The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism Volume II Part 8

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 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.'

"Mrs. R--s, H--n Place, told me her young brother was an orphan with herself. She said her sister brought him up till she was married. Then her husband was kind to him, and apprenticed him to the sea. He had pa.s.sed as second mate in a sailing ship, but (he was a fine young fellow-I have his portrait) he was ambitious to 'pa.s.s in steam' also, and engaged to serve in the _S--_ ship, leaking badly, but was a.s.sured on signing that she was to be repaired before loading. The ship was not repaired, and was loaded, as he told his sister-mother, 'like a sand-barge.' Was urged by his sister and her husband not to go. His sister again urged him as he pa.s.sed her door in the morning. He promised he would not, and went to the ship to get the wages due to him. Was refused payment unless he went, was over-persuaded and threatened, and called a coward, which greatly excited him. He went, and two days afterwards the ship went down. Her husband and Mrs. R--s also told me that he and his wife 'had a bit crack,' and decided to do all they could to 'persuade Johnnie not to go.' The young man was about twenty-two.

"Mr. J-- H--l told me that the captain was his friend, and the captain was very down-hearted about the way in which she was loaded (mind, she was loaded under the owner's personal supervision). The captain asked him (Mr.

A--) to see his wife off by train after the ship had sailed. She, poor soul, had travelled to that port to see him off. The captain said to him, 'I doubt I'll never see her more!' and burst out crying. Poor fellow, he never did see her more.

"Now come with me to 36, C--, and see Mrs. J--e R--e. She is a young woman of superior intelligence, and has a trustable face-very. She may be about seven-and-twenty. She lost her husband in the same ship. He was thirty years of age, and, to use her own words, 'such a happy creature; so full of jokes.' He was engaged as second engineer, at 4 10s. and board. 'After his ship was loaded he was a changed man; he got his tea without saying a word, and then sat looking into the fire in a deep study, like. I asked him what ailed him, and he said, more to himself than to me, "She's such a beast!" I thought he meant the men's place was dirty, as he had complained before that there was no place to wash. He liked to be clean, my husband, and always had a good wash when he came home from the workshop, when he worked ash.o.r.e. So I said, "Will you let me come on board to clean it out for you?" And he said, still looking at the fire, "It ain't that." Well, he hadn't signed, only agreed, so I said, "Don't sign, Jim," and he said he wouldn't, and went and told the engineer he shouldn't go. The engineer "spoke so kindly to him," and offered him 10s. a month more. He had had no work for a long time, and the money was tempting,' she said, 'and so he signed. When he told me I said, "You won't go, Jim, will you?" He said, "Why, Minnie, they will put me in gaol if I don't go." I said, "Never mind, you can come home after that." "But," said he, "they called me a coward, and you would not like to hear me called that."'

"The poor woman was crying very bitterly, so I said gently, 'I hope you won't think I am asking all these questions from idle curiosity;' and I shall never forget her quick disclaimer, for she saw that I was troubled with her: 'Oh no, sir; I am glad to answer you, for so many homes might be kept from being desolate if it was only looked into.'

"I ascertained that she is 'getting a bit winning for a livelihood,' as my informant phrased it, by sewing for a ready-made clothes-shopkeeper. She was in a small garret with a sloping roof and the most modest fireplace I ever saw; just three bits of iron laid from side to side of an opening in the brickwork, and two more up the front; no chimney-piece, or jambs, or stone across the top, but just the bricks laid nearer and nearer until the courses united. So I don't fancy she could be earning much. But with the very least money value in the place, it was as beautifully clean as I ever saw a room in my life.

"I also saw a poor woman, who had lost her son aged twenty-two. She too cried bitterly, as she spoke with _such_ love and pride of her son, and of the grief of his father, who was sixty years of age. Her son was taken on as a stoker, and worked on the ship some days before she was ready for sea. He did not want to go when he saw how she was loaded. She looked like a floating wreck, but they refused to pay him the money he had earned unless he went, and he too was lost with the others.

