NAUTICAL BLUNDERS AND MANSLAUGHTERS. in the plague, penalties for their sins, for which Viscount Morpeth wants now to compound, on account of the people, at one stroke, by act of Parliament. Several years ago - now, indeed, a consid- ❘ erable number - large spinning mills were erected in this country, and the work of the cottage was transferred to the factory. For a time accidents were of frequent occurrence. People heard every other week that some girl had been caught in the machinery and killed in a cotton mill-that another had been similarly entangled and lamed by a flax machine - that a third was disabled in a woollen factory. Matters went on in this way for years. The light and flowing dress of young women rendered them peculiarly liable to accidents of this description. At last the Legislature decreed that machinery, wherever practicable, should be boxed in. This act trampled on the abstract principle of freetrade. Extremes actually meet on some occa-ments everywhere. sions; and in this instance, the extreme view, that a man may do what he likes with his own, shakes hands and hob-nobs cordially with another extreme principle, that no power on earth should interfere with what a man does with his own. The doctrine of free-trade is overstrained when people argue from it against the control of the State over the acts of private persons. Many centuries since, men began in these islands to draw together in small communities; and they erected their huts very close to some strong castle, to whose owner they were bound in vassalage, whom they were required to protect, and towards whom they also looked for protection. The infant power of trade and commerce was weak for a time before the baron's mace. By slow degrees, at last, the citizen or burgess power made itself recognised in the state. They exchanged blows with the barons, and they came off successfully. They had money and men - strong arms, and heavy purses that were always growing heavier. Kings saw their influence-feared the aristocracy, and sought favor with the citizens, by endowing them with new and great privileges. They reared higher houses. They piled house above house - flat over flat - and three fourths of their number were perched in the sky, away from any immediate contact with the earth. The houses began to be carried higher, the streets and lanes between them waxed narrower, as the necessities of mutual self-defence grew and increased amongst the burgesses. The Health of Towns Bill was then originated, because it was then that the disease of towns began. We have been suffering long for the quarrels and transgressions of our ancestry. We have paid, in typhus fever and consumption, as they paid The Health of Towns Bill originates in the disease of crowded localities. Parliament discovered that lives were lost from the unnatural condition of the population in the large towns, and has at last applied a remedy to one half, exactly, of the three kingdoms. Ireland, Scotland, and London are left out, and the provincial towns of England alone are included. Still, much has been gained, and the Legislature cannot delay, we believe, longer than the close of 1849, bills necessary to authorise the commencement of burghal reforms in sanatory arrange This Health of Towns Bill is a great invasion of the two extreme principles that we have already named - the extremes of oppression and of liberty - the dictates said to have issued from Newark and Manchester respectively dogmas that common-sense is daily casting down and trampling under foot. The herring fishery affords employment to a vast number of persons, on the east coast of Scotland, during the months of July and August. There is a remarkable dissimilarity in this respect between the east and the west coast. The latter is cut up into almost innumerable lochs and bays, and sheltered by the multitude of islands grouped in all sizes and forms, and bear the name of legion for numbers, from Arran and Bute in the Frith of Clyde, to the stormy Frith of Pentland. The east coast has no shelter of this kind. It is bare and open. From Berwickon-Tweed to the Pentland there are only two inlets, and they are seas in themselves. The Frith of Forth, and the Moray Frith, afford little or no shelter to small fishing boats employed off their headlands. The Frith of Tay is not frequented by fishermen, and all the coast besides consists of small bays, with their headlands entirely unsheltered from the swell, and it is often a wild swell in the German ocean. The fishings of the west coast are almost entirely neglected; while those of the east are prosecuted with considerable vigor and great industry by the villagers from the southern border of Scotland to the utmost north. The herring fishery at this season extends no farther south than Kincardineshire. At a much later period the herrings find their way to the Frith of Forth and the south, but during summer and autumn they are confined within the boundary we have nam 1 ed. There are several towns which have acquir- | cility in being useful is most injurious to their available in society, and to persevere under any we remember no loss so great as that which ocdiscouragement. In the year 1843, along with curred on the night of Friday the 18th of Aunearly one-half of the parochial ministers in Scot-gust last. The appearance of the evening did land, he abandoned his living on conscientious principles. His signature was the first to one of the declarations connected with that event. He pointed out all the trees around the manse large, full-grown trees - a neat and tasteful shrubbery, encircling a very excellent garden, wearing all the venerable and pleasing characteristics of forty years' cultivation - for a garden is comparatively valueless in its youth; and he remarked that when he came into the parish there was neither tree nor shrub on the place. He had planted every tree, and each had its particular history and remembrances. They were the notes of a long life, and served their owner as memorials of many events in which he felt interested. To a stranger it was not profitless to recall