19th. Thirty-five glasses of spirits and twenty
glasses of ale, and two glasses of brandy, one
pound four shillings and tenpence. 20th. Ale,
tobacco, and cash, seven shillings. 24th, 25th,
and 26th. Ale and spirits, seven shillings and
elevenpence, and other items.

Captain R, J. Elliott, who, as long ago as
1827, had opened an asylum for destitute
sailors, was the first to suggest in this country
a distinct arrangement for the wholesome
lodging of the sailor and safe keep of his money
and clothes. Captain Gambler and others
backed the notion, and the first stone of our
first Sailors' Home (our first, for before the
beginning of our movement there were several
such homes in America) was laid at London,
in Well-street, in the year eighteen 'thirty.
But the English public heard or understood so
little of the use of such a place, that there was
not money enough provided to enable even this
one first Home to be opened until five years
later. Captain Elliot devoted himself to the
work; denying himself social pleasures he set
up his own home near the Sailors' Home, and
watched over it for about fourteen years. At
the end of that time sickness obliged him to
cease from active superintendence.

Meanwhile the example had suggested to a
right-hearted shipowner, Mr. Richard Green,
the establishing at his own expense a home—
also in the east end of London, for the men
from his own ships. In Liverpool, also, a
Sailors' Home was opened. No more than this
was done up to the year eighteen 'forty-nine,
when Captain Elliot, the founder of the system
which had got to make its value felt in all parts
of the land, was compelled to withdraw from
the superintendence of the Sailors' Home in
Well-street.

Admiral Sir W. H. Hall was, in that year
'forty-nine, Captain of H.M.S. Dragon,
stationed off the coast of Ireland. The Irish
famine added to the miseries of Jack ashore,
and Captain Hall, who had studied in America
the best efforts made there for the well being
of sailors, made a vigorous and successful
push for the establishment of a good Sailors'
Home in Dublin. The opening of that Home
in July 'forty-nine was solely due to his
unceasing energy. He received salvage money
for having saved a Spanish brig, and gave it all
as subscription to the Dublin Sailors' Home.
He went personally to the Lord-Lieutenant
and heads of departments, worked at the
subscription list, gave an entertainment on board
ship in aid of the funds, while Mrs. Hall held
a bazaar ashore. When he had achieved his
good purpose at Dublin he did not rest content,
but set to work as indefatigably upon Belfast.
He wrote letters to the Chamber of Commerce
there, addressed a public meeting, and, by
months of hard work, with some zealous
co-operation, he so far won on his public, that
Belfast set to work, and by the year 'fifty-three
was able to open a good Sailors' Home. At
Portsmouth his energy bore fruit a little faster.
Before the end of the year 'forty-nine, his good
Dragon had returned to Portsmouth, head
quarters alike of sailors and of crimps. Nothing
had been done there to enable sailors to
escape the teeth of the land sharks; the shore
accommodation open to them was, we are told,
even worse there than at almost any other port.
Captain Hall went to work upon Portsmouth,
well charged by this time with batteries of hard
fact for the crumbling down of prejudice or
indolence. Port-admiral and brother captains,
true to their profession, generally rallied round
him. Captain Sir Edward Parry, and Captain
Gambier, were with the foremost workers, and
before the beneficent Dragon spread its wings
and quitted Portsmouth, the result of its visit
to those waters was no longer doubtful. In
March, eighteen 'fifty, a public meeting was
held, at which nearly all the naval authorities
of the port were present, and the Provisional
Committee, in its report then presented, felt it
a pleasure as well as a duty to record the fact
that the present effort to found the Home originated
with Captain Hall, of her majesty's ship
Dragon, when a short time since at this port.
Here was a Dragon flying in the face of all
tradition, whose particular business it seemed to
be to prevent men from being eaten up alive.

The Portsmouth "Royal Sailors' Home," was
opened in April 'fifty-one. One year's
experience of its working trebled the number of its
boarders. In 'fifty-four, a year of exceptional
fulness, it had been trebled again; there was a
ninefold increase; and since that date the Lords
of the Admiralty have contributed two hundred
a year to its support.

When the Dragon left Portsmouth, it went
to the Mediterranean, and Captain Hall could
only work through the post for maintenance of
valid interest in the new movement. But in.
eighteen 'fifty the Dragon came home again, and
the Captain, having paid off his ship, was able
to devote his whole time to the work of founding
Sailors' Homes. He went north and stirred
up generous feeling in the ports of Scotland,
secured the opening of Homes in Aberdeen,
Dundee, and Greenock, all in 'fifty-one or 'fifty-two;
of another at Leith in 'fifty-four, and of
another in Glasgow, a very large one, which
was tried upon a self-supporting principle, but
found to require some public aid, although it is
hoped that a hundred a year will be sufficient.

Captain Hall visited also Falmouth, and secured
the founding of a Home there, and in the
same year went to Devonport, where he was
the originator of a Sailors' Home, opened on the
last day of the year 'fifty-two, to which the
Admiralty grants one hundred and fifty pounds
a year. Within the same year he had secured
also the founding of such a Home in Bristol.
He went off to Wales, and set Cardiff to work.
The Cardiff Sailors' Home and that which the
people of Hull were stirred up to establish were
both opened in the year 'fifty-six.

The Sunderland men needed no prompting,
and the Home they built in 'fifty-two required
enlargement three years afterwards. The
Sailors' Home at Dover was established by the