“If only the hull of a vessel can be obtained, the expense of rigging and fitting her up would probably be from £1500 to £2000, but if one of the flagships which are now being recalled from distant stations, could be had, with masts and rigging standing, this outlay would be considerably diminished, and thereby the chief obstacle to the establishment of training ships at most of our seaport towns on the coast overcome. "To have a constant supply of intelligent, well-conducted boys for the mercantile marine is a matter of vital importance to the welfare of the country. Steam is fast superseding sailing vessels in the coasting as well as in the European trades. In steamers few or no boys are carried or taught seamanship. These vessels require men who are already experienced in their profession. "The average time on board of the boys who left the Cornwall in 1867 was two years nine months and twenty days, a period which may be considered fully equal to a servitude of a similar length at sea; and of the hundred and fifty-six boys discharged from the vessel in the years 1864, 1865, and 1866, one hundred and thirty-seven were known to be doing well, and one hundred and twenty-six of these were sent to sea. "The statistics from other institutions of a similar nature are equally satisfactory. It needs no language of mine to advocate on utilitarian grounds, as well as on the grounds of humanity, the establishment at our several outports of the institutions to which this letter refers. "It must be self-evident that the mission of rescuing those who, at an early age, are helpless, and who, if left uncared for, would drift into crime, is a duty which society owes alike to itself and to these poor boys. “I am, sir, "NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, "November 26th, 1868. "Your obedient servant, "P.S.—I have referred above to the number of adults to be supplied annually from the shore as seamen, and may call attention to the circumstances that a few days ago the master of a brig, bound from London to Pernambuco, was obliged to put into Falmouth, as he found two out of three A.B. seamen he had engaged in London, utterly incompetent for the duties they had undertaken; one of them actually admitting that he had been but one voyage at sea.” The Times, in a leading article on the letter in November 30th, 1868, said : “We make an appeal this morning on behalf of a British institution which it is equally the interest and the pride of all parties to maintain. We have nothing, perhaps, so thoroughly national as the British seamen. He is the particular product in which, as we flatter ourselves, no country can vie with us. This is a day of free criticism, and nearly all our institutions are called to account; neither the Church, the Peerage, nor the House of Commons have been spared; but no one, so far as we know, has had the hardihood to find fault with the British sailor. The Admiralty which mismanages him may be abused, but the ideal seaman is immaculate. Even the army, with all its glories, commands less enthusiasm. We are proud of our soldiers; but the land is not our element, and we are content if we hold our own upon it. Indeed, some of the very qualities which we prize most highly in our soldiers are not strictly military virtues, but correspond to that pluck, that reckless daring or, rather, that unconscious devotion, which gives the British tar such a traditional popularity. He is the hero of a thousand fights, and, what is more, of a thousand ballads. “What, then, will the reader think when he learns that this institution is in danger of decaying, if it be not already in some degree decayed? We need hardly explain that we have not been speaking merely of the Royal navy, but also of that much larger body which does all the work of commerce, and from which in time of war the Royal navy must draw its supplies. It is the great difficulty of all other countries, when they wish to establish a naval force, that they have to create the sailors as well as to build the ships. Their people do not take to the water, and before they are of any service they have to be rendered familiar with it as with a new element. It is far easier to manufacture soldiers than sailors, for the conditions of life remain much the same in one case, while they are totally changed in the other. But in this country we have, or we have hitherto had, an immense population whose cradles are boats and whose houses are ships. Moreover, these merchant seamen have been the pioneers of our navy, and the latter have, in fact, only had to keep what the former have acquired. It is by trade, and by the servants of trade, that a footing has been gained for the British name and the British empire in every continent and in every ocean. It is, therefore, even more alarming to learn that the failure of which we speak is to be observed in this class of our sailors. Such, however, appears to be the fact, and a few statistics will place it very forcibly before our readers. We are referring to a letter, printed elsewhere, from Mr. James Hall, of Newcastle, a well-known authority on matters connected with the sea. He