"Just one more specimen of the good, true, and brave men we sacrifice by our most cruel and manslaughtering neglect. This time I went and called upon an old man I knew, and, after apologising for intruding upon his grief, I asked him to tell me if he had any objection to tell me if his son had had any misgiving about the ship before he went. He said, 'Yes, I went to see the ship myself, and was horrified to see the way in which she was loaded. I tried all I could to persuade him not to go, but he'd been doing nothing for a long time, and he didn't like being a burden on me.

He'd a fine sperret, he had, my son,' said the poor old man.

"Here a young woman I had not observed (she was in a corner with her face to the wall) broke out into loud sobs and said, 'He was the best of us all, sir-the best of the whole family. He was as fair as a flower, and vah-y canny-looking.'"

But it is not merely rotten hulks which may become coffin-ships: many superior vessels are woefully deficient in accommodation for the sailor's comfort. He may, and often does, wade to his bunk through water, and the forecastle is too often a miserable hole, full of dirt and filth, where the men are packed like herrings. The food provided is princ.i.p.ally "salt horse" and "hard bread," _i.e._, sailor's biscuit of the most inferior description; and when scurvy ensues, as a natural consequence of exposure to damp and cold, with poor living superadded, the very lime-juice, which is nearly worthless if not pure, is found to be a miserable imitation or grossly adulterated with citric acid, which, strange as it may appear, has no anti-s...o...b..tic properties. In the Russian and French mercantile marines there is little or no scurvy, in consequence of the pretty general use of common sour wine, which in some degree makes up for the lack of fresh vegetables. And in French mercantile ships the sailor may at any time demand the same rations as those served out in the navy of the Republic.

Owing to the carefully prepared dietary of our Royal Navy, scurvy has entirely disappeared, except in extreme cases of exposure and lack of precaution, as in the late Arctic Expedition.(36)

"In the West India Docks, which contain vessels trading to the West Indies, I observed a very different cla.s.s of ships. Some are large and well supplied with provisions, but the majority are small, with wretched accommodation, badly manned, provisions indifferent in quality and deficient in quant.i.ty. Even in the larger vessels there is not that care taken of the men, and that amount of attention paid to their quarters and to the nature of their provisions, as in the ships belonging to the owners engaged in the East Indian and China trade. Captain Henry Toynbee strongly advocates the better ventilation and comfort of the forecastles, which he thinks should be under the control of Government. He has himself seen forecastles and seamen's chests in first-cla.s.s ships black from the gas which rises from the cargo, and which smells like sewage, which is especially the case in sugar ships. Captain Toynbee informed me a day or two since that he had actually seen a place containing two packs of foxhounds and three horses, which received half its ventilation by a hatch which opened into the sailors' forecastle!...

"In the Commercial Docks are to be seen both English and foreign ships, varying in size and cla.s.s, most of which are in the timber trade, and have arrived from Norway, Sweden, or Memel, or the Baltic. The number of patients taken from ships in these docks to the _Dreadnought_ hospital ship usually exceeds that from any other dock; but the cases are those not of scurvy, but consumption, bronchitis, and other chest diseases, which occur not so frequently in English sailors as in Norwegians, Swedes, and Russians-a fact due more, I think, to national predispositions than to hygienic conditions. In ships belonging to northern countries the provisions are abundant and good, the men's quarters are roomy, and there is nearly always a house upon deck in which there is a fair amount of s.p.a.ce and good ventilation. The hygienic condition of the men on board Swedish and Norwegian ships is far superior to that of the ships of our own country; the chief fault is the extremely dirty and lazy habit of the men themselves, who allow filth of all kinds to acc.u.mulate in the deck-house and galley, without taking the slightest trouble to remove it.

