On board the steamer, I noticed that the same spirit
prevailed; the men treated me like a large and essentially helpless
baby, who must be made much of. Alas! do not I remember my first trip on
a carrier, when I was treated rather like a bundle of coarse fish? The
reason for the alteration is obvious, and I give my very last experience
as a most significant thing of its kind. Observe that the roughest and
most defiant of the irreligious men are softened by contact with an
agency which they regard as being too fine or too tiresome for their
fancy, and it is these irregular ruffians who greet the Mission smacks
with the loudest heartiness when they swing into the midst of a fleet.
Now, I put it to any business man, "Is not this a result worth paying
for, if one wants to invest in charitable work?" I repeat that the
Mission is indirectly effecting a national insurance; the men think of
England, and of the marvellous army of good English folk who care for
them, and they are so much the better citizens. We hear a dolorous howl
in Parliament and elsewhere about the dearth of seamen; experts inform
us that we could not send out much more than half our fleet if a pinch
came, because we have not enough real sailors. Is it not well for us, as
Britons, to care as much as we can for our own hardy flesh and
blood--the finest pilots, the cleverest seamen, the bravest men in the
world? They would fight in the old Norse fashion if it came to that, and
they would be the exact sort of ready-made bluejackets needed to man the
swarms of _Wasps_ which must, some day, be needed to defend our coasts.
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