GREENWICH HOSPITAL. 275 



kingdom to continue the industry and skilfulness of their employments, by which they 

 had for a long time distinguished themselves throughout the world/' "to encourage them 

 to continue also their ancient reputation for the courage and constancy manifested in 

 engagements for the defence and honour of their native country ;" " to invite greater 

 numbers of his Majesty's subjects to betake themselves to the sea;" and so forth. In 

 sooth, the condition of the Greenwich pensioner was not, for a long period, particularly 

 enviable. On admission he was required to relinquish any pension he might have gained 

 in the service. Maimed men received only tenpence a day, and a shilling a week, intended for 

 tobacco and the humbler comforts of life. The Commissioners at one time stated that 

 "the wives are wholly ignored, and their circumstances are deplorable/' From the Hospital 

 they received only the broken meat of the hall and the rations of men on leave of absence. 

 The wives were often reduced to the parish. No wonder the poor old veteran used to be 

 so glad for a sixpence or even a " screw " of tobacco in return for his tough yarns ! 



The system has been entirely changed. At present all are out-pensioners, and when in good 

 health can follow other employments. On the 26th September, 1865, the Greenwich exodus 

 commenced. On that day nearly 200 out of the 900 pensioners of Greenwich Hospital who 

 had accepted the Admiralty offer of pension allowance, in conformity with an Act passed in 

 the previous session of Parliament, left that establishment for the various parts of the country 

 they had selected for their future home. Since that time the whole have left; and the 

 institution which, only a few years ago, had upwards of 2,000 inmates, now contains only 

 a few hundred sick and disabled. Greenwich Hospital is a changed institution, and the 

 system of rewarding those who have spent their lives in the service of their country 

 is made more consistent with humanity, morality, and common sense. Instead of 

 hundreds of elderly but still hale and athletic veterans wandering listlessly about the terraces 

 and colonnades of Greenwich, and, if the truth must be told, sometimes overstepping the bounds 

 of sobriety in the numerous public-houses of the neighbourhood, there are but a limited 

 number of indoor-pensioners, and those are such as may be fittingly provided for in a place 

 bearing the name of a hospital. They are disabled seamen in the strict sense of the term 

 poor worn-out old fellows who require to be taken care of, and who have, perhaps, no one but 

 the nation to take care of them. The blind, the doting, the crippled, find comfortable 

 board and lodging, and, without doubt, attentive mirsing in the national hospital. But, 

 .as there are constantly new applications for admission, it is probable that there will always be 

 a few hundreds in the establishment. On the first and third Thursday in each month a board 

 sits at Somerset House to consider the claims of applicants for admission, and those who are 

 passed are sent in an omnibus to the hospital. But for the large body of men who, 

 though too old to reef top-sails and to work gnns, are not too old to do something for their 

 own living, and to wish for liberty and domestic life, there is the allowance before mentioned 

 from the funds of the hospital, and the power of living where and how they please. 



' What the average pension granted may be," said a writer in the Comhill Magazine, 

 " we have no means of knowing, but if some of the men have a larger sum than 36 10.3., 

 so also many of them will have much less, and will be unable to command in their homes the 

 standard of living with which the Hospital supplied them. They elect to go, we take it, partly 

 because they know the government of the place is to be changed, that it is to become a 



