these cases out of court as he could.  He believed any reasonable settlement better for the sailor than a legal contest, though his own fees would be less.  Beside taking the part of the individual seamen, he published the ``Seamen’s Friend,’’ a book giving the full legal rights of sailors as well as their duties, a set of definitions of sea terms, which to this day is quoted in all the dictionaries, and much information for the use of beginners.  He drew up a petition and prepared an accompanying leaflet addressed to Congress for ``The More Speedy Trial of Seamen.’’ He wrote numerous articles for the press and delivered many addresses on behalf of seamen, or for institutions for their benefit such as ``Father’’ Taylor’s Bethel and for a more cordial reception of sailors in the church.  He wrote the introduction of Leech’s ``A Voice from the Main Deck,’’ but above all it was the indirect influence of his ``Two Years Before the Mast’’ which did the most to relieve their hardships.

While on a trip in Europe in 1875-76, I spent some weeks in London and visited Parliament frequently to study the proceedings and see and hear its leading men.  By a strange coincidence at my very first visit, made at the invitation of the late Sir William Vernon Harcourt, after I had sent in my card and was ushered into the inner lobby, I saw a man, evidently a member, rushing out into this lobby, and, to quote from my journal written at the time, ``in a wild state of excitement, throwing about his arms and shaking his fists, with short ejaculations such as `I’ll expose the villains, all of them,’ and I heard the words `Cheats!’ and I think `Liars!’’’ This was a strange introduction to the then decorous British House of Commons, for this was before the active days of Parnell.  I saw poor, blind Henry Fawcett[4] and others trying to calm the man.  The lobby was immediately cleared of strangers, so I saw no more just then, but I was later admitted into the House and learned that this man was the famous Plimsoll (1824-1898).  He had become enraged because his Merchants’ Shipping Bill had just been thrown out by Disraeli, then Prime Minister, on this day of the so-called ``Slaughter of the Innocents,’’ that is, the day when the Government abandoned all bills which they were not to carry out that session.  Justin McCarthy, in his ``History of Our Own Times’’ (Vol.  IV, page 24, et seq.), gives a full account of this scene.  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.  To understand the whole situation of the sailor in civilized countries, one must know that the only way allowed by law or custom for him to get employment is to sign articles sometimes without even knowing the name of the vessel, and almost always without an opportunity to examine or even see her.  Once having signed these papers, sailors are by law compelled to keep their contracts and can be imprisoned and sent