the time when short grass covered the ground, now so differently occupied; and strive to place the scene of 1800 beside that of 1843. The difference was immense, but not greater than on the social and religious aspect of Ferryden. A life had changed a spot of earth from a bleak and cheerless hill-head, looking coldly out on the ocean, to the tastefully wooded grounds of a neat mansion. The same life had done infinitely more to the pecuniary circumstances, the character and position of the fishers in Ferryden. ed great celebrity as fishing stations. Wick on the northern headland, and Fraserburg and Peterhead on the southern headland of the Moray Frith, are the principal stations. Nearly all the fishermen and boats of that extensive frith are collected at some one of these three ports, and a large number of fishers, with their boats, emigrate for two months in each summer from the south of Scotland, and from the north-west coasts. We have named the three principal curing stations; but from Peterhead, and especially from Aberdeen to the eastern point of Fifeshire, and around all the coast of the Frith of Forth, the tourist by sea will observe at every two or three miles small villages nestling at the foot of the bold coast, or perched on the top of the high banks that rise abruptly from the beach. There is seldom anything picturesque in these villages. Looking out sternly, on so far as man can see a boundless expanse of water, there is, in dark and sullen days, when the eastern gales disturb the restless ocean beneath them, a wild and savage grandeur in these groups of small cottages, with their boats hauled up in their little harbors, more frequently formed of a natural ledge of rock than by artificial means. Without a single shrub or tree around them, for none will grow upon the brow of the banks immediately over the sea, they stand entirely bare and unprotected from the bitterness of the blast, like sentinels over the movements of the water, watching for the security of all who rest behind. The fisherman's life has, however, very little poetry or romance in its composition. It is a matter of fact - of wet and of cold life - a life of hard and ceaseless, and often ill-rewarded labor. It begins early, and it extends to both sexes. The fisherman's wife works as hard, and is nearly as much exposed to wind and weather as her husband. She collects his bait for the white fishing amongst the rocks, or in the sands beside their fishing ground. That pursuit permits no choice of time or circumstances. Tide waits for none, and she must study the tide. In all seasons, during every extremity of weather, when the tide serves, she must scramble amongst the rocks, or wade in the sands, a patient bait gatherer. She has indeed a change in the nature of her labor; for she is the merchant-the buyer and seller for the family. Very frequently, day by day, this powerful class of females carry for six or seven miles to market a load of fish that half the ladies - or for that matter, half the gentlemen of the land-could not move if it were placed before them. The children of the village are made useful almost from their earliest infancy. Boys and girls of three or four years old can assist their mother or their sister in collecting bait; and this fatal fa intellectual culture. During recent years some progress has been made in conveying instruction to the communities of fishermen; and we do not know any section of the population amongst whom these efforts have been more successful. The families of fishers rarely marry into those of the neighboring peasantry. They dwell strictly amongst their own people; and as the villages are small-containing from two or three hundred to a thousand persons, and few of them a larger population - the villagers are all related to each other within very close degrees of consanguinity. From their mode of life, superstition naturally lasted amongst them for a longer period than their more changeable neighbors. There never were Conservatives firmer in their determination to maintain the existing position of things than the hardy fishers of Scotland. We could name amongst them many worthy Colonel Sibthorpes - sturdy men, who would not budge one inch, not one hair's-breadth from the practice of their ancestors. How many sad calamities are directly traceable to this fatal conservatism? Steam startled them. The shrieking engines, breaking up into foam their own waters, were profane in their eyes. Old matrons foretold their fate. So many temptations of Providence, as they believed them to be, could not prosper. Summer after summer, however, passed, and still the number of steamers increased, until persons who were old enough to remember the cannonading on the Dogger bank and how Lord Duncan's victory frightened the fish, decided that the noisy paddles of the steamers were doing the same bad work-for they held that fish of all descriptions were naturally shy, quiet, unobtrusive animals - and especially great haters of all boisterous noises. Their forebodings have been disappointed, but the reason is evident. The universality of the evil has neutralized its effects. The fish might wander to other seas, but steam followed them; and now the packets are established objects, and would be missed. His The late Dr. Brewster, of Ferryden, was the first great innovator on the habits of a Scotch fishing village. He was one of the few men who combine with great intellect much suavity of manner, and indomitable perseverance. of inions were slowly formed. In every instance they were the produce of careful thought. But once formed, they were maintained and acted out with singular perseverance. This gentleman became, in early life, the minister of a parish which comprehened the villagers of Ferryden. He determined to use every effort to destroy their prejudices, to bring them forward in the race of life with their neighbors, to establish amongst them all the means of improvement Other parties followed his example; and there is a great change working in the character and acquirements of the fishing population. Still, theirs is a precarious, toilsome