legislation which was to interfere, and prevent them from
being sailed unless large sums of money were expended on
repairs. Scores of these poor fellows were ruined. Many of
them died of a broken heart. Many became insane; not a few
ended a miserable existence by taking their own lives; or
died in almshouses, and under other dependent conditions. Of
all classes of men, I do not know any who have such an
abhorrence for the poorhouse as the sailor class. They will
suffer the greatest privations in order to avoid it. It was
a hard, cruel fate to have the earnings of a lifetime, and
the means of livelihood, taken from them by a stroke of the
pen, without compensation; and England again degraded
herself by substituting one crime for another. These fine
old fellows had been at one time a grand national asset;
some of them had fought our battles at sea; but even apart
from this some compensation should have been voted to all
those who were to be affected by legislation that was sprung
upon them, and passed into law for the public good. It may
be said that any scheme of compensation must face heavy
difficulties, but that is not a sufficient reason for not
grappling with the question.

Compensation to the cattle-owners during the cattle plague
was difficult no doubt to adjust. Indeed all revolutionary
schemes are surrounded with complexities that have to be got
over; but in the hands of skilled, willing workmen they can
be carried out. Not very long ago a political party
introduced a scheme for compensating the
publicans--ostensibly because drunkenness would be
diminished. It bubbled over with difficulties, but it would