WOOLWICH ARSENAL.
But not so with the arsenal, which is busy night and day in forging the bolts of war. A while ago a shower of military rockets burst upwards from this busy centre of martial industry, spreading some ruin and much consternation throughout the towns of North and South Woolwich, scattering to right and to left, and penetrating the walls of houses situated a mile or so from the opposite bank of the Thames. Such accidents are always possible, despite the extremest care, and Woolwich sleeps, like Naples, in more or less constant fear of eruption. The choice of the place as a site for the Royal Arsenal was brought about by the discovery there of a kind of sand peculiarly adapted for fine castings, a fact which may help to explain the derivation of the name from Wule-wich, “the village in the bay.” On the opposite side of the river, under the shadow of the trees which line the banks below North Woolwich Pier, elephants may occasionally be seen wandering, as calmly as if this were their natural habitat, for here are the North Woolwich Gardens, where, as at Rosherville, lower down the river, the folk of East London come now and then to “spend a happy day.”
WOOLWICH.
Off Woolwich, lies the Warspite, a noble example of those English frigates which did good service when England was still defended by its wooden walls. And the Warspite, which was formerly known as the Conqueror, is doing extremely good service now, for it is the training-ship of the Marine Society, which, at the suggestion of Jonas Hanway, the first Englishman who had the courage to carry an umbrella, was formed in 1772 for the purpose of equipping wretched and neglected boys for the sea. Since that date 60,000 boys, none of them criminals, but many in great danger of falling into crime, have passed through the Society’s hands, and have started life with honest purposes. A finer looking lot of lads than those who swarm about the decks and the rigging of the Warspite it would be difficult to find even in a public school, and it is a proud day for the Marine Society when, once a year, a fête is celebrated on board the noble old war vessel, and the boys go through their evolutions in the presence of Royal and distinguished strangers.
Admiral Luard, who commanded the Warspite whilst it was still called the Conqueror, and carried a thousand sailors and marines, related a few years ago how narrow an escape it had of going down with all hands. Overtaken in a typhoon off Sumatra, it lay for many hours on its beam ends, its hold fast filling with water, and altogether in a condition so hopeless that all on board gave themselves up for lost. However, good seamanship and excellent behaviour on the part of the men saved the vessel to perform its present humane duty, and to endure as a type and example of the sort of ship which once maintained our supremacy on all the seas of the world.
