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T the Thames Police Court, on the 9th July 1867, Police Sergeant Matthews stated that the crimps, runners, Jews, touters, and lodging-house keepers invaded the docks in overwhelming hordes, when ships were hauled into the basins, and they got on board by jumping from the swivel-bridges at the risk of their lives, and by every possible artifice. On (the previous) Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday morning, seventeen ships entered the Shadwell basin, and the officers were overpowered by 250 or more, soliciting custom and forcing their attention on the crews.' This does not appear to have been an isolated occurrence, as Mr. Paget, the magistrate, indignantly declared that such scenes and outrages were constantly practised in the docks in the district of that court.' Nor does it appear that any punishment was meted out to these '250 ruffians,' as they were magisterially designated, for invading the docks, carrying the ships by boarding, and robbing the sailors of their clothes, wages, and health. Indeed, the process described under the above euphemistic terms, is the ordinary means of livelihood of a large class of blackguards, male and female, not only in East London, but in other seaports. The occurrences of the 6th, 7th, and 8th July represent what took place in the London Dock Basin alone, and on those particular days, and the

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public would not have heard any. thing of 'such scenes and outrages,' had the '250 ruffians' confined their depredations to the robbery and demoralisation of sailors, but that one of their number, too eager after his proper prey, had the audacity to tear the coat of a police-constable, blacken the eye of a chief mate, and strike a ship-keeper. For these extraneous offences the indignant magistrate meted out very proper punishments, but for the original crime of boarding the ship, the offender escaped with as much impunity as the other 249 'ruffians.'

Who would suppose, in the face of such proceedings, that a law is included in 'The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854,' which is intended to put an effectual stop to the career of these 'ruffians? But it is wholly inoperative after the ship's actual arrival in dock, or at the place of her discharge; in other words, after the ship has arrived in the position in which the law would be chiefly useful. Yet we find the Board of Trade quoting this law, so ingeniously contrived as to be worthless, in a Notice' on 'Crimping,' dated November 1868, which is posted all over East London :

With the object of putting an effectual stop to the practice of Crimping, which has been for so long a fertile source of inconvenience to Shipowners and Masters, of demoralisation to Seamen, and of discredit to the Port, Constables are now specially employed for the purpose of arresting Crimps and other unauthorised persons

who may improperly go on board Vessels arriving off long Voyages in the Port of London, in contravention of the provisions of The Merchant Shipping Act, 1854.'

It is hoped that Ship-masters will cooperate with Dock-owners and Managers to prevent their Crews falling into the hands of Crimps, and to check, as far as possible, the serious evils resulting from the presence of improper Characters and unauthorised Persons on board Ships entering the Port.

The laws relative to crimping are amongst some of the many wellintentioned sections of the Merchant Shipping Acts of 1854 and 1867, for the benefit of seamen, which have proved dead letters, utterly worthless for the beneficent objects which their framers had in view.

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Why, in the name of common sense, should not the Act be so amended as to include such persons as force their way on board ships when lying alongside the docks? Why should not power be given to the police to exclude from the docks, pier-heads, and wharves, all known crimps and prostitutes, who play into another's hands, on the arrival of ships? The worthy magistrate of the Thames Police Court said, on the occasion before referred to, 'If there were 250 ruffians there ought to be 250 officers or more, to meet them and drive them out of the dock. He knew Liverpool well for twenty years, and in the docks the police force was under the control of the corporation of the town. He never heard of such scenes and outrages at Liverpool as were constantly practised in the docks in the district of that court.'

Leaving this matter of suppression, let us inquire more particularly into the causes which give rise to and sustain this evil agency. The obvious questions here arise -Who are these crimps? Why do they 'risk their lives' by 'jumping on board from the swivel bridges? Why don't the officers and crews of

the different ships keep them out? And why do sailors fall a helpless prey to such ruffians? On the proper reply to these questions depends the great cause of the social degradation and moral debasement of our merchant seamen. If crimps were not a necessity crimping would not pay; and if it did not pay, we may be sure that it would soon die a natural death. It cannot be too much borne in mind that, not many years ago, crimps were equally necessary at our naval ports, and that men-of-war's men were equally profligate, debased set of men, but that the circumstances attending payments and engagements in the Royal Navy have been so altered, and such sharp measures adopted, that the race of crimps has become almost extinct. Cannot the Local Marine Boards, shipowners, and officers suggest such measures as shall do for the mercantile marine, what has been so well done for the Royal Navy?