In English ships belonging to owners in the timber trade the state of things is disgraceful; a house on deck is an exception, and the men live and sleep in a small, close, ill-ventilated hole called a forecastle. The quality of provisions varies in different ships, some owners being more liberal than others; most of the men, however, live upon salt meat and biscuit, and sometimes a little salt fish. Timber in itself is considered a healthy cargo, but the ship is in most cases so overladen that the forecastle is very much reduced in size-too much so, considering the number of men that form the crew; these have either to remain on deck exposed to wet and cold, or have to breathe the foul atmosphere of a small forecastle, in which are stowed rusty chains, wet ropes, and all kinds of animal decaying matter...."

The vessels used for the coal trade are now princ.i.p.ally screw steamers, though there are still many of the old cla.s.s, generally found lying between Blackwall and Woolwich. Our authority describes them as follows:-They "are of small size (varying from 150 to 600 tons), and are built as sloops, schooners, or brigs. The majority are brigs; a visit to two or three presents a view of a state of things which is common to all.

A collier brig is generally worked by a captain and a mate, who live in a small dirty cabin, and by four men and a boy, who live and sleep in the most miserable of forecastles. This forecastle is very small, and so low that no person of ordinary stature can stand upright in it. It is dark, and the only approach is by a very small hatchway. It generally contains a quant.i.ty of old ropes, some rusty chains, a large tub of grease, and some damp canvas. These things, together with three or four dirty hammocks, take up the whole s.p.a.ce, and it is only from sickness and the most urgent necessity that the sailor remains there for any length of time. So old and ill-constructed are some of these colliers, that in rough weather the forecastle is deluged with water. This condition of things is made much worse by the negligence of the sailor himself, for it seems to be a rule that the cook, instead of throwing over the side of the ship the refuse of material used for food, as dirty water, potato parings, &c., deposits these with great care in some corner of the forecastle. No attention is paid by the captain to the sanitary state of the ship; during the voyage, which is often a rough one, he is engaged in working the vessel, and while she is in harbour he is on sh.o.r.e waiting upon the owners of the vessel, or transacting their business in the Coal Exchange. I was informed the other day by a friend, who was engaged during the recent cholera epidemic as a sanitary inspector, that a patient afflicted with cholera was taken to the Belleisle in the month of September, who had been lying in his hammock for two days prostrate, and with much vomiting and purging, and during this time the captain, although on board, was not aware of the man's absence from deck. The provisions supplied in this cla.s.s of ships vary both in quality and quant.i.ty; the supply, though, is very deficient, and there is an almost universal complaint among the men and boys that they have not sufficient to eat. Although coasting voyages last not longer than three or four days, and the ship is very seldom far away from land, the men scarcely ever get fresh meat; the supply always consists of salt beef-the coa.r.s.est parts of the animal. To this I may add that the biscuits are of the worst description, very hard, and are masticated with the greatest difficulty. The quality of provisions depends entirely upon the liberality of the captain, who not unfrequently has a share in the ship, and whose interest is consequently concerned in keeping down all expenses; the comfort of the men seems to be made subservient to pecuniary advantages."

And now-for a change-to good owners. There are many, and the present writer believes fully that the average ship-owner not merely wishes to preserve his ship, but all on board-crew, pa.s.sengers, and cargo. The proprietor of a grand vessel feels, as he should, that her loss is a very great deal more than his loss. Dr. Stone, some years ago made an inspection of the docks, and his remarks, published in our leading journal,(37) deserve to be recorded. He says:-

"From conversations I had with many of the officers and crews engaged in Green's, Wigram's, Smith's, the Black Ball, and other services, and from what I saw, I judged that the provisions are good and ample, and I was informed that scurvy is seldom met with in the vessels belonging to these owners, owing to the fact of the masters not being content with simply ordering the crew to take a certain quant.i.ty of lime-juice every day during the ship's voyage, but satisfying themselves by personal inspection that the juice is actually drank. Outside the dock gates, and off Plaistow Wharf, may occasionally be seen American vessels which have arrived with petroleum. An inspection confirmed the opinion I have always entertained regarding the superior accommodation met with in the vessels of the United States; they are large, well manned, and supplied with good provisions.

