'The Sailors' Friends

Tho late Mr. Plimsolls efforts to reform our merchant shippiug were roused in a measure (says a writer in the Daily Chronicle) by the scandal which he helped to expose consequent upon the chairman of an Irish steamship company having told the shareholders, at a public meeting, that the directors had sold one of their veeseld for £2200 ' as it was completely worn out from stem to stern, and as we dare not put her to sea again we thought the sooner we got rid of her the better !' Punch did him the honour of publishing him in its cartoon on more than one occasion, notably when the Duke of Edinburgh, after speaking at Liverpool in 1574, is depicted as saying: 'Really, Mr. Plimsoll, we're in the same boat You want seaworthy ships, I want Heaworthy men ; and we'll try and got them.' It was on July 22, 1875, that Mr. Samuel Plimsoll, as member for Derby, created a memorable scene in the House of Commons. In a state of frenzied excitement he protested against the Government's decision not to press on their Merchant Shipping Bill that session. Mr. Disraeli was entreated ' not to consign some thousands of living human beings to undeserved and miserable death.' He asserted that shipowners of murderous tendencies were amply and immediately represented within the House; he suggested that Mr. Edward Bates, M.P. for Plymouth, was a • shipknacker,' and he declared that he Avas determined to unmask the villains in the House who sent men to death and destruction. This naturally proved too much for the Speaker, who asked him to withdraw the observation, which Mr. Plimsoll obstinately declined to do. Mr. Disraeli thereupon moved, and Lord Hartington, seconded a motion that the Speaker reprimand the member for Derby for hia disorderly conduct, though Lord Hartington at the same time pleaded that Mr. Plimsoll (who had withdrawn from the House after flourishing his arms like a windmill, and pushing away his friends who tried to bring him to his proper senses) should be given a week to cool down. Mr. Fawcett had in the meantime with difficulty induced Mr. Plimsoll to take a walk in the open air to calm his mental excitement. A week later Mr. Plimsoll frankly apologised for the language he had uttered, and Mr. Disraeli, refe -ring to the member's ' over-strained sensibility,' moved that the order relating to the reprimand be discharged.