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The work of the crimp is generally confined to the foreign-going seamen, of whom, including repeated voyages, about 120,000 enter the Thames annually, whilst the crews of coasting vessels are usually left untouched. Coasting seamen are commonly engaged continuously in the same vessels, receive more frequent payments, are more generally married men, and are more accustomed to associate with relatives and neighbours at the port from whence they sail. They are not, therefore, so exposed to the temptations held out by crimps, nor are they such rich prizes, when caught, as crews returning from long voyages with large arrears of wages. moment a foreign-going ship arrives in the docks the duties and the wages of the crew cease, and they are then, not legally but practically, obliged to leave the ship. In this way at the end of every voyage, the crew are instantly disbanded; and thence begin all the evils we are contemplating.

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Each man may have from six to twelve months wages to receive, amounting to from 20l. to 50l., according to his position and the length of his engagement. But though discharged from the ship as soon as it is fast, the crew do not receive the payment of their wages until a period has elapsed varying from one to five days. They have then to present themselves personally at a public office near the docks to sign a 'release,' and receive their back pay, the interest of which has meanwhile been accumulating for the benefit of the employer.

In the interval between the day of discharge and the day of payment, the crew are out of work and out of pocket, obliged to remain idle at the port of arrival, and unable to go home to their friends. It is obvious, that during this period the men must eat, and drink, and sleep somewhere; they must also obtain presentable 'shoregoing' clothes; and landing after a long voyage, like frisky dogs let off the chain, they must have amusement or recreation of some kind. But they are all this time utterly penniless, for though one of the many well-intentioned but inoperative laws in the Merchant Shipping Act directs that one fourth of the esti

mated wages should be given to the crew on the day of discharge, this rule is rarely observed. Here, then, are large demands, which the crimp undertakes to supply. There is, of course, a certain amount of risk in advancing food, lodging, clothes, and the means of amusement to a thoughtless, reckless, and not too honest sailor, which can only be covered by a literally personal security, and which calls for a proportionate return. The crimp who offers all these necessaries, accordingly takes charge of the baggage and person of the sailor, and endeavours to make them yield as considerable a percentage as possible. The crimp, then, is a

lodging-house keeper, who frequently keeps also a licensed publichouse, and retains in his pay a variety of agents of both sexes, whose duty it is to watch the arrival of vessels, and each to offer their various necessaries to the The trade generally pays

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well, some of the principal crimps in the port of London being able to keep their country houses, and to bring up their families in comparative affluence. Amongst the agents enumerated by the police-sergeant as comprising the 250 ruffians' who boarded the ships arriving in the London Dock Basin on the second Sunday in July 1867, were the touter' whose business it is to attract the sailor to his master's lodgings by the judicious loan of money, the offer of grog or softtack (bread); the runner' who volunteers to carry his box of clothes and bedding free of charge to the same destination; the 'Jew clothiers,' who offer ready-made garments with the same object; and the female department, which appeals more directly to his pas sions, each of whom must obtain remuneration indirectly from the sailor. Beset by importunate friends anxious to supply all his most urgent wants, and without any other possible means of obtaining the requisite assistance, what is there for the sailor to do but to yield to the solicitations of those who may appear to him the least objectionable friends? He accepts, mayhap, the offer of clothes, or of him who, armed with a forged Sailors' Home card, wishes to carry his baggage, not knowing that all are working in concert to drag him, under specious pretences, into the same net. Arrived at the lodging-house, he finds himself the man of the hour, all his wishes anticipated, everybody anxious to do him service, and pressing on him those drinks and other refreshments from which he has been so long de

barred. Old experience may make him wary, but he cannot hold out for ever. He is taken to various amusements, or others are found for him in the long-room behind the house of his too hospitable retainer. The female agent entices him to have a drink,' which is carefully drugged. The excitement once begun, the rest follows, and ere the day for receiving his wages comes round, enormous bills have been run up, of which he knows nothing, and he is so involved as to be hopelessly at the mercy of his captors. When pay-day comes, the crimp takes care that the seaman makes his appearance sober enough to sign the release,' and pass the scrutiny of the shipping master; and when the money is received, the orgies are recommenced and continued until it is all said to be expended, and the clothes and bedding pawned. Even then, the crimp has the means of deriving further profit to cover the risks of the trade. Money and clothes being gone, and a sufficient deficit made to appear against the sailor, he is then compelled to join a ship about to sail, assigning the first month's wages to the crimp, by an 'advance note' upon the owners. At sea again after a week or so's continued debauch, without clothes or strength to withstand the exposures incidental to our northern seas, he is probably soon found to have contracted diseases which incapacitate him for active labours, and call for a medical treatment which is not procurable. Such is the common story, varied, no doubt, considerably, in the details, but ever resulting to the seaman in the same loss of money, clothes, and health, of character, self-respect, and love of country, the same loss of labour and risk of property to the shipowner, the same loss of credit and of estimation to our Protestant Christianity, of which these seamen are the only exponents to a great part of the world.

