insurance or expensive litigation. What can, then, be the motive for this occasional deliberate misplacing of the disc? This question, we think, can easily be answered. The load-disc was advocated on the ground that the sailor could always know for himself how deep the ship is intended to be loaded, and would visit her, and not go to sea in her if the disc were placed too high. This is, of course, a pure delusion. The British sailor, except in rare cases, never does go to see the ship he engages in. All that many seamen care about is their advance-note, and their last hours of drunkenness ashore. The owner then places the disc so high that he never means to load down to it, and he so misplaces it that the sailors may not object to proceed to sea on the plea that it is under water, a short-sighted proceeding to meet a small inconvenience. Another reason why the load-disc is, in some ships, placed high up is that, owing to the action of the register books, an exceedingly dangerous description of ship has been called into existence-we refer to ships of the so-called awning-deck class. If these ships were to be marked according to any recognised principle of safety, their marks would be so low as to take away all chances of remunerative employment. One more reason for misplacing discs is a deliberate intention of challenging a survey, or detention, by Board of Trade officers, for, if an owner wilfully misplaces the disc and parades the fact, and, like the Irishman, invites the Board of Trade to tread on his coat tail, he assumes that he will get the Board of Trade officer to fix the load-line for him, and so relieve him of all responsibility.

Happily, in this matter of misplacing the disc a Nemesis arises out of the consequences of such an act. Some cases coming under our notice have shown that it is more than probable that an owner who resorts to such practices may over-reach himself. If he deliberately overloads his ship, and improperly marks her freeboard, he may be sure that a conscientious officer who understands his duty will not suffer the ship to clear out until she is lightened to such an extent as to remove all chances of doubt as to her safety; and the owner, by his own act, will have forfeited all claim to sympathy, for he will, as it were, have publicly asserted that he knew he ought to be looked after. Again, supposing a ship with its load-disc marked too high is lost. The position of the disc being recorded in the Customs' entries, and in the office copy of the agreement with the crew, it will be asserted and proved that the ship was dangerously loaded, if loaded to it. It will be no answer for the owner to say, "Oh, but I never meant to load her to that, and she was not loaded to it," for the Act says that the disc is to show the line to which the owner does intend to load her for that voyage. The shortsighted owner who places his disc high in order to avoid trouble or to challenge unnecessary interference is thus laying a secure trap for

himself, for he will have to prove in a court of law that she was not so loaded, and that his statement (in accordance with the Act) that he intended so to load her was a deliberate misrepresentation of fact; and as he will afterwards be compelled to assert that he deliberately misstated fact as regards his intentions at the commencement of the voyage, he will scarcely be believed in court when his ship is lost, for the court will naturally conclude that if an owner would make a deliberate misstatement, knowing that it would be placed on record, he would not scrupleto make other deliberate misstatements afterwards. In short, he would have to prove that he knowingly told one lie, and then he would have to bring that very fact forward as evidence of his bona fides as regards subsequent loading.

In the interest of the shipowning community at large we regard it as a duty to point out the existence of such malpractices as those to which we have referred, and, pursuing the text with which we commenced these remarks, to add that there seems to be a want of coherence and concerted action amongst shipowners of all classes to uphold the law, and an absence of high principle in some members which prompts them to deliberately disobey the law. United, the shipping interest would be unassailable; but disunited (and does this disunion arise because, as our American contemporary says, "predatory motives are distrustful, and therefore incapable of acting in concert?"), they are a routed army, distracted and harried by feminine vituperation, and the clamour of an ignorant multitude. We would counsel the shipping community to co-operate in upholding the law, and not to play into the hands of those who desire to subject the Mercantile Marine to restrictions more onerous than those now in force. It is more than probable that a leader, with broad and generous views and accurate knowledge concerning ships and seamen is what is wanted now. Such a man as the late Mr. S. R. Graves would no doubt have been the means of uniting the whole body of shipowners in wise and temperate action, and we are sure it is quite possible to find another such leader at the present time.

Since the above was written, we learn that the General Shipowners Society have issued a circular strongly urging all shipowners to mark their discs in accordance with the spirit of the Act of 1875. This, in our opinion, is a very creditable action on the part of that important body, and we congratulate them upon their discretion. In the interests of the shipping community at large, it is to be earnestly hoped that this recommendation will be generally followed.

THE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACTS: OUGHT THEY TO BE EXTENDED TO ALL SEAPORTS?

T has often been said that one half of the world does not know how the other half lives and dies, and, making due allowance for the errors which must always exist in assertions of so sweeping a character, it must be admitted that there is great truth in such saying. It is capable of great and comprehensive application. Thus it applies to those who live in extraordinary and isolated localities, where, being cut off from the great world, their lives must be altogether peculiar; and as an illustration, we may give one that will be familiar to readers of the Nautical Magazine; the inhabitants of lighthouses situated on the lonely islet or barren rocks, and the crews of light-ships riding at anchor in a wild waste of waters. Again, the saying applies to persons whose occupation requires them to turn night into day and day into night, such comprising a very large class of useful persons: railway employés, compositors, policemen, night watchmen, nurses, and others too numerous to mention. But more frequently the remark is intended to apply to those who live in poverty and filth in the haunts of crime, in the courts and alleys of towns; some the victims of poverty, others of drunkenness and crime. That half or the world which is ignorant is no doubt fully aware that in this case "ignorance is bliss," and that the knowledge when gained would be very far from gratifying. And there is a class which till recently was scarcely known and certainly little cared for: we mean those females called in newspapers "unfortunates;" in polite literature seldom alluded to at all. Only this year has Anthony Trollope done so, than whom probably no one knows the British public better, nor with what sort of literature they should be provided. In his preface to this recent work, he says:-"I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton' the character of a girl whom I will call-for want of a truer word that shall not in its truth be offensive— a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at last from degradation at least to decency." . . . "It is not long since-it is well within the memory of the author-that the very existence of such a condition of life as was hers was supposed to be unknown to our sisters and daughters, and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that ignorance was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longer is beyond question." He proceeds in a most humane and touching strain to show how such a girl may be allured to the life by the false glitter which surrounds it,

and how very difficult the return to decent life in the present state of society must be.

