has a height between decks of 9 feet. The vessel is built of iron, cost about £3400, and is fitted up with gear and stores as if for a voyage. A captain and officers are in command of the ship, and the crew of about 30 boys. A complete system of navigation is taught in the schools on board. The boys also have the advantage of some actual seamanship in boats on the neighbouring river Gryfe.

As the traveller passes onwards towards Greenock, he will find himself rapidly descending the slopes above the Clyde, with a perfect panorama of mountain and valley, sea and sky, spread before him. Dumbarton Rock, Ben Lomond, the far-off mountains of Argyleshire, the river below with its sailing vessels and steamers, the distant smoke of Greenock, and the shipping at the "Tail of the Bank." If his eye is fairly good he may notice beyond the town of Helensburgh, and almost in shadow of the woods of the ducal seat of Roseneath, a threemasted square-rigged ship, lying as if to guard the entrance to the Gareloch; the ship is the Cumberland, serving as a training-ship for boys. The movement of which this vessel is the outcome originated about twenty years ago amongst several gentlemen connected with the city of Glasgow, at a meeting held in Glasgow, in November, 1868, and presided over by Mr. John Burns of Castle Wemyss. The object of the meeting was stated to be the "establishing of a training-ship for boys on the Clyde, under the provisions of the Industrial Schools Act 1866." Later on this resolution was followed up by an appeal to the Lords of the Admiralty, showing that while much had been done in the district by means of industrial schools, the memorialists were desirous

of still further extending this work, and more especially with the view to the material advantage of the mercantile marine service, by educating boys to become efficient seamen, for which purpose the memorialists desired the Admiralty to grant them a suitable ship in which the work could be carried on.

The desire of the memorialists was granted, and the Admiralty presented the Cumberland, an old line-of-battle ship of seventy guns, which was launched at Chatham in 1842, had carried the British flag on the North American coast, the West Indies, and during the Russian war formed part of the Baltic fleet. After serving her Queen and country on the ocean the Cumberland cast anchor at the mouth of the Gareloch on 30th May, 1869, as training-ship for the Clyde and the west of Scotland. Her principal dimensions are: length 216 feet, breadth 54 feet, and she is 2214 tons burthen. The Cumberland since her establishment as a training-ship in 1869 has received about 3000 boys, these passing away from time to time to active service. There are generally about 400 on board, who receive a complete educational as well as a specific training for their afterlife, the latter consisting in studying navigation, practice of seamanship, gunnery, &c. A tender has now been attached to the Cumberland, called the Cumbria, about 60 or so of the boys going off at intervals on board of this vessel, a brig, for cruising purposes. The work is kept up financially by a government grant supplemented by annual subscriptions. These boys, who must be under fourteen years of age, are drawn from the vagrant class so widely spread unfortunately in big cities.

It appears that an incident in connection with the manning of one of our war-ships so far back as the year 1756, in which a number of the London city waifs were collected and sent to Portsmouth to fill up the Barfleur, about to join the blockading squadron off Brest, brought about the establishment of the Marine Society in the same year, for the purpose of gathering such boys, attending to their wants, and transferring them to various vessels as required. The idea of a training-ship was first carried out in 1786 by this society, a small vessel being purchased for the purpose and placed on the Thames, to be replaced later on by a disused war-ship. This filling up of war-ships in these stirring times was accomplished forcibly, through the work of the press-gang, official announcements of the results appearing in some of the newspapers at the close of last century, telling us that a "warm press" had been made in which "prime and ordinary seamen were taken."

Farther down on the shores of the Firth, where the invigorating ozone in the sea-breeze puts new life into the wearied and sickly frame, are Convalescent Homes, such as that at Dunoon, originally promoted amongst other charitable institutions by Miss Beatrice Clugston of Glasgow. The Sick Children's Hospital in that city, for which "The Fancy Fair" was held in St. Andrew's Halls in 1884, was another special movement whose success was largely due to Miss Clugston's untiring labours, and of which it is recorded that "To Professor Cowan, with whom the movement originated, and to Miss Clugston, who by earnest speech and writing pleaded for sick children, special acknowledgments are due."