CHELSEA HOSPITAL.

The great question of Out versus In Pensions has attracted much attention lately. The inquiries instituted by the Board of Admiralty into the working and management of Greenwich Hospital in 1859, 1865 and 1869, resulted in the establishment of the out-pension principle for seamen and marines, and it is asserted that the operations of this change of system have not only been most successful, but have greatly conduced to the health and happiness of those men for whose benefit Greenwich Hospital was founded and maintained. The authorities of the War Office appear to have shared in the interest which was taken in the re-arrangement of Greenwich Hospital.

The fact is, both institutions were established to meet a special state of things, which happily is not chronic but fitful. The horrors which during the last months have been so vividly brought before us by the special correspondents at the seat of war, give the clue to the meaning, the use, and indeed the origin of the hospitals. For the wounded in battle and for the sick were they erected; and to afford a home to our disabled defenders were they so munificently subsidized, both by private liberality and by the Government. But useful as both Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals have proved in time of war, the difficulty under which their managers have laboured has been to know what to do with them in time of peace. Wounded warriors cannot, like the wooden soldiers of a child's toy, be made to order; and interesting as used to be the sight of the yearly cricket match between the onearmed and the one-legged pensioners at the Oval, it is impossible either to manufacture these halting heroes by contract, or to provide battles to secure the permanence of such an interesting

contest.

The long years of peace which have prevailed since the great Peninsula War, seriously broken only by the Crimean affair, have been dreadfully damaging to the integrity and popularity of these establishments for old warriors. It is one thing to provide an asylum for those who have been knocked to pieces in our service, who want careful tending, and who interest us by fighting their battles over again, but it is quite another matter to adapt the same asylum to the necessities of a number of middleaged, tolerably hearty, grumbling old sinners, who have done their duty to their country well, but are quite capable, in many cases, of doing some business on their own account. Though hearty in body often, experience has shown both at Chelsea and Greenwich that " cribb'd, cabin'd and confined" in the respectable solemnity, and almost religious regularity of these two monasteries, they soon become wounded in spirit and sick at heart.

U. S. MAG. No. 504, Nov., 1870.

T

It is all very well to urge that at Greenwich an "old salt " had the advantage, like the old grandmother in Artemus Ward's Mormon Book, of "having his gruel (or rather his meals) reg'lar," with the Painted Hall to refresh and invigorate his mind; to say nothing of a clergyman to preach to him, and doctors to attend to him; and a uniform to wear-of which he ought to have been, but was not, proud. Or to say that at Chelsea the old soldier has his share in a noble property, which has a beautiful river front, and which arrests the attention of the curious travelling by water to Kew or Cremorne; that he has his share in a beautiful garden, where he can feel like a prince, without any trouble or responsibility. It is all very well, we say, to enumerate the advantages of regular pay and food, and regular hours; but it has become notorious that in both the Army and the Navy, they are not appreciated.

Many an anxious, well-meaning mother wonders why her sons just developing into manhood show premonitory symptoms of discontent with the domestic régime. She says that she does every thing to make them happy, gives them good dinners every day, provides comfortable rooms for them, far better than they could get at any but an expensive lodging, yet they are discontented, they do not seem to appreciate the comforts provided for them, or the tender care lavished on them, they hanker after the very questionable "flesh pots of Egypt" in the shape of dingy lodgings, extortionate landladies, and bad dinners, but-ah! there is the but-unlimited freedom and entire independence.

This is the secret of the discontent at our two great Military and Naval asylums. Many well-meaning, good sort of people actually worried their poor brains about the condition of the food of the inmates, and the nature of their accommodation. Some endeavoured to plan pleasant winter evenings for the poor old men, in the shape of "lectures on travels by some of those nice young men who seem somehow to flourish in places like Greenwich and Chelsea, but who were never guilty of travelling by water further than Gravesend to the east, and Teddington or Hampton Court to the west; while their land journeys have been mostly confined to suburban railways or London omnibuses; but who had the idea, nevertheless, that these lectures on travels by those who had been nowhere, would greatly interest those who had, in many instances, been almost everywhere. We have heard that the dark and dangerous dissipation of a magic lantern has been hinted at! Poor old pensioners, what a dreary monastery theirs must have been!

There was, we believe, at both establishments, a very nice library, chiefly composed of books which nobody in his senses would think of reading. Of course it was, as every one must allow, of the highest importance that the literature should be carefully chosen, and that nothing should be admitted which

could possibly shock their tender sensibilities, or by its dangerous influence, corrupt, or contaminate their delicate minds.

Yet somehow the library at Greenwich at all events did not appear to be very popular, and the public-houses certainly were. It was a sight to see the poor old boys in the many taverns which surrounded their monastery, and thrive on their want of thrift. These old land and water monks were not a whit less jovial, possibly more so, than their ancestors in days gone by.

Talking about monasteries, too, we are brought to the blot of blots in the scheme of these institutions. Under the system they adopted, a well-deserving soldier or sailor was compelled to take vows of celibacy and enter the order, not so much we imagine of Saint Benedict or La Trappe, as of Saint Blazes, and if they did not vow themselves to perpetual virginity, poor old souls, though this was implied in their bond, they were faithful to the vow of perpetual grumbling. Like married converts to the Roman church who wish to take holy orders, these poor old fellows were obliged to renounce their "better halves." Perhaps in both instances, some rather liked it than otherwise; indeed if the evidence given before the various Committees can be trusted, a great many old scamps found that by taking the vows of celibacy at Greenwich or Chelsea, they escaped ties which they had found galling for a long time. But, on the other hand, these "vows" of celibacy led to innumerable hardships in many, too many, cases. Wives and children were left to starve, or wear out their miserable existences in some stifling den, in the half-drained street of some neglected part of the town, without the husbands having any power to help them. In many cases starvation had to be endured; in some, if not starvation, it was found difficult to provide the barest necessaries of life. This difficulty of offering an asylum to our soldiers and sailors has always been the weak point in the whole scheme, and it is but fair to say that it has been felt by the authorities to be a painful blot, which they were bound to do their best to obliterate. But the most porous moral blotting. paper, and the sharpest political penknives, in the shape of Commissions and Committees, availed not to remove it. They might have cried out with Lady Macbeth, but with as little avail,

"Out, damned spot!-out, I say!"

Yet fancy can scarcely refrain from suggesting in a sort of mischievous freak, the result of a permission to families to live. together in these hospitals. What glorious pandemoniums they would be! Imagine the pleasing quarrels and free fights, which may be seen in some of the quarters of our seaport towns, going on within these time-honoured walls. There would be a chance of realizing the scene in one of Marryat's novels ("Snarley-yow" we think) when the nautical lady defies the commanding officer in a song with the cheerful refrain of "Port Admiral, you be d-d!" Yet this suggestion has been seriously made by some of the