ROTTEN SHIPS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 166, 11 July 1873, Page 2

ROTTEN SHIPS.

On Sunday, March 16, Mr. Plimsoll, M.P., happening to be in Leeds, and accidentally observing on the walls ihe announcement that a sermon would be delivered in the amphitheatre by a local minister on " Rotten Ships," attende^ the gathering, aud at the close was invited to speak. The hon. gentleman observed that if it was right to lift from a pit a horse or au ass which had fallen into it on the Sabbath day, it was also right that, although it was the Sabbath day, he should take the opportunity of Baying a word or two on tbe subject which he took for granted had brought the audience together that afternoon. He wanted tbe Leeds

people to help to make it impossible for the Government to let this session of Parliament go by without legislating on behalf of our sailors; for unless a very, strong public effort was made through the length and breadth of the land Parliament would separate without doing anything but appoiut a commission : — " A commission was a good thing, and he, hoped its work would be well done; but the country could not afford to wait For remainder of news see fourth page.

three yeara longer. Every day, aud almost every day, brought to him cases of a most heartrending character. On Saturday week he had a letter from a seaport town in the north of Scotland, in which it was stated that an old ship had been sailing from that port longer than anyone that lived there could tell, aed lhat she ought to have been broken up for firewood any time during the last twenty years It waß so notoriously unsea worthy that at last the owners could not get any men to go aboard of her. The captain himself stuck to her because he was an old man and had a large family, and the choice for him was that or destitution. He had sailed so many years in her, and had always escaped, that he thought he would risk it. The captain and owners put their heads together, what did they do ? After they found they could not get men to sail in her they actually sent the ship to sea with a crew of young boys, the eldest of whom was not more than seventeen, and .she went to the bottom and drowned them all. (Cries of " Shame.") What did the audience call that ? He called it murder. (Loud cheers)." Last week he saw'a|gentleman driving a pair of very fine horsee with a smart groom behind him in the West-end of London. He knew "-'something about the gentleman, and he looked at him ns he went by, and thought rather more than he would tell them just then : — "The day after that he got a letter from the north-weat. What did they think it. said. It told him that one of that man's ships had just come to port so grossly overladen that if she had had the least heavy weather she and all her crew must have gone. to the bottom— (Cheers). And now another instance. A ship, the name of which he had on the piece of paper he held in his hand, sailed from a port so overladen that the seamen shortly afterwards put into port and refused to work her. They were taken before the magistrates, and the magistrates sentenced eacb of them to six weeks' imprisonment. Another crew was obtained, put on board the same ship, and she went to sea the day after. On the day after that ehe put into Falmouth, the second crew refused to go on the voyage, aud they were sent to prison, one and all,' for three months. Then a third crew was mustered and put on board, and the vessel was again sent to sea. While the first and second crews were still in gaol the ship went down, and the third crew was drowned— (Cries ol "Shame"). He had received a letter from the governor of the gaol only last week. Governors of gaols were not very tender-hearted men — Laughter), Th«y were not very sentimental, and they were very much given to think that everybody who came under their charge came for some very good reason, and that they were therefore, not entitled to any special maiks of kindness or approbation. But this governor of a county gaol, who was a commander in the Royal Navy before he was made governor, wrote to him, enclosiug a copy of a letter written by two youug men who were in the gaol. The letter was too long to read to the meeting, but he would tell them what the governor said. He told him that the two young men were as respectable and well-behaved as ever he saw in his life, and that they were part of a crew who bar] been sent to gaol for not going to sea, and that they were writing to their parents in the greatest distress, feariug the shock it .would be to the minds of those respectable people to know that their sons were in gaol." Mr Plimsoll added that a late captain of the Royal Navy and present governor of a county gaol, told him it was literally true that many of the best of our fellowcountrymen had only to choose between death by drowning and the common gaol, • and he begged bim to go on and persevere in what he was doing : — "Now, he asked the working men of Leeds if they would stand that sort of thing any longer ? (General cries of " No, no.") See, then, that ihey formed a committee to co-operate with the committee which was being formed in London. (Cheers,) He did not know what would be the mode of operation of the London committee, but he should propose to them that every town io England should depute one or more persons to wait upon Mr Gladstone before the end of the month, and let him know unmistakeably that the will of the people of England was that they would not give up until their fellow- ; subjects at sea enjoyed the Bame protection which they gave to their factory hands, and their miners. (Loud cheers.) If the j people of Leeds lent a helping hand it. ; the movement, they would never regret in i Tbe recollection would remain with them | until their dying day—it would be a solace

wheu flesh and heard failed because of physical. .prostration and weakness, aye, and it would I e a solace fo the confines of tlie next wo-ld, ar>d, more than that, the recollection that, they had extended a helping hand fo fheiv bre'h'eu d f > sea would precede them in o eternity, and would plead for them before God. " Inasmuch as ye did it prV.o fhe least of these My servants, ye dd it utHo Me." (Loud aud prolonged cheers.") It is sta'pd that Mr Plimsoll has received a very loudly-worded letter from Her Majcsfy, (banking him for his book, " Our Seamen : au Appeal," and wishing him success in his endeavors to benefit I sailors. i _ _