much, its merchant-seamen. But we want more than the work, however
noble, of one man. We want the persistent and Christian interest in the
elevation of the seaman of every man who is connected with his calling.
We do not want a Miss-Nancyish nor Rosa-Matildan sentimentalism, but a
good, earnest, practical handling of the matter. We call our merchants
princes. If wealth and lavish expenditure make the prince, they are,
indeed, fit peers of Esterhazy or Lichtenstein. But the true princely
heart looks after the humblest of its subjects. When the poor of Lyons
were driven from their homes by the flooded Rhone, Louis Napoleon urged
his horse breast-deep into the tide to see with his own eyes that his
people were thoroughly rescued. The merchant whose clippers have coined
him gold should spare more than a passing thought upon the men who hung
over the yards and stood watchful at the wheel. England's earls can
afford to look after the toiling serfs in their collieries; the
patricians of New York and Boston might read as startling a page as
ever darkened a Parliamentary Blue-book, with a single glance into
Cherry and Ann Streets.

For a thousand years the Anglo-Saxon race has been sending its
contributions to the nation of the Men of the Sea. Ever since the
Welshman paddled his coracle across Caernarvon Bay, and Saxon Alfred
mused over the Danish galley wrecked upon his shore, each century has
been adding new names of fame to the Vikings' bead-roll. Is the list
full? has Valhalla no niche more for them? and must the men of the sea
pass away forever? If it must be so,--it must. _Che sarà sarà_. But if
there is no overruling Fate in this, but only the working of casual
causes, it is somebody's care that they be removed. In almost all
handicrafts and callings the last thirty years have wrought a vast and
rapid deterioration of the men who fill them. Machinery, the boasted
civilizer, is the true barbarizer. The sea has not escaped. Its men are