, and couches set at windows whence wistful eyes may look out upon the changeful glory of wood and sea and sky, anxious hearts are throbbing. What silent tears and low murmuring cries on behalf of dear ones on whose pale cheeks the July roses never more may bloom, mark the watches of the silent night, when the waves sob wakefully upon the beach. What thrills of hope and joy contend with obtrusive fears as, the golden spears of dawn break through the impenetrable slate-blue sky, and a touch of strength and healing is seen to have left its mark upon a brow on which the morning kiss is pressed with a keen throb that is itself almost a pang.

The first faltering footsteps back to life after a long illness or a severe shock, how they need careful guidance. Let the stronger arm, the helping hand, the encouraging eye be ready, or they may fail before the goal of safety be reached.

"All that is now wanted is strength, careful nursing, plenty of nourishment, pure air – the seaside if possible, and perhaps the south coast would be best." Welcome tidings, even though they herald slow recovery, inch by inch and day by day, while watchful patience measures out the time by meat and drink, and the money that will buy the means of comfort or of pleasure, becomes but golden sand running through the hour-glass, which marks each happy change.

Yes; but what of the poor and feeble, the faint-hearted who, having neither oil nor wine, nor the twopence wherewith to pay for lodging at the inn, must need lie there by the way-side, if no hand is stretched out to help them?

While at those famous health-resorts, the names of which are to be read at every railway station, and in the advertisement sheets of every newspaper, hundreds and thousands are coming back from weakness to strength, there are hundreds and thousands still who are discharged from our great metropolitan hospitals, to creep to rooms in dim, close courts and alleys, where all the tending care that can be given them must be snatched from the hours of labour necessary to buy medicine and food. How many a poor sorrowing soul has said with a sigh, "Oh! if I could only send you to the sea-side. The doctors all say fresh air's the great thing; but what's the use? they say the same of pure milk and meat and wine."

It may be the father who has met with an accident, and cannot get over the shock of a surgical operation – or rheumatic fever may have left mother, son, or daughter in that terrible condition of utter prostration, when it seems as though we were in momentary danger of floating away into a fainting unconsciousness, which not being oblivion, engages us in a struggle beyond our waking powers.

Alas! in the great summer excursion to the coast these poor fainting brethren and sisters are too seldom remembered. Here and there a building is pointed out as an infirmary, a sea-side hospital, or even as a retreat for convalescents, but the latter institutions are so few, and the best of them are so inadequately supported, that they have never yet been able to prove by startling figures the great benefits which they confer upon those who are received within their walls.

One of the oldest of these truly beneficent Institutions, "The Sea-side Convalescent Hospital at Seaford," has just completed a new, plain, but commodious building, not far from the still plainer House which has for many years been the Home of its grateful patients. So let us pay a visit to the old place just before its inmates are transferred to more ample quarters, to provide for which new subscriptions are needed, and fresh efforts are being made. The visit will show us how, in an unpretentious way, and without costly appliances, such a charitable effort may be worthily maintained.

Curiously enough, Seaford itself is an illustration of declension from strength to weakness, and of the early stages of recovery; for though it is one of the famous Cinque Ports, it has for nearly 200 years been an unnoted retreat.

But it is still a place of old, odd customs, such as the election of the chief of the municipality at an assembly of freemen at a certain gate-post in the town, to which they are marshalled by an officer bearing a mace surmounted with the arms of Queen Elizabeth. It is famous, too, for Roman and other antiquities, and its queer little church dedicated to St. Leonard, has some rare specimens of quaint carving and a peal of bells which are peculiarly musical, while the sounding of the complines on a still summer's night is good to hear. In fact, for a mere cluster of houses forming an unpretentious and secluded town, almost without shops to attract attention, with scarcely the suspicion of a high street, and destitute of a grand hotel, Seaford is remarkably interesting for its legendary lore, as a good many people know, who have discovered its greatest attraction, and take lodgings at the dull little place, where even the martello tower is deserted. The chief recommendation of the place, however, is its healthfulness, and the grand air which blows off the sea to the broad stretch of shingly beach, and the range of cliff and down-land which stretches as far as Beachy Head, and rises just outside the town into one or two bluffs, about which the sea-gulls whirl and scream, as the evening sun dips into the sparkling blue of the water. It is just at the foot of the boldest of these ascents that we see an old-fashioned mansion, once known as Corsica Hall, but now more distinctly associated with the name of the Convalescent Hospital, of which it has long been the temporary home, the London offices of the charity being at No. 8, Charing Cross, London.

The institution, which was founded in 1860, has for its president the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for its patronesses the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Teck, and it has done its quiet work efficiently and well, under difficulties which must have required staunch interest on the part of its committee.

It is difficult at first to understand that the big many-roomed house just by the spur of the cliff, and peeping out to see over the shingle ridge, is in any sense a hospital; but here is a convalescent who will give us a very fair idea of the work that is being done; a tall fellow who is but just recovering from acute rheumatism, and is now able to go about slowly but with a cheery, hopeful look in his face. Presently, as one comes near the front door, a lad, who having come from a hospital where he has been attended for fractured ancle, has been sent here to recover strength, is hobbling across a poultry-yard, where a grand company of black Spanish, Polish, Cochin China, and other fowls are assembled to be fed, and beneath a pent-house roof in this same yard, on a bench, which would be well replaced by a more comfortable garden-seat if the funds would allow, there is a sheltered and comfortable corner for the afternoon indulgence of a whiff of tobacco. Twenty-five men and twenty-four women are all the inmates, besides attendants, for whom space can be found; and an inspection of the airy and scrupulously clean dormitories, or rather bedrooms, on each side of the building, will show that all the accommodation has been made available. It must be remembered, however, that as the period of each inmate's stay is but a month of twenty-eight days, fresh cases are constantly admitted during all the summer months; so that though as late as at the end of March only fourteen men and six women were distributed in the wards, the average number admitted during the last official year has been 511 (an increase of twenty-four over the year before), while the total number of cases received since the opening of the institution amounts to nearly 5,000.