The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-19 00:00:00

A Melancholy Narrative.

The schooner Robert Drape, Captain Montgomerie,
which has arrived in the West India docks, took eight pas-
sengers on beard at Algiers, for a passage to England.
They were a Mr. Hobbs, a native of Bath, a chairmaker,
his wife, and a family of six—the eldest eighteen years of
age. They left their native place some months previously,
for a town in Algiers ; but, failing in their expectations,
they wished to return to England, and applied to the
British Consul, who introduced them to Captain Mont-
gomerie. The captain states that, from a feeling of com-
passion for them, he undertook to give the whole family
a passage to England fcr £l4 ; but he represents that he
expended £l7 iu purchasing additional stores at Algiers.
There were two spare bunks in the cabin, divided from
that part used by the captain and mate, for the accommo-
dation of the wife and daughters, and two spare banks on
the forecastle were allotted to the father and sons. Thu,
schooner put to action Aug. 5, and owing to the warm weather
it is stated that the family wished to be berthed in the long-
boat, which stood on deck. Their desire seemed to have been
complied with. They made up their bed at the bottom of
the boat, and a kind of awning was erected in order to afford
some shelter. A day or so after the voyage commenced the
family suffered much from sea sickness, 'and the weather
setting in bad added greatly to their suffering. A heavy
gale of several days' duration was experienced off Cape St.
St. Vincent. The condition of the family became worse;
they were gradually getting more exhausted from
violent and continued sea sickness, and several,
of them were seized with ague. The captain states
that ho bad fresh provisions up to and when the
vessel was off Cape St. Vincent; but neither the parents
nor the children could be induced to take any solid food ;
they preferred tea, He also states that they were often
Balked to leave the boat and to go to the bunks in the
cabin and forecastle, but they refused. At eight p.m. on
the 25th of August, George Hobbs, the eldest son, 18 years
of age, died in the boat from exhaustion consequent on
sea sickness, and on the following day the body was
buried. Two days afterwards, on the evening of the 27th
another of the children, Emily, aged five years, expired
in the boat ; and at midnight of the same day the third
child, Richard Hobbs, nine years of age, breathed his
last, and in the morning the two bodies were committed
to the deep. The father and mother and remaining three
children still kept in the boat, and the captain states
that all his remonstrances failed in inducing them to
leave it. He prepared what nourishment he could for
them, but he had much difficulty in getting them to take
anything. They still preferred tea. Rough weather was
met with in coming up Channel, and on the night of the
3d instant, when the vessel was between Dungeness and
Dover, Elizabeth Hobbs, the eldest daughter, aged six-
teen, was released from her sufferings. On the schooner
arriving in the Dawns, the Violet lugger, of Deal, was
hailed, and the captain of the schooner desired the parents,
the two surviving children, and the corpse of the young
girl to be taken on shore. The lugger's crew state that
hey found the survivors in a most dreadful state of exhaus-
tion, and it is very doubtful whether they could have lived
tf they had gone on with the vessel to London. The lugger
took the poor creatures ashore at Deal, as also the body of
the girl. The survivors received that medical aid and atten-
tion which their lamentable state required, and are gra-
dually recovering.

OUR FUSTIAN CUTTERS.—The vicious custom of
" play-days" at the beginning of the week, exposes
these children to be shockingly overworked at the end—,
being sometimes unrelieved for thirty hours at a time. Four.,
teen hours, including meals, is a fearful daily task for young
girls and boys ; and in this business the work occasions
deformity and lameness, whether the hours are in excess or
not. It is probably the greatest event in the lives of tho
seventeen thousami young workers in these trades, that
the discovery has been made in their time of the fitness of
combining education of the mind with the labour of the
hands, and of the completeness of each when the two are
combined. As much learning can be gained in tone hours
as in six, and as much pay may be, or soon will be, earned
on the whole by those who go to school as when they never
left their work. " Half 'time and education is a grand
thing! " as the workman said ; and any of us who can in
any way aid in getting Parliament to extend the benefits of
the Factory Act to these hard-worked children, will surely
try their utmost, after seeing what their case is, and what
it might be. An effort in any degree proportionate to the
value of the object is sure of success.—C- nee a Week.