A HOSPITAL FOR BRITISH SEAMEN AT MARSEILLES. (To THE EDITOR
or rot Srecuros."3 have such good reason to know the patriotism and generosity of your readers that I venture to appeal to them for a cause which I am sure they will not think undeserving. We all know the part the British merchant seaman has played in the war. We are all grateful. But I doubt whether many of that splendid fellow's countrymen are aware of the
e anditions he has to face when landed sick and wounded at Marseilles. During the last four years the population of that picturesque city has grown and multiplied till, with the best will in the world, the hospitals cannot find room for our millers. They are consequently relegated to the "clinics" or private nursing establishments, whisk, as a rule, do not approximate to British ideals firs the matter of nursing and sanitary precautions, and would indeed give ample oppor- tunities for the reforming energies of a Florence Nightingale.
fnet, our authorities have frequently sent men suffering from pneumonia back by train to England in preference to consigning them to one of tine seaport clinics. Moreover, it is not merely the want of trained nursing that is lacking to the British Kaman at Marseilles. He is no linguist, and his attendants are usually as guiltless of English so of Arabic. I recall, in this connexion, a young sailor lad who, as an especial favour, had been very kindly accommodated with a bed in no of the principal hospitals of Marseilles. He had been walking quietly along the quays when a knife f and its way into his back—quite by mistake, as it turned out. But the error was disagreeable, since it entailed three weeks of practically soli- tary confinement in the midst of the bustle of the ward, the language of signs being alone available. One communication Le did have with the outer world during that period. From kis home in Liverpool arrived a letter announcing the tor- pedoing of his only brother. A more forlorn figure I have seldom seen than the poor fellow's, or a human countenance More rapidly transformed when he discovered that here, at last, was some one who could understand hint and his sorrow. The cigarettes and dainties brought to him were waved aside. His one desire was to speak and to hear his own mother-tongue again-
Under the auspices of influential Committees at Marseilles and in London an excellent site has now been acquired. ant plans have been drawn, for an up-to-clate hospital, to which 11.M. Queen Alexandra baa graciously accorded her patrour.ge. On an average fft,000 British merchant seamen palmed annually through Marseilles before the war, and even during the last three years 455 sick men were perforce sent home to England, while 458 remained for treatment in Marseilles. Our fifty-bed hospital should therefore not want for patients.
King George's Fund, the British and Foreign Seamen's Mission, shipowners, insurance companies, City Corporations. private individuals, and, most eagerly of all, ships' crews and masters have already raised a sum of £13,000. But we neat another £13,000. Will your readers, Sir, help no to find that sum? I do not think they will think it extravagant, since it means a clean bed in an airy ward, skilled medical and sur- gical care, and last but not least, the trained and tender ministrations of women of his own race and speaking his own tongue for the British merchant seaman, the man who has done so much for every one of us, in his own sore hour of sick- ness and of need.
All subscriptions should be addressed to the Hon. Treasurer, British Merchant Seamen's lioapital, Marseilles, Barclays Bank, I Pall Mall East, London, S.W.—I am, Sir, Ac.,
- WINIFRED BORGHCLERIL
Hon. Secretary- for Marseilles Hospital for British Merchant Seamen. [Our readers are always so ungrudging in their generosity that we have to think several times before feeling sure that any fresh appeal to them is not an abuse of that generosity. In this case, however, we can have no hesitation. Everything that is subscribed for merchant seamen in adversity falls short of the debt owed. But for our merchant sailors Britain would have starved. Although they belonged to the worst treated of all our national industries, they never waited to be "fetched" when danger of the most horrible of deaths threatened them on every voyage. Care for their fellow-men and the noble custom of the sea inspired them. Theirs was a wonderful record. We are sure that our readers would condemn us for not giving them the opportunity of helping merchant seamen who are ill and unhappy in a foreign seaport—En. Spectator.3
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