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Updated: May 17, 2025
Nevertheless, Hawke did well to be angry; and, as is sometimes the case, an injudicious and, in point of occasion, unseemly loss of temper, doubtless contributed to insure for him in the future, to a degree which forbearance or mere remonstrance would not have assured, the consideration essential to his duties. Many will remember the effect produced by Plimsoll's unparliamentary outbreak.
It is doubtless true that this precaution ought to have been taken without waiting for a loss of life such as makes all previous marine disasters seem trivial. But the public itself has been inert. For thirty years, since Plimsoll's day, every intelligent passenger knew that every British vessel was deficient in life-boats, but neither public opinion nor the public press took this matter up.
Of course, we had plenty of room in the hold, since no ship would carry herself full of casks of oil; but I doubt whether, if we had borne a "Plimsoll's mark," it would not have been totally submerged, so deep did we lie. Wooding and watering came next a different affair to our casual exercises in those directions before.
If therefore it did command that sales should be without gain, it certainly would not allow an entire prohibition of selling alcohol as beverage to be imposed on the Agent for sale. It is not so in Maine; and this fact occasioned Mr. Plimsoll's stupendous blunder, who declared in Parliament that the Maine Law was a dead letter in Maine itself.
Others were preparing the longboat and jolly-boat for service, which was a tedious job, for the gunwales and bottom planking of both had been damaged greatly by the knocking about they had sustained since leaving England, even if they had been properly seaworthy then a very problematical point, for many of the boats of merchant ships which carry passengers on distant voyages are never taken off the chocks or tested from year's end to year's end, in spite of all marine codes and Passenger Acts or Board of Trade ordinances to the contrary, and Mr Plimsoll's effort notwithstanding!
It also had other minor provisions for the benefit of the sailors. In Parliament that night, it was thought that Plimsoll's wild conduct had destroyed his reputation as a sane man and had ruined the chances of ever passing his bill, but outside of Parliament the effect was just the reverse.
Plimsoll's Bill was a measure for the protection of seamen against the danger of being sent to sea in vessels unfit for the voyage.
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