MR. PLIMSOLL SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
“It did blow a good half-gale all the day after Sunday—the ship sailed on Friday. I was looking seaward from the promontory on which the ruins of T—— Castle stand, with a heavy heart; the wind was not above force 7—nothing to hurt a well-found and properly-loaded vessel: I had often been out in much worse weather; but then this vessel was not properly loaded (and her owner stood to gain over £2,000 clear if she went down, by over insurance), and I knew that there were many others almost as unfit as she was to encounter rough weather—ships so rotten that if they struck they would go to pieces at once; ships so overloaded that every sea would make a clean sweep over her, sending tons and tons of water into her hold every time, until the end came.
“On Monday we heard of a ship in distress having been seen, rockets had been sent up by her; it was feared she was lost. On Tuesday the nameboard of a boat was picked up, and this was all that ever we heard of her.”
Some cases seemed to be looked on as matters of course, and a gentleman as he saw his wife reading the newspaper, said to her, “Look out, for the —— in a day or two; [pg 117]I saw her go out of the river. She is sure to be lost.” She was lost, and nearly twenty men returned home never more.
Mr. Plimsoll tells another story of two gentlemen, who told him one day that they saw a vessel leaving dock; she was so deep that, having a list upon her, the scuppers on the bow side were half in the water and half out. (A “list” means that she was so loaded as to have one side rather deeper down than the other; the “scuppers” are the holes in the bulwarks that let the water out that comes on deck from the rain, the washing, or the seas breaking over her.) They heard a slight commotion on board, and a voice said to the captain: “Larry’s not on board, sir.” He had run for it. Nothing could be done, for lack of time, to seek him, so they sailed without him. And these gentlemen heard the crew say, as they slowly moved away from the dockyard: “Then Larry’s the only man of us’ll be alive in a week.” That vessel was lost.
Another large ship was sailing on a long voyage, from a port in Wales, with a cargo of coal. A gentleman called a friend’s attention to her state. She was a good ship, but terribly deep in the water. He said, “Now, is it possible that vessel can reach her destination unless the sea is as smooth as a mill-pond the whole way?” The sea evidently was not as smooth as a mill-pond, for that ship was never heard of again, and twenty-eight of our poor, hard-working, brave fellow-subjects never more returned to gladden their wives and play with their children.
Mr. Plimsoll saw a large ship put to sea one day. She was so deep that a friend who was standing by said to him as she went: “She is nothing but a coffin for the poor fellows on board of her.” He watched and watched, almost fascinated by the deadly peril of the crew, and he did not watch for nothing. Before he left his look-out to go home, he saw her go down.
Even more touching are the records of some visits made by him to the sufferers left behind to mourn the fate of their husbands, drowned in leaky ships which should never have left port.
“In this house, No. 9, L——ll Street, lives Mrs. A——r R——e. Look at her—she is not more than two or three and twenty, and those little ones are hers. She has a mangle, you see. It was subscribed for her by her poor neighbours: the poor are very kind to each other. That poor little fellow has hurt his foot, and looks wonderingly at the face of his young mother. She had a loving husband but very lately, but the owner of the ship on which he served, the S——n, was a very needy man, who insured her for £3,000 more than she had cost him. So if she sank he would gain all this. Well, one voyage she was loaded under the owner’s personal superintendence; she was loaded so deeply that the dockmaster pointed her out to a friend as she left the dock, and said emphatically, ‘That ship will never reach her destination.’ She never did, for she was lost with all hands—twenty men and boys. A—— R—— complained to him before he sailed that she was ‘so deep loaded.’ She tried to get to the sands to see the ship off with Mrs. J——r, whose husband was on board. They never saw their husbands again.
“In this most evil-smelling room, E—— Q—— C—— Street, you may see in the corner two poor women in one bed, stricken with fever (one died two days after I saw them), mother and daughter. The husband of the daughter, who maintained them both, had been [pg 118]lost at sea a little while before, in a ship so loaded that when Mr. B——l, a Custom House officer who had to go on board for some reason while she was lying in the river, was told, ‘She’s yonder; you can easily find her, she is nearly over t’head in the water,’ Mr. B——l told me, ‘I asked no questions, but stepped on board; this description was quite sufficient.’