existence. Their life is ever taken in their hand. Their avocation is laborious, and their rest a misfortune, as it lengthens, growing into a calamity; for it is inseparably connected with involuntary idleness and a cessation of earnings. The calamities of their dangerous occupation fall with more severity on families, from the construction of society in these villages. We remarked that all the inhabitants of a village are mutually and nearly related. This feature is carried out closer still in a boat's crew. The loss of a single boat's crew may fall entirely on one family. That has been the rule with fishers in all parts of the world, and at all times. It was so with the fishers of Syria, who cast their nets into the sea of Galilee two thousand years since. It is so with the fishermen of Scotland at the present day. The herring fishery on the east coast is prosecuted during the last month of summer and the first of harvest. Therefore it should be peculiarly safe. But it must be conducted through the night, and that necessity in some measure counteracts any other advantage. Very few seasons pass without the loss of one or two boats; but not lead the most skilful fishermen to anticipate misfortune has fallen on them. There were two These people never had anything more than the deep sea and hard labor to draw their money from; and the lowest estimate of the property lost is £10,000, while others carry it up to £20,- ❘ means more consistent with feminine character of earning a livelihood. They are an important class; for what is added by them to the national means or wealth is entirely gained. Their avocation is of national importance, because it undoubtedly serves as a nursery for both the commercial and naval marine. We expect this great calamity to lead first to the adoption of means to insure generally the nets and lines of fishermen, if that be practicable; but particularly their boats, which can be readily effected; and, second, a Legislative act against the use of those open boats that, for a business requiring to be followed often forty or fifty miles from their port, are man-traps - means merely of shortening existence by accident and sudden death. The pertinacity with which the Scotch fishermen adhere to inefficient and dangerous vessels is astonishing. It is one of several nautical blunders in which we persist, against all reason. We have no doubt whatever, that the hundred bodies and the hundred boats that strewed the coast, on the Saturday morning named, were men and property literally sacrificed to a most incompetent system. We may be told, that these men should know, and do know, the kind of vessel safest to navigate, and best calculated to promote their business. We shall, however, hear that only from parties who are themselves unacquainted with this profession who, probably, never were with an open boat in a stormy sea - and who seem to think that men are so many machines, to be managed by fixed and unalterable laws. We cannot altogether explain the cause of the insane adherence by our fishermen to their unwieldly boats, but we are perfectly convinced that almost every life lost in these frail craft is a case of manslaughter. 000. Either of these sums is large for a number of villagers to have accumulated, or to lose. We sincerely trust that by public subscription, or by some other means, the loss of property will be partially compensated to the living. For the dead, we can do nothing more than aid, however slightly, those whom they have suddenly left in penury and grief. That is a duty - the immediate duty - but not the greatest work to be done in the circumstances. We believe that means might be adopted to insure the boats of the fishermen, if not their nets. Their business would thus be shortened of one risk, and the results of their industry would be secured. The premium of insurance would be well paid, to secure steadiness in their circumstances. That might be done, and more must be accomplished. The class of boats in use amongst the Scotch fishers are unable to cope with heavy seas. They are entirely open, and therefore directly liable to the most fatal accidents. The men themselves will change nothing until they are compelled by some superior power, and decked vessels would cost more money than they perhaps can afford to pay. The same argument that induced the Legislature to require mill-owners to screen off their machinery should compel the owners of boats to substitute decked vessels for the present craft. The same reasons that are now to be employed in providing habitable dwellings for the hovels in existence, or the cellars in towns where so many families live, should induce the Legislature to provide against undue risk of lives in boats of insufficient construction. In addition to the increased security against wrecks and the loss of life, the employment of decked boats would be a sanatory measure, and would afford some protection to the fisherman on the water from those exigencies of weather and temperature to which he is now unnecessarily exposed. The substitution of a good for an inferior article in boat-building would be profitable even in a pecuniary point of view. The crew of a decked boat can go to sea, or, being out, can keep at sea, when the crew of an open boat are unable to go out; or must often, when engaged in their employment, cut their lines or nets adrift, and seek refuge. The number of men and families interested in the business is not so insignificant as to make their circumstances unimportant to the nation. The fishermen of Scotland are a numerous body. They supply not only their own country, but a large proportion of the fish consumed in London. They are far more numerous than the chimney-sweepers, for whose protection a bill was properly passed. They are more numerous than the female miners, whom the Houses of Parliament instructed to seek | that the flames had made considerable progress. The hurricane of the 18th did not produce the only great nautical catastrophe of the past month, arising also from an equally obvious blunder. The sad and short voyage of the