A B.W.T.A. Woman's Work.

White Ribbon, Volume 6, Issue 72, 1 May 1901, Page 9

A B.W.T.A. Woman's Work.

HOW WE HELP THE SAILORS. Hy Agnes E. Weston. The British Bluejacket is as slippery as the fish that belongs to the same element as himself, it is difficult to catch him, and, having caught him, still more difficult to keep him. But when caught he is worth all the trouble of the chase. W arm hearted, and hotblooded, free and open as the air, he is as the very salt of the nation. The commanding officers of the sister service have sent home in the last few months testimony after testimony to the worth of the “ boys in blue,” who were, by the by, for the nonce clothed in the universal khaki. “ The men of the Naval Brigade have been so cheerful under privation, so ingenious and clever under difficulties, that they have been a continual help and comfort to all sections,” wrote a commanding officer. “ God bless the dear sailors with GGr

loose legs,” an enthusiastic old lady exclaimed to an admiral of our fleet ; and we all bless and a r e proud of our sailors, and we are just now awakening to the fact that the men of our first line of defence must be sober and temperate, for our sakes as well as their own. In the hour of Britian’s need, how is the man whose brain is fuddled, or whose hands are shaky, to handle all the complicated machinery which goes to make up a modern battleship? A slight mistake, and lo ! half a vessel is blown out of time, a thousand brave men perish, and a million of money is lost. Therefore, if for no other reason, get hold of Jack, to help him to be temperate and to know and fear God, ' v e must. But how ? After twenty-nine years given up to reaching the sailors of our British Navy, 1 have learnt that lie must be got at through every channel I, or those who work with me, can think of or invent—through his pockets, his eyes, his ears, his appetite, his wife, his children, and his heart. And then it is necessary to be on the scent for other and fresh channels. By means of the big Sailors’ Rests at Devonport, and Portsmouth, called by our late Queen’s express permission “ Royal,” 1 can attack and attract some of those I have spent im life in helping. At these big buildings, each built at a cost of £"100,000, the sailor, when lie comes ashore from his ship, conus in and has what he likes to eat and drink—the only drink he cannot have is strong drink—he can sleep in cosy cabins, all of which have been given by kind friends, from our late beloved Queen downwards, and there are always meetings and classes, books and games, with which he can spend his leisure if he likes. But only if he likes. If a man comes in for a cup of coffee, he is not pressed or even invited to go into a meeting, or even to talk if he does not wish to. The building is there, clean, fresh, bright, cheerful and pretty, for the use of tiie sailor of the British Navy. He can use it as much or as little as he likes. The fact that last year 123,000 beds were occupied at our Rests, to say nothing of those sleepers who took their ease on the floors or benches, looks as if he cared to use it a good deal. Then we reach his pocket, too, at the Royal Sailors’ Rests, and reach it in order to keeps its contents safe from the spoilers, who would rob and cheat him on every hand. One day a man

came into the bar at Devonport, and demanded to see Miss Wintz, my lifelong friend and fellow-worker. He was decidedly what sailors would call “ two sheets in the wind,” but had sense enough to know what he was doing. When Miss Wintz came, he said, “ I’m not as sober as I might be, I know, but I’m sober enough to know as 1 ’d best not go about with this on me. Look here !” He put his hands in his pockets, and drew them out full of gold. He had just been paid off after a long commission. “ I)o you wish me to take charge of it for you ?” asked Miss Wintz. “ Aye, that I do; it will be safer with you than with me,” he answered. When it was counted it turned out to be a neat sum for the wife waiting at home, three hundred miles away. Miss Wintz took the money, giving the man a receipt for it, and later she had the satisfaction of despatching nearly the whole amount direct to the wife, “ in case that I might get buttonholed on the way home, Miss.” Equally, if not more, satisfactory was the fact that the man him. elf promised to give up the drink, and is now Godfearing and temperate, with as happy a home and wife as any man could have. Under God he owes it to the Rest, and the kindly inlluences within it. And that is the sort of thing which happens continually. A cup of coffee, a plum-pudding, a quiet place to read or have a smoke in, the bright sound of singing or our band, these apparent trifles attract a boy or a man to the place and attach him to it, and the Spirit of God, working for temperance and salvation, does the rest. And outside the Rest, too, we have just as many ways of reaching the sailor. My printed letters, which regularly every month supplement, but do not supplant, the written letters which go out to individuals all over the world every day by the score, are great travellers. On lonely stations, far away from land or friends, the brave fellows read thpsa messages from home, which remind them of the highest themes of ail. Three-quarters of a million of them last year sped to every corner of the globe. One of the letters 1 had from an Indian station ran;-- “ Dear Miss Weston, — “ I gave one of your blue-backs (the sailors’ name for these letters) to a native who can read English, and he liked it so much that he wants to translate it, and print it for his own

countrymen to read. I told him I thought he might. I hope this was right ?” Of course it was right. I was only too glad for the messengers of God to go anywhere and everywhere. I have left myself no space to tell of the gatherings on ships leaving England, of the bands of temperance men on every vessel afloat, of the sending of literature by the ton to every foreign and home station, nor of the ways of reaching the sailor’s heart through kindly care and ready help given to the wife and bairns left lonely at home. “ You'll look after the wife, ma’am, won’t you ?” not a few fellows said, as 1 shook them by the hand as they started for the front last year. And we looked after them then as always. Workrooms, where the wives —aye, and widow's too —ofsailors abroad or dead may get work when times are hard (and for wives of stokers more especially times often are hard), are a regular feature in the great circle of agencies having the Sailors’ Rests for their centre.—“ Home Messenger.”