The berths and sleeping quarters are better even than those in large East Indiamen; every ship has a raised house on deck, s.p.a.cious, well ventilated, and clean, which, being furnished with a stove, the men are thereby enabled in wet weather to dry their clothes, which is of course a great preservation of their health. The general condition of the men is far better than that of the sailor of any other nation. Although the cruel treatment exercised by the officers of American ships is proverbial, there is seldom any difficulty in obtaining a good crew. The masters in the commercial marine of America pride themselves upon the general appearance of their crews, and they say that it is the best economy to give them good and abundant food, and to pay rigid attention to their sleeping quarters."

Sometimes it is the cargo itself which is a fatal cause of disease or death. Ships carrying large quant.i.ties of minerals, sulphur, petroleum, &c., sometimes smell intolerably, but are not considered unhealthy places of residence. But how of guano and other manure ships? In one of Dr.

Stone's letters to the _Times_, published in 1867, he says:-"The most objectionable and unhealthy cargoes brought into the Thames are those consisting of the different kinds of manure. A large bone trade is carried on in the port of London; barges are constantly pa.s.sing up and down the Pool laden with bones collected from bone-dealers and the slaughter-houses of London. Many of the bones are not dry, but are covered with decomposing flesh. The smell is very bad, and is not limited to the immediate neighbourhood of the barge itself, but may be carried for a long distance.

These bone barges discharge their cargoes into some small coasting ship.... The sailors and bargemen engaged in work of this kind suffer very much: they are nauseated by the offensive smell; their appet.i.tes fail entirely; they consume large quant.i.ties of spirit; and, as a consequence, are invariably attacked by diarrha, accompanied with vomiting. In the summer time it is a matter of surprise how anyone can remain, for a short time even, in the neighbourhood of the vessel; a thick offensive steam is constantly rising from the bones, and the decks and rigging are covered with large blue flies. When the vessel (generally a small, very old, and ill-manned schooner) puts to sea, the hatchways are kept open, so as to give free egress to the gaseous products of decomposition and to prevent the ship from taking fire."

Many have been the instances of ships' decks being blown up by the gas from coal becoming ignited, and loss of life has been caused thereby.

Gunpowder may, under certain conditions, become a most dangerous cargo.

Take the case of the _Great Queensland_, which was blown up entirely, leaving no survivors to tell the tale. The cause is not far to seek when we learn that two tons of impure wood powder, sufficient of itself to burst the ship to pieces, and from its condition likely to explode, were stored in the same compartment with thirty tons of ordinary black gunpowder.

Compulsory survey and no overloading were Mr. Plimsoll's main remedies for the prevention of the terrible loss of life in the mercantile marine. He cites two cases of great firms-the first engaged in the coal carrying, and the second in the guano trade-who do not permit overloading, and the first, in fifteen years had not, out of a large fleet of steamers, lost a single vessel, although they made from fifty to seventy double trips per annum. And yet the voyage from the Thames to the Tyne is more dangerous than an over-sea voyage. There are a whole crowd of dangerous shoals off the Ess.e.x coast alone, to be avoided or steered between, as the case may be, as soon as the ship leaves the Thames, followed by equal dangers on the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts. The latter sands are all under water even when the tide is at ebb, but there is not water enough on them to float a ship; hence the losses when ill-found, overloaded, and undermanned vessels get on them. Further north there are others, and then come the dangerous rocky coasts of Yorkshire and Durham. The second case deserves particular mention. About the year 1860, the firm of Anthony Gibbs and Co., of London, took a contract from the Peruvian Government to charter and load ships from the Chincha Islands with guano, and as many as three or four hundred ships left those islands annually for different parts of the world. At first they were allowed to load and proceed to sea without inspection or surveying, and were permitted to load as deeply as the masters thought fit. What was the result? Accidents and losses were reported every few days, and many of their ships foundered at sea, some with all hands on board. When the head of the house at Lima, Peru, introduced proper surveying before loading, to discover what repairs were needed, &c., allowing no overloading, and not permitting the ships to go to sea without full inspection of her pumps and gear, a sudden and wonderful change took place, and for years after not one of these ships foundered at sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXTERIOR OF LLOYD'S.]