tells us that, while the number and size of our ships are rapidly increasing, the number of Englishmen who make seamanship the profession of their lives is materially diminishing, and the proportion of foreign sailors in our navy is greatly increasing. In other words, the British sailor is making way for the foreign sailor. Within the last ten years, it appears, the tonnage of our ships has increased twenty-five per cent., but the number of apprentices and boys entering the service has decrcased eighteen per cent., while the number of foreigners in the service has increased seventy-six per cent. Even with these recruits, the number of able seamen in the service has failed to keep pace with the tonnage by nearly a third, the increase of the tonnage being twenty-five per cent., while that of the able seaman is but nine per cent. At this moment more than a quarter, or twenty-eight per cent., of the able seamen in the merchant service are foreigners. This is sufficiently unsatisfactory; but even under these conditions our ships are frequently most insufficiently manned, and Mr. Hall tells us of men offering themselves in London as able seamen who had actually been but one voyage at sea. This is probably one cause of that lamentable increase of disasters at sea on which we recently commented. The ships, as we then showed, are often unseaworthy; but when unsound ships are sent to sea with untrained seamen they must meet with a good fortune their owners do not deserve if they escape destruction. With respect both to our navy and to our trade, such a state of things is a subject of national concern, and we shall have reason to thank any one who can point out the cause and suggest a remedy. "In some respects, it may be, the change is inevitable. At a time when such numerous and varied openings are offered to men both at home and in the colonies, the calling of a sailor is subject to severe competition. Even to a nation of islanders a life at sea has its disagreeable side; it involves denials and hardships which are not easily counterbalanced. Nor can we venture to say that foreign sailors are to be deprecated any more than foreign corn. The demands of our merchant service may be so large that our own population cannot and ought not to supply them. But, after every allowance, the figures we have quoted remain very unsatisfactory; and every one would wish that the supply of British sailors should be at least maintained without diminution. Our correspondent, then, points out one means of contributing to this end which is perfectly unexceptional and effective. What we want is, not to press adult men into a service with which they are not familiar, and in which they can rarely attain excellence, but to attract young recruits. There are among us so many vagrant, mendicant, destitute, or mischievous children, that we have passed more than one Act of Parliament for the purpose of laying forcible hands upon them, and putting them into public institutions where they will be trained to some industry. But what, as Mr. Hall urges, could be a more appropriate industrial institution than a training ship? It would supply the very discipline these boys need, and under conditions whereby it would be more natural and therefore less repugnant than on shore. The roving life to which it trains them would be suitable to their dispositions, and would be more likely to attract their pride than a manual industry. There is a sufficient number of them to furnish annually a very considerable supply of sailors, and thus materially to augment our naval resources. What Mr. Hall particularly wishes understood is that, under the last Act of Parliament, training ships are recognised as industrial institutions, and that Government aid can therefore be obtained towards them. Some good work has been done by volunteer efforts for the object we have in view; but voluntary efforts alone are not capable of dealing with the whole class of vagabond boys throughout the kingdom. Such a task would require a yearly expenditure which could not be entirely supplied by subscriptions. But with Government aid a voluntary contribution at the rate of £3 per boy would be sufficient, according to our correspondent's estimate, to maintain a ship. That would hardly be too great a burden for any prosperous community, and there seems no reason why every large port in the kingdom should not have its training ship. Every such port has boys who want work and ships which need sailors, and it would, in fact, be simple economy to bring the two wants together and thus satisfy both. The experiment has answered well in the two or three places where it has been tried. Mr. Hall enters into details which leave no doubt that the plan is feasible, and he gives sufficient directions how to enter upon it. The subject is one to which we have more than once called attention, and we are encouraged by Mr. Hall's letter to think that the discussion is at length bearing fruit. It is abundantly clear that the problem of dealing both with the boys and with the sailors is urgent, and it is equally clear that it can be solved with a little energy. The means |