SEA-DOGS IN PORT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1924, Page 16

SEA-DOGS IN PORT

THE FIRST RABBITS IN AUS-

TRALIA,

Sixty-two jolly old watermen, water-, nien's wives, and watermen's widows, aro spending the evening of their days in a pleasant retreat in .Penge, Kent. The retreat is described as the Royal Asylum for Watermen and Lightermen, but it is known locally by the moro friendly iiamo of tho Watermen's Home. For more than 100 years the little houses with a big central hall for social pathcrings m the middle of them, liavo stood round threo sides of a, big square garden lilletl with trees and flowers. All tho old men who livo in tho little threeroomed houses, who plant their vegetable gardens, and play bowls on the green, began life at the water side They took part in the bustling ceremony of loading and unloading the great ships which used to lie out in tho river but which are now docked, so depriving tlie waterman of much of his old-limo importance.

Mr. William Jackson, who has been master of the Watermen's Homo for eleven years and who is over 80 years old, told a "Daily Chronicle" representative that in the days when ho and his brother watermen were in their prime ships would be waiting in lines te bo unloaded. Tho master was born near the Mmories, in a little streot then called Sparrow comer, and at 14 was apprenticed to an uncle who lived at Stepney and who was one of a family of watermen. He only stayed on tho riverside for a month or two, and then sailed away as an apprentice on a barque bound for India, and wherever else she could pick up a "trade." Tlio hoy's first voyage lasted four years. Ho arrived in India just after the Indian Mutiny, and saw mutineers blown from the guns. The crew of the' Conflict ?,t V ■ away six of tlle Cle w of one of John ' Company's boats, who, in those days, served under almost Navy conditions. Tho stowaways earned-their keep !? ter r, °n. for while in the China Seas the Conflict was attacked by pirates, and only succeeded in beating them off with the help of lho six extra men. The crow wero armed with cutlasses and muskets, while tho ammunition of tho Chinese included stink pots, which they threw down on tho deck of the English ship from their .mainmast. Later Mr Jackson sailed for Australia in tho La Hoguo. He helped lo take out the first rabbits to bo introduced there, but docs not expect any Australian to be grateful to him for doing so!