We often hear and read of "uncla.s.sed" ships; does the reader understand the term? Nearly all new ships are fit to take valuable merchandise-silks, tea, provisions, cloth, or what not; and if "tight," _i.e._, not leaky, would be cla.s.sed A 1 by Lloyd's Committee. The letter refers to the ship proper; the numeral to its equipment, rigging, boats, cables, anchors, &c.

The term or period for which she is cla.s.sed varies with the quality and kind of timber employed, and the quality of the workmanship is also taken into account. A ship built mainly of hemlock, yellow pine, beech, or fir, will generally be cla.s.sed A 1 for four or five years; of elm or ash five to seven years; and so on through various grades, until, if built of English oak or teak, she may be rated nine to twelve years. All are subject to the "half-time" survey of a strict character; thus a ship cla.s.sed A 1 for eight years is examined by Lloyd's surveyors at the end of four years. "She may again, at the request of the owner, be examined for continuation, _i.e._, to be continued A 1 for a further term; usually two-thirds of that originally granted. She may again and again be re-examined for continuation, or, if she have meantime gone into a lower cla.s.s, be examined for restoration to the character A, but each of these surveys is increased in thoroughness and stringency as the age of the ship increases. When from age she ceases to be ent.i.tled to the character A in the opinion of Lloyd's surveyor, but is still tight enough and strong enough to carry valuable merchandise to any part of the world, she is cla.s.sed A red, usually for a term of half or two-thirds the original term granted her in the first character.... When from increasing age she is no longer fit to carry valuable goods for long voyages, she falls back into cla.s.s black, diphthong ae; while in this cla.s.s she is deemed fit to carry the same cla.s.s of goods, but only on short voyages (not beyond Europe).

And when after survey and re-survey at intervals, as before, she is no longer fit to carry valuable goods at all, she falls into cla.s.s E, and is deemed fit only to carry goods which sea-water won't hurt, as metallic ores, coal, c.o.ke, &c." And so it goes on till she is cla.s.sed 1; and when she is run through her terms here she is said to have run out of her cla.s.ses: to be, in fact, an "uncla.s.sed ship." The lettering is slightly varied for iron ships. But it must be remembered that all this submitting to survey is entirely optional, and that a newly-built ship may be "uncla.s.sed" also. In the former case-a ship which has run out of all its cla.s.ses-the vessel is usually fit for nothing more than a river trip, and ought really to be broken up. It is then that the disreputable shipowner steps in and purchases her. Happy is it for its poor crew if she does not prove their coffin!

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF LLOYD'S.]

It may be asked, as Lloyd's will now have nothing to do with such a rotten tub, How does the owner get anyone to insure it? It is generally done by mutual insurance clubs formed among these very owners, though not exclusively. Plimsoll says: "It almost seems as if there was a race who should lose his ships first on the formation of a new club, so great are the sums the members are called upon to pay as premium;" and such clubs are constantly failing.

To be cla.s.sed A 1 in anything is good, and, as applied to a ship at Lloyd's, means, as we all know, that the vessel is first-cla.s.s in every particular. But what is Lloyd's? Many readers would find it difficult to give a clear answer to this query. The secretary of that inst.i.tution told M. Esquiros, when that distinguished writer was visiting England, that he received many business letters addressed to "Mr. Lloyd," and we all know there was long, in fact, a celebrated Lloyd's Coffee-house in the City, where the merchants interested in maritime matters used to congregate. A poem, "The Wealthy Shopkeeper, or Charitable Christian," published in 1700, alludes to the establishment, and the writer adds, as an addendum, that the London merchant at that time never missed "resorting to Lloyd's to read his letters and attend sales." Later, Steele and Addison both spoke of it in the same light. "The veritable, personal Lloyd," says Esquiros, "as we see, has made a great deal more noise in the world after his death than he ever did during his lifetime." The name of the coffee-house keeper has become inseparably connected with the greatest maritime inst.i.tution of the world.

