ALL A MYTH

Hokitika Guardian, 17 May 1933, Page 6

ALL A MYTH

“REPUTATION” OF SAILORS.

COMMODORE IN DEFENCE.

AUCKLAND, May 15,

“Nothing angers me more than to liiefjU' J anil-lubbers refer to seamen as hard-drinking,■ hard-swearing, godlesis, swaiabu.Qid.Lug, good-torn ni 1nigs,” said Commodore F. Burges Watson, commanding the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, )at the annual meeting of the Flying Angel Missions to 'Seamen last evening. , ;

“That is still the kind of ideafloats round,” he added. “But it is all together wrong. The man who lives at sea is much the same as his L'cother bn shore, the only diffoireneo being that his work takes him far from his home and lands him. in seine port where lie. has no friends and very little chance of making any. That is where the Missions to Seamen come in and perform a duty which is very much appreciated, by the men.” Commodore Burges Watson, quoting from the chaplain’s annual report called attention to the fact that out of 8-41.7 seamen who had visited the institute during the year, 2032 had attended Divine service. “That means,” he said, “that 25 per cent, of the seamen who came to the institute found time' to pray hero. Is the male attendance at any parish church better than that? So much for the charge of godlessness!” M It was also to be noted, Jig addeu|| amid laughter, that although 8117 seamen ha ( ] visited the institute during the year, the chaplain had only found it necessary to pay six visits to the prison. “So much,” he concluded, “for this hard-drinking, swashbuckling seaman we hear so much about.”

“The sailor to-day i? a man who reads and thinks,” said the GovernorGoneral. Lord Bledisloe. He added that whatever the sailor might have been a few ago, nowadays he had a love of good literature equal to that of dwellers on shore.