has been consummated. The copers did a great amount of mischief
indirectly, apart from the traffic in spirits. If some of our reformers
at home could only see the prints and pictures and models which were
offered for sale, they would own, I fancy, that if the Mission had done
no more than abolish the traffic in literary and other abominations, it
has done much. A few somewhat particular folk object to supplying the
men with cheap tobacco, but any who knows what intense relief is given
to an overworked man by the pipe will hardly heed the objection much.
After a heavy spell of work, a seaman smokes for a few minutes before
the slumberous lethargy creeps round his limbs, and he is all the better
for the harmless narcotic.

In this land of plethoric riches there are crowds of people who treat
philanthropy as a sort of investment; they place money in a sinking fund
and they forego all interest. We want to show them one line of
investment wherein they may at least see plenty of results for their
money. Speaking for myself, I should like to see money which is amassed
by Englishmen concentrated for the benefit of other Englishmen. Looking
at the matter from a cool and business-like point of view, I can see
that every effort made to keep our fishermen in touch with the mass of
their countrymen, is a step towards national insurance--if we put it on
no higher ground. In the old days the fisher had no country; he knew
his own town, but the idea of Britain as a power--as a mother of
nations--never occurred to him; the swarming millions of inland dwellers
were nothing to him, and he could not even understand the distribution
of the wares which he landed. The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen has
brought him into friendly contact with much that is best among his
countrymen; he is no longer exiled for months together among thousands
of ignorant celibates like himself; he finds that his fortunes are
matters for vivid interest with numbers of people whose very existence
was once like a hazy dream to him; and, above all, he is brought into
contact during long days with sympathetic and refined men, who
incidentally teach him many things which go far beyond the special
subjects touched by amateur or professional missionaries. A gentleman of
breeding and education meets half a dozen smacksmen in a little cabin,
and the company proceed to talk informally. Well, at one time the
seamen's conversation ran entirely on trivialities--or on fish. As soo