The original Lloyd was a wonderfully good example of a pushing London citizen. Little was, speaking in these later days, known of Edward of that ilk till Mr. Frederick Martin unearthed, in the vaults of the Royal Exchange, a long-forgotten series of its archives. Then he found "huge stores of ma.n.u.script papers and immense leather-cased folios, partly singed in the great fire which, in 1838, destroyed the Royal Exchange above them." Now we know that Lloyd, early in the reign of Charles II., kept a coffee-house in Tower Street, and contrived to make it the gathering point for the underwriters, who had been previously scattered all over the city. This house was near the Custom House, the Navy Office, and the Trinity House, as well as to the Thames "below bridge," and the position was obviously a good one for the purpose. Having surrounded himself with a growing connection in Tower Ward, Lloyd found himself in a position to approach the haunts of the leading merchants and bankers, and we find him in 1693 securely established at the corner of Lombard Street and Abchurch Lane, near the spot where the Lombard Street post-office now stands. Here he held periodical auction sales "by the candle," and started a weekly paper devoted to maritime affairs, the first of its kind: indeed it was, saving the _London Gazette_, the only London newspaper yet in existence. But he now met a severe blow, for, as we learn from Macaulay, "the judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty (of printing) did not extend to gazettes," and that, by English law, no man not authorised by the Crown had the right to publish political news. The said political news in this case consisted of mere headings and brief paragraphs, as, "Yesterday the Lords pa.s.sed the Bill to restrain the wearing of all wrought silks from India," or that they had received a "pet.i.tion from the Quakers." Lloyd had to succ.u.mb and stop the publication, but his sales of ships and cargoes increased, so that in fifteen or twenty years Lloyd's had become the recognised London centre of maritime business, including marine insurance. From this comparatively small beginning has sprung the all-powerful organisation whose agents are to be found in every part of the habitable globe.

"When," says a writer already quoted, "I landed, about three years back, upon one of the group of rocks lost in the bosom of the waves, and which are called the Scilly Islands, there was only one thing which brought London to my mind, and that was the name 'Lloyd's', in letters of bra.s.s, on the door of one of the least poor-looking houses. I might have gone much further afield, into some of the still wilder islands of the Old or New World, and there, even at the very ends of the earth-provided only that there was a town or port of some sort-I should have found an agent of this English society. The definition of Lloyd's which was given by a City merchant can now be better understood by us. 'It is,' said he, 'a spider planted in the centre of a web which covers the whole sea, and the shipwrecked vessels are the dead flies.'"(38)

"The loose connection existing between the underwriters of London," says the leading authority on the subject,(39) "as frequenters of the same coffee-house, where they carried on their business transactions, formed itself into a final 'system of membership' by transmigration to the Royal Exchange in 1774. The author and leading spirit in this all-important movement, which had far-reaching consequences for the commerce, not only of England, but for that of the whole world, was Mr. John Julius Angerstein, a native of St. Petersburg, but of German extraction, descended from an old and highly respected family of merchants." The writer goes on to show how young Angerstein, from junior clerk, had risen to be a successful merchant and underwriter. He became one of the most honoured of those who a.s.sembled at Lloyd's Coffee-house, as he was a most sagacious and far-seeing man, of unimpeachable integrity, and when the movement for obtaining a suitable home for the underwriters was mooted he was its greatest supporter. He became virtually the leader in the whole matter, and seventy-nine underwriters agreed to pay one hundred pounds each to start it fairly. Thus was the "New Lloyd's," as it was then called, first organised. It is not, nor ever has been, an insurance _company_, but rather a fraternity of merchants, shipowners, bankers, and capitalists subscribing for a place where they could meet and transact business. It is a maritime exchange. But each man is guided by his own intelligence, and must measure the extent of business which he undertakes by the standard of his personal capital.

