The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-17 00:00:00

SAILORS' HOME.

The annual meeting of this society was held yes-
terday at the Sailors' Home, Well-street, London
Docks ; Admiral Sir William Bowles presiding.
There were present Admiral E. Saurin, Captain the
Hon. Francis Maude, R.N., Admiral Goldsmith,
Admiral C. H. M. Buckle, Capt. Alfred Chapman,
Capt. H. H. Beamish, the Rev. Thos. Dunn, the
Rev. J. Richardson, &c. The report stated that
notwithstanding the mischievous combinations ar-
rayed in more than usual hostility against it, the
directors of the Sailors' Home had the agreeable
task of announcing that few years had dawned
upon the institution under more favourable auspices
than those of 1866 and 1867. They especially
called attention to the balance sheet, which showed
that the debt of £299 19s. 10d., on account of
the building fund, had been discharged, and that
by the payment of £045 the equitable mortgage
account had been reduced to £2,575, leaving a
working balance of £264. The average daily
number of boarders for the year had been
254. The receipts arising from the 92,474 rations
which that average exhibited held out the promise
that the " Home" would become permanently self-
supporting. During the past year £89,473 of the
seamen's private money had passed through the
cashier's hands, £33,243 of which has been remitted
home to friends, &c., and £3,926 invested in the
Board of Trade Savings-banks, making, since the
year 1835, when the Sailors' Home was instituted,
the total sum so lodged £1,448,177 ; the amount
remitted being for the same period, £529,544, and
the sum invested in the savings-banks £53,988. In
the postal department, 18,420 letters have been
received, and 1b,572 delivered. When the cholera
prevailed the institution enjoyed a providential
immunity, the moat serious cases of illness being
those of scurvy. In the navigation school, 70
seamen had passed for second mates, 75 second
mates for first mate, and 39 first mates for master's
certificate; 10,100 had attended public worship.
In the Board of Trade department 10,600
officers and men had been engaged, 11,674 dis-
charged, and 170 enrolled in the Royal Naval
Reserve. The directors conclude their report by
observing that—" If the seamen's return to port be
considered au escape from danger which produces
an intoxication of animal delight, and if the accu-
mulated sums in which they receive their wages be
deemed a temptation by giving them the power to
run into a lavish expenditure, then it may be truly
said that a sailor's home offers the means of direct-
ing aright that pleasurable excitement on the one
hand, and puts forth a powerful agency to check
this predisposition to waste on the other." The
directors caution the seamen not ;to disparage the
efforts made in their behalf, or think to forestall
any additional boons which might be conceded to
them by resorting to " strikes" and other methods
equally questionable, for such efforts to improve
their position must inevitably tend to prejudice the
claims they possessed to sympathy and help, and
to delay the foreshadowed era of a good under-
standing between them and their employers. The
report of the asylum stated that 1,135 destitute
sailors had been relieved during the past year ; and
observed that, although it was a common belief that
crimpage at the large ports was extinguished, it
was far from being the case, for before the ships
arrived in the docks they were, in direct contra-
vention of the Merchant Shipping Act, surrounded
by a horde of crimps or runners (chiefly in the pay
of the low lodging-house keepers or dishonest slop-
sellers), who gained access on board, and by over-
tures of money advanced, and a ready supply of
spirits, plied their illicit calling almost with-
out let or hindrance, much to the moral and
pecuniary injury of the sailors, and in defiance
of the beneficial law specially levied against these
nefarious practices. The Rev. Thomas Dunn then
moved that the report be printed and circulated,
and that the meeting express its humble thanks to
Almighty God for the blessing He had vouchsafed
to the operations of these benevolent institutions,
and more especially acknowledged His merciful in-
terposition in behalf of their inmates during the
prevalence of cholera. The resolution was seconded
by Captain Chapman, who particularly pointed out
to the notice of the meeting that the Sailors' Home
was a self-supporting institution. The meeting was
then addressed by Admiral E. Saurim, Captain the
Hon. F.:Maude, Mr. Russell Bates, Mr. J. Barrett,
Admiral Buckle, and Captain Beamish, and a vote
of thanks was given to Admiral Sir W. Bowles for
his kindness in taking the chair.