In the Nautical Magazine for December, 1874, is an article, entitled "Unseaworthiness Ashore-The Saucy Lass," by L.R.C.P. Lond. In this the writer shows some of the benefits which have accrued to soldiers, sailors, and the "unfortunates" with whom they consort, by means of the Acts of Parliament passed in 1864, 1866, and 1869. If we may venture on a word or two of friendly criticism on our professional brother's literary work, we would remark that his article, written as it is in a pleasant, humorous, lively vein, is somewhat apt to be misunderstood, and now that the Contagious Diseases Acts have existed for eleven years and effected an enormous amount of good-physical, moral, and social-in that interval, it becomes desirable that we should speak plainly, and ask why are they not extended to all seaports where the diseases they are intended to cure and prevent are rampant ? Again, L.R.C.P. Lond. fell into the error of supposing that the Acts were, on passing, subjected to strenuous opposition. This is not so, as we shall presently see. Let us first glance at what previously occurred. In 1862 a Special Committee was appointed by Government to enquire into the prevalence of venereal disease in the Army and Navy; their report concludes as follows:"Your Committee have refrained from entering into the painful details which have come to their knowledge of the state of our naval and military stations at home as regards prostitution. These facts are so appalling that they feel it a duty to press on the Government the necessity of at once grappling with the mass of vice, filth, and disease which surrounds the soldiers' barracks, and seamen's homes, which not only crowds our hospitals with sick, weakens the roll of our effectives, and swells the list of our invalids, but which surely, however slowly, saps the vigour of our soldiers and our seamen, sows the seeds of degradation and degeneracy, and causes an amount of suffering difficult to overestimate." It is well known to those whose business it is to know it, that the above sentence will apply now, almost word for word, to most of our large seaports which are not protected by the Contagious Diseases Acts, of which Liverpool, Hull, Bristol, Cardiff, Pembroke, &c., are notable instances. To proceed: the Committee recommended that Lock hospitals should be established on the voluntary principle at the seaports for the treatment of infected women, and improved sanitary conditions in the barracks and on shipboard, with greater facilities for private personal ablution. Hospitals had already been provided on a small scale for such patients, and were subsequently increased, but as the women could only be got in on their own application, little good was effected, and though before the first Act was passed in 1864, 108 beds had been provided by Government for females at Portsmouth, Devonport, and Chatham, the

surface of the evil had been barely scratched. The Act of 1864 passed with very little opposition, and though only very partial in its application, an enormous amount of disease was got at, isolated, and cured. Thus, in two years at Portsmouth, 1,141 patients had been treated in hospital, and 1,034 discharged cured; at Devonport 567 had been admitted into hospital and 478 discharged cured; at Sheerness 160 women had been sent to hospital. At Plymouth and Devonport more than 600 women had quitted the district or abandoned prostitution, and at Portsmouth the reduction had been on a similar scale. In 1866 a new Act was passed enlarging the area of operations, and with new and stringent clauses (providing, amongst other things, for the regular periodical medical examination of all women known to be practising prostitution). The districts it applied to were twelve in number, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Devonport, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, Aldershot, Windsor, Colchester, Shorncliffe, the Curragh, Cork, and Queenstown. It was also enacted, that every hospital should make adequate provision for the moral and religious instruction of the women detained therein under this Act. The beneficial results may be gathered from what followed. Firstly, an Association consisting of many of the most eminent members of the medical profession, many clergymen of high position, the leading educational authorities at the universities, and many well-known philanthropists, was formed for promoting the extension of the Acts to the civil population. Their object is thus briefly defined in their first report:-"To eradicate, as far as possible, a contagious disease of the gravest character, which is constantly transmitted from parent to offspring, by removing those affected with it from opportunity of propagating their disorder, and to induce the moral and social improvement of a numerous and degraded class." Then, in 1868, a Committee of the House of Lords was appointed to consider whether the Acts should be extended, and reported in favour of the cautious extension of the Act of 1866 to all naval and military stations, and to any locality the inhabitants of which may apply to be included in its operations. Then, and not till then, arose that opposition of which we have heard so much, and which, though fortunately not by any means successful, has been exceedingly mischievous. One good result has followed-all efforts have failed to bring to light any case of oppression on the part of the special police employed under the Acts, who have been placed under the strictest scrutiny. The late Mr. Acton, the eminent surgeon of London, whose long labours on behalf of this unfortunate class entitle his memory to the greatest respect and praise, thus speaks of a protest signed by 130 ladies against the Acts :

"I must thank the 130 ladies who signed this protest for having come forward in defence of their sex. Now that they have taken up the cause