"The English merchant especially," says Esquiros, in his charming work, "having so many bonds of union with the ocean, can hardly expect to always have tranquil sleep. Let the south-west squalls be ever so little let loose, the ruin of his house and family is hoa.r.s.ely muttered through his dreams. Oh, if he could only see from afar the good ship in which he has risked the better part of his fortune! In the morning he rushes to Lloyd's, the fountain-head of all marine news. Nothing, either in his face or conduct, shows the least emotion-he has the art of veiling his features with a mask of indifference; but what a tempest of anxiety rages under this outward calm! He asks himself a thousand questions: What does the telegraph say? What ships have touched at distant ports? What are the names of those which have reached England? To all these questions and many more he finds answers affixed to the walls of the vestibule. There the lists and advices give exactly the maritime bulletin of the day. But the critical moment has yet to come; this man, whose whole fortune perhaps is on the sea, has not at present consulted the 'Loss Book,' or, as it is also called, the 'Black Book.'"

This gloom-inspiring volume is placed by itself on a high desk, and each can refer to it in turn. It is, of course, written by hand, and contains every day the wreck record, briefly told. Laconic as is the formal record-the name of the ship, destination, nature of cargo, coast on which shipwrecked, and so forth-there have been as many as twelve pages blackened with the sad summary of the losses announced by telegraph during one day. "In each of these announcements-frigid and taciturn as fate itself-the mind may conjure up many a sad drama. How many human lives are there sacrificed? This is often the fact of which the 'Black Book' takes but little notice; the matter with which it has exclusively to deal is the property insured against the perfidy of the sea. Who was the insurer? and who has lost? These are the great questions. It is also remarkable, after a storm, to see with what anxious and fidgety hands some of the insurance speculators turn over the pages of this sibylline book." And no wonder: for the underwriter(40) is a speculator who is taking long odds against a terrible gambler-the ocean.

The Underwriters' Room at Lloyd's to-day is a splendid hall, with Scagliola columns and richly decorated ceiling, and mahogany tables placed at intervals all round the room. "What an animated, yet demure, hubbub is here!" says the French writer before quoted. "One might fancy that the sea, with the thoughts of which every brain is occupied here, had imparted some of its agitation and uproar to the business world. The current of news, transactions taking place, and chat going on, runs from one end of the hall to the other with a kind of deep murmuring roar." Those going to and fro are of two very distinct cla.s.ses-the insurers of ships and the insurance brokers. The latter have become very necessary, the reason being as follows:-The merchant who wishes to insure a ship, or a certain kind of merchandise that he is about to export, may by no means always meet the underwriter who is prepared to take that particular risk. While he is trying to insure his ship she may have already started-may even be at the bottom of the sea. In the latter case a delay might be fatal, for the news once arrived that his ship had been wrecked, he could not, of course, effect any insurance. He therefore goes to a broker who knows the habits of the place, and probably the very underwriter whose means or known predilections for certain forms of investment will make him desirous of taking the risk.

The business of Lloyd's is conducted by a committee of twelve influential members, while the working staff includes a secretary, clerks, and a staff of a.s.sistants technically known as "waiters," which would make it seem as though the odour of the original Lloyd's Coffee-house still clung to the body. The funds of Lloyd's a.s.sociation, as it might be termed, are large, and are used to great advantage: partly in charity bestowed upon deserving, though unfortunate seamen, and partly in rewards, in various forms, to special cases of merit. It costs an underwriter 50 entrance fee and 12 annual subscription to belong to it; the brokers are let off for about half the above rates; an ordinary subscriber pays 5 per annum for the privilege of entering the rooms of the a.s.sociation. We have now traced the history of the greatest maritime company of the world, one that could only belong to a great nation. No other could devise, much less support it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "GREAT EASTERN" IN A GALE OFF CAPE CLEAR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. I. K. BRUNEL. MR. SCOTT RUSSELL. (_From a Photograph by Mayall, 1858._)]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HISTORY OF SHIPS AND SHIPPING INTERESTS (_continued_).