Ocean Monarch from Liverpool, on the 24th, produced a still more terrible loss of life and property. The ship was a New York liner, owned in New York, and subject to none of the regulations affecting British vessels. The number of the passengers and crew was 398. The proper management of that number of passengers and crew, on a voyage of probably six or eight weeks, required great prudence, decision, and even courage, from the commander. The facility with which the lives of hundreds of persons are committed to the charge of one individual, without any inquiry regarding his character and qualifications, shows how cheaply we have all learned to hold life. When this ship was in the Channel, and off Formly light-house, an alarm of fire was raised; and it was found of the anchors one minute sooner or later was not an operation for which it was necessary to sacrifice life. The captain gives the following account of himself, after the passengers became unmanageable: From the discovery, the ship was a scene of most ❘ to the lives exposed to danger; but the dropping unmitigated and desperate confusion. The American captain and his crew appear to have sought their personal safety above all things from the moment that danger appeared. That conduct is not characteristic of American seamen, who are generally daring and reckless. The imputation in this case cannot be wiped away, although it may be denied, but rather should be the matter of apology. A ship on fire at sea offers the most trying position in which any man can be placed. The difficulty was aggravated in this case by the time when the fire occurred. It was at midday, and that was so far a great advantage; but it was also on the morning of leaving port, and before the passengers, as the captain states, had been numbered and located. There was no authority fairly recognised. The captain and his officers were probably personally unknown to many of the passengers. There was, and could be, no order existing on the ship; and all these apologies are in favor of the captain and his men. They also furnish a proof of bad, but very common, arrangement, to which we shall afterwards refer. The disorder on the ship, from the moment that the flames appeared, caused the death of many individuals who might have been saved. They were not even warned of the dangers of the positions where many of them sought refuge from the elements combined against them; and, in executing the first orders given, a number of the passengers were destroyed. The event is thus described: "The passengers became frantic with despair, and numbers at once plunged in the ocean to escape the more awful death which apparently awaited them. Husbands were thus severed from their wives, and wives from their husbands, and children from both. The captain, finding that all control over the poor creatures was gone, and that the fire was making rapid progress, ordered both anchors to be lowered, in the hopes of bringing the vessel's head to the wind. In the act of lowering the anchors, many of the unfortunate passengers were dragged into the ocean, they having seated themselves on the chain cables, and were thus launched into eternity." After making every allowance for a confusion inseparable from dangers of this kind, it seems remarkable that nobody told these people to make way for the anchors before they were dropped. There are few seamen, we think, who would not have deemed some warning praeticable and necessary. Two minutes' time would have warned each person individually; and it does not seem that time was of so much importance in that particular operation. Time was of the utmost value in reference to the fire, and "In spite of all that could be done, the flames increased. I gave orders to get the boats out. Two of them were got out, but before the lashings of the others could be cut, they were enveloped in flames. The mate and several of the passengers, with part of the crew, got into one of the boats which was lowered, and a portion of the crew with some passengers into the other. The last thing which I did, was to throw overboard a topgallant-yard, with the assistance of the carpenter and one or two men, with a rope attached to it to make it fast alongside, and to tell the people to jump overboard and cling to it. Then finding the flames approaching so rapidly that I could neither get forward nor aft, I was obliged to heave myself overboard, and cling to the spar for a short time; but finding that there were too many already clinging to it, I swam to a board which fortunately floated near us, and, after remaining in the water about half an hour, was picked up by the boat belonging to the Queen of the Ocean." The Queen of the Ocean is a yacht owned by Mr. Littledale, of Liverpool, who came up with the burning ship before any other vessel, and adopted all the means that he could devise, in conjunction with some other gentlemen who were on his yacht, to save the lives of the crew and passengers. They did save thirty-eight individuals. According to his own statement, the captain left his ship half an hour before the yacht arrived. The yacht was in the neighbour hood of the Ocean Monarch, before the Brazilian steam-frigate, the New World, the Prince of Wales, and other vessels that ultimately succeeded in saving nearly two hundred persons off the wreck. The captain, therefore, must have voluntarily leaped from his ship after the spar, at least an hour, and probably two, before the vessel was untenable; as is proved by the fact that two hundred persons, whom he was bound to have directed and aided in their escape, were taken off safely, after the time we have mentioned elapsed from his departure. He seems to exonerate himself for dropping from his ship after the spar, by the plea that the mate, with part of the crew, had abandoned the vessel and carried off two boats; and that he could get neither fore nor aft on account of the flames approaching so rapidly. The departure of the mate and the crew will not excuse the departure of the captain also, and it is certain that two hundred persons remained in the ship for a long H |