A NEW YORK CLUB FOR APPRENTICES IN THE ENGLISH MERCHANT
SERVICE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—Rather more than a year ago two American ladies— Miss Kathleen Mayo and Miss Moyca Newell—were filled with a desire to show their love for England. Miss Mayo is a well-known writer and Miss Newell has one of the finest pedigree Holstein herds on her estate at Maaikenshof, Bedford Hills, New York. The ladies are close friends and live together at Miss Newell's very beautiful house.
They determined to start a club in New York for the exclusive use of the apprentices and cadets on English merchant ships frequenting the port, and for that purpose they rented the first floor of an old-fashioned hotel "down town" (I think 20th Street), installed a matron and opened the "Chelsea Club."
When I was in New York last spring I was fortunate enough to be allowed to accompany the ladies on one of their visits and found two big rooms comfortably furnished, the walls hung with pictures, a piano and lots of books. Some thirty to forty lads were there, fine manly boys, with charming manners and enthusiasm for their calling. They were loud in their appreciation of the club, whose good order and success is very much in their own hands. The members from the ship longest in port have command and are responsible for discipline, "carrying on," and the keeping of the "log," which is full of details, and when they sail they hind over to the one next longest. They told me what a happy refuge the club was for them, for their pocket money is not abundant, how they looked forward to revisiting it and the wireless messages which they sent to friends on
other ships telling them of the club.
During my stay I talked with lads serving on the ships of the Royal Mail, Booth, Union Pacific, Holt and other steamship lines. I wonder whether the directors know of the club and the work these ladies are doing? It is so quiet and unostentatious that very probably they have heard nothing about it. Miss Mayo and Miss Newell are so happy that perhaps they are jealous of publicity and of giving up part of their pleasure to others, but it is well that we in England should become acquainted with the warm regard that there is in the United States for us in England, and of which this venture is a conspicuous example.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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