It may here be asked, What are our Sailors' Homes doing? They are carrying on a most successful war against the crimps, up to the limit of their means, by employing agents to visit the ships on arrival to offer food and lodging to the penniless crews. But what are the few agents their means will admit of, in comparison with 'overwhelming hordes' of thieves and prostitutes, plying their calling under the general name of crimps, in the docks? Suppose such 'overwhelming hordes of ruffians were admitted to our railway stations on the arrival of the trains, and the cabs and authorised porters to be withdrawn, what chance would the railway passengers and their luggage have against them? Yet the dock companies permit within their premises, with impunity, what no railway company would suffer for one day.

Nevertheless the agents of our Sailors' Homes do succeed in rescuing many seamen from the grasp of the crimp, and aid large numbers of respectable men to elude the 'sharks,' by providing most of the same necessaries, with the addition of others more really helpful to the newly arrived sailor. It is to be regretted that their means do not admit of a larger organisation for visiting ships, as it is evident that the dishonest gains of the crimp must enable him to work to far greater advantage than a Home can do, unless it be largely subsidised by voluntary contributions. Home can outbid the crimps if it be regarded as a self-supporting institution, inasmuch as it is only allowed to take from the sailor that which is honestly due, charging a fair percentage, whilst they take all he can possibly be robbed of. The Home is a castle of honesty and fair dealing, set down in the midst of a hostile population of thieves, with whom it must be ever at continual war; and whilst the thieves exist in 'overwhelming hordes,' and have no scruples as to the means they em

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ploy, the agents of the Home are few in number, and restricted to the use of honest weapons. We cannot then be surprised if, in a free country, where criminals are treated with all the immunities of honest men until foolish enough to be caught red-handed, the Home saves only its thousands, while the crimps destroy their ten thousands. With 11,000 foreign-going ships entering the Thames annually, besides the still more numerous vessels engaged in the coasting trade, it is evident that a very large staff of porters must be employed by the Home, if they are to board each vessel on arrival, in whatever dock, at the same time as the 'overwhelming hordes' of crimps. Thus in the year ending the 30th April 1868, of the 120,000 foreign-going seamen and boys, who entered the port of London, including repeated voyages, but exclusive of 90,000 coasting seamen who arrived in repeated voyages, we learn that the Wells Street Sailors' Home lodged only 11,037 persons, of whom, however, 3,467 were guests of bygone years, who thus evidenced their 'partiality for the comforts and blessings dispensed by that institution. All the hostilities,' says the Report for 1868, 'arrayed against the beneficent operations of this Home, springing up and reinforcing one another with persistent animosityas they have done from its infancy, and still do in its maturity-have failed to alienate the friendly feeling of those seamen who have tasted how good these interventions are.' In contrast to the robberies of the crimps we learn that, in this single institution, 90,6721. of sailors' money was lodged in the hands of the cashier, whilst '33,0831. has been remitted by the sailors, either for their own immediate use or that of their relatives, through the medium of money orders, issued under the authority of the Board of Trade, and 4,434. invested in the Savings Bank subject to the same control.

10,340 sailors have attended public worship at the Seamen's Church adjoining, and 15,159 assembled at the prayer meetings at the Home.' But notwithstanding these successes, we shall presently show that during the period of idle waiting which elapses between the days of discharge and of payment, the crimps sometimes succeed in enticing from the Home the men

thus rescued.

The Sailors' Institute in Shadwell, which is devoted to the spi ritual and intellectual improvement of seamen, and does not lodge or feed them, is also doing an excellent work. During the last year 49,463 seamen visited its coffee and reading rooms, whilst 310 religious services and 186 temperance meetings were held in the hall. This valuable institution is under the direction of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, which employs 32 missionaries at 27 different seaports.

It would be a mistake to suppose that all sailors' boarding-houses are kept by men of the crimp class. On the contrary, many of them are very respectably conducted, and are in just estimation amongst well-disposed seamen, as affording them a greater degree of privacy and comfort than the more palatial Homes. And as it is quite impossible for the Homes to accommodate all the sailors between their different engagements, even if they were situated near enough to the widely scattered docks on both sides of the harbours, it might be judicious to encourage respectable boarding-masters by a system of police licences, issued to those who reside within certain districts. The encouragement of such boarding-houses might have a good effect upon the Homes, by creating a

healthy emulation, which would serve to stimulate the managers of these institutions, and prevent them resting on the laurels won by their predecessors. Sailors' Homes might be much more attractive and useful institutions if their managers would