CHART AND COMPASS H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR OF WALES, “ Trinity College, Cambridge, February 11th, 1885. Sir, -I have the honour to inform you, by direction of Prince Albert Victor of Wales, in reply to the request you make, as President of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, that he would become Patron of the same, that it will give His Royal Highness much pleasure so to do. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 5. N. DALTON.” Albert Victor, has generously consented to become patron of this Society, of which his grandfather, the late Prince Consort, was both patron and a large contributor to its funds. Her Majesty the Queen not only sent her volumes to the Society last December, but on a previous occasion a gift of £20 in the name of her firstborn son, the Prince of Wales. We would remind our readers that Prince Albert Victor has had a real nautical training; the navy was chosen as his sphere of service, and that of his brother George Frederick, eighteen months his junior. They were therefore entered as naval cadets on board the “ Britannia” training ship at Dartmouth, for a two years' course of instruction. Here the young students stuck to their work, and honoured every branch of discipline by the most prompt and cheerful obedience. Their studies embraced navigation, nautical astronomy, the uses of instruments and charts, and seamanship. The proficiency they evidenced upon examination gained for them six months' time, when they were transferred to the “ Bacchante," on which ship they continued the studies of their chosen profession. APRIL, 1885. Vol. VII. 98 H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT VICTOK OF WALES. The “ Bacchante" was commissioned at Portsmouth on July 15, 1879, and the princes joined her in September 17, the same year. She shortly afterwards set sail for a protracted tour, calling at Palermo, Messina, Malta, Gibraltar, Maderia, and the West Indies. Upon the return home of the “sailor princes" in 1879, the Prince and Princes of Wales were so pleased with the instruction their sons had received that it was decided to again utilise the “ Bacchante" on a similar service ; and as soon as her defects were made good she PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR. joined the flying squadron and proceeded to Vigo, Maderia, St. Vincent, Bahai, Montevideo, and the Falkland Islands, thence to the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, on which two stations they spent a considerable time. From Australia they proceeded to Fiji, Japan, China, Singapore, Colombo and Suez. The “Bacchante" then passed into the Mediterranean, and Prince Albert Victor visited Egypt, the Holy Land, and Athens, finally returned to England in the summer of 1882. The Times says:-“ Albert Victor recalls a grandfather whose memory is cherished amongst us, and a grandmother who, in a trite but true phrase, reigns in the hearts of her people, But Edward has historical associations of still wider significance ; " while a contemporary writes :-“ His career up to the present has been a very bright and happy one, and his amiability, good sense, thoughtfulness for others, and devotion to duty, augur well for the future, when in the course of Providence he may be called to take the Headship of the English race throughout the world as “ King of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Colonies and Dependencies thereof." His Royal Highness recently gave us a capital address in the East End of London, not far from the head-quarters of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, of which he is now patron. His spirit is seen in his letters to the Mayor of Windsor, in which he says, “The example which the Queen and Princess of Wales afford me will ever serve as a stimulus to my efforts after virtue and wisdom, and the consciousness of the many prayers raised to heaven on my behalf from all classes of Her Majesty's subjects throughout the world will animate me with fresh strength to the performance of my duty.—ALBERT VICTOR." Lady Brassey, whose picture, through the kindness of Messrs. Longman, Green and Co., we are able to give our readers, has most heartily helped the British and Foreign Sailors' Society in many ways. The first official act of Sir Thomas Brassey was to invite the Prince to become patron of the Society. Lady Brassey very kindly wrote: “Dear Mr. Matthews,-I am very glad to hear that my husband has been unanimously elected president of so excellent an institution as the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, and I am sure he will do his best to carry out your wishes with regard to His Royal Highness, Prince Edward of Wales, although, perhaps, there may be a little delay about it as at the present moment he is deeply occupied with the navy estimates and other matters.” Immediately on the receipt of the letter on the first page, her ladyship wrote:“Dear Mr. Matthews, You will I am sure be glad to see the enclosed letter from the Rev. Mr. Dalton, private tutor to Prince Albert Victor, by which you will see that His Royal Highness has consented to become the patron of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society. I write to you direct in order to save time as my husband is at the present moment fully occupied at the Admiralty, and I am sure you will be glad to have the information as early as possible. Believe me, yours sincerely,—ANNIE BRASSEY.” We are all very much indebted to this gifted writer of three splendid volumes, “A Voyage in the Sunbeam,” “ Sunshine and Storms in the East," and now her last great work“ In the Trades and Tropics.”