Mass, Charles I Correspondent I, coast-guardsman. In his piece ["Chip: Cornish Choughs Found at Last", V, 582–83. Sept, 4, 1852], the writer states that he was mate of the revenue cruiser Nimble under command of Lieut. High C. Goldsmith, at the time that Goldsmith and members of his crew capsized the Logan Rock, April 1824; he explains that he himself, however, had no part in Goldsmith's "act of Vandalism." Documents in the Library of H.M. Customs and Excise, King's Beam House, London, record that the mate of the Nimble at the above date was Charles Mass. 

Mass was a native Cornishman. During his service in the Coast Guard, he stated, he had been "all round the coast of Cornwall ... and into almost every creek and cove on it." His writing to H.W. was motivated by Dixon's articles concerning the search for Cornish choughs. "I am a constant reader of Household Words," wrote Mass. The Office Book records no payment for his brief "communciation."

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971