* The names of these books, especially the “Sunbeam," are household words. Our little girl the other day came home from school quite delighted with her lessons from “ Lady Brassey's Voyage in the Sunbeam' all over the World !” She appears to have triumphantly impressed her class that in some way through the Sailors' Society she had a relationship with this noted voyager! We felt that these books are not only acceptable to * See Advertisement. 100 FIREMEN AS WELL AS FISHERMEN. the general reader, but here was a simple spontaneous testimony of how the “ Sunbeam " is finding its way into the small classes of our schools. FIREMEN AS WELL AS FISHERMEN. and Compass has a lot of very useful information and “Claims of Seamen upon Sunday-school Children.” I am glad to learn also that your page devoted to large print of Scripture texts has been blessed to some whose eyes have become dim by reason of age; and to the conversion of one seaman lying in an hospital ward. But it is your capital article in that number on“ Firemen as well as Fishermen” I wish to refer to. It is just in time, and not written an hour too soon. Your description is very graphic, but true. The fireman was long held as a very different class of operative than the sailor, who, trained from his youth to sea, his face tanned with the sun, and by discipline on long voyages, only feels himself a free man, to go where he likes and do as he likes, when the voyage is done. The engineer is a tradesman, and cannot be called a sailor, though he may be often at sea. The fireman may be a tradesman-certainly a landsman-although he may elect to go to sea. In most cases it may be bad habits that have cost him his situation on shore. Glad to get away as trimmer in a steamer, in a voyage or two he is rated a “fireman.” Not so immediately under the control of the captain, there is not that daily contact nor that daily interest in the fireman that there is in the sailor in a sailing ship. His work is away down out of sight among dust and din and fire and smoke. He is, moreover, under the control of the engineer, although the engineer is under the control of the captain. These conflicting elements are in a steamer, and the captain of a sailing ship coming into command of a steamer must forego his former notions of absolute authority, for another authority goes on below in the place you so aptly liken to Gehenna. “He is only a fireman,” or “he is only a fisherman," and neither the one nor the other could ship as an A.B. in a sailing ship. The advance of the age necessitates thousands of men to be employed as firemen who must be enrolled as “men of the sea," if we don't like to call them “seamen.” You say “these men are not all riff-raff; most have parents, many have wives and children, and all have souls." They are susceptible of kindness like other men. Christ died for them as well *Uncle William, is Mr. Whitmore, of Ramsgate. FIREMEN AS WELL AS FISHERMEN. 101 as for other men; they require our sympathy as well as other men ; and often it is reciprocated. Shortly after we left Calcutta one voyage a fireman came aft for some medicine. He had a pain in his side. I examined him, and found he was seized with a very acute attack of inflammation of the lungs. I went to the chief engineer and said, “You may put a man in this man's place when you like; he will be no use to you this passage.” I took him aft, bled and blistered him, as the custom then was for that disease. He was attended as if he had been a lady. When the weather got hot a tent on the quarterdeck was rigged for him, and passengers and crew came daily to : enquire for him. When he was convalescent he was allowed to go forward. I saw him one day on the forecastle-head airing himself with the watch off duty. I asked how he was getting on? “Middling—not just so well as when aft.” The cook was not so attentive to make him nice things as the steward had been when he was aft. I said, “ John, see, you have as good a right to the best that is in the ship as I or any passenger in the ship has. If there is anything in the ship you take a fancy for just tell the cook, and he will make it for you.” “Hear, hear,' rang out from his shipmates, ' there's encouragement for you, John.'” I need not say that ever after I was a pope among firemen. The testimony of some of these men who turn up at our Bethel meetings in Glasgow is truly cheering. One whom we had not seen before was converted in Calcutta at Sal Bazaar Coffee House for Seamen. At the first he appeared like a fireman, but as time went on, and he went in and out among us, from voyage to voyage, dressed like a gentleman, and his wife and children, bespoke a home of comfort and affluence. At our Saturday night tea and testimony meeting another turned up who accepted Christ as his Saviour, and was a living witness to the power that saves. He was once far down, far from Christ, and near a wreck. God, who is rich in mercy, opened his eyes to see his state and sue for mercy. When he got it he did not hide it, but became as great a champion for the Lord as he had before been for Satan. We were always pleased to see this man turn up with his stirring testimony to what Christ had done for him. Lately he appeared in the meeting scarcely dressed as a fireman, but like one in a higher station. He said he was sent down by the chief to pass the Board for second engineer, and he would get the berth, proving again that Godliness is profitable for all things, both for the life that now is and for that which is to come. The fisherman is not in the acceptation of the term a sailor; he is “only a fisherman.” Yet he earns his bread on the sea, and |