82 MEMOIR OF ALFRED SMEE. [CHAP. VIII. 



and would delight in a sail at the mouth of the Thames in his 

 son's yacht, the Snowfleck* Often on these yachting excursions 

 he would betake himself to his old and favourite pastime, fishing, 

 and obtained not a little experience in sea-fishing. At other times, 

 when not engaged in catching fish, he would station himself by 

 the helm, and would employ himself in, to use his own words, 

 " looking out for dangers." This, his family would jokingly tell 

 him, was to him a source of great amusement. He did not, how- 

 ever, seem to appreciate such levity, and was, I believe, thoroughly 

 convinced that he was thereby the means of preventing sundry 

 dire accidents, such as collisions with steamboats or sailing boats, 

 or being shipwrecked by running on sandbanks, wrecks, &c. 

 But his being on the look-out for accidents generally ended by 

 his going to sleep, to the no small satisfaction of the crew. After 

 all these " outings," whether he had been yachting, fishing, shoot- 

 ing, or gardening, he returned home, his mind invigorated and 

 refreshed, and would work with redoubled energy. 



London was much alarmed in 1862 by its houses being 

 broken into in the dead of night by burglars, and by its sober- 

 minded and respectable citizens being garrotted in the streets. 

 Some of the sentimental part of the community held that burglars 

 and garrotters ought not to be severely dealt with ; whilst others, 

 again, viewed with horror the spreading of this pestilence to 

 society, by which it had become unsafe for persons to be out of 

 doors after sunset, or to sleep with safety of a night, and these 

 urged strong measures for the suppression of such crimes. Whilst 

 these two conflicting opinions were running high, the following 

 anonymous pamphlet appeared from Alfred Smee's pen. Shortly 

 after its appearance (it was widely circulated) a Bill was passed 

 for the flogging of garrotters, and soon after the Bill was put 

 into force the citizens of London were left unmolested by these 

 ruffians. In ' The Mind of Man,' at page 63, the best manner 

 for dealing with our criminal classes is given in the chapter on the 

 government of mankind. " Our present system," he says, " is as 

 useless as it is unphilosophical, as the professed thief goes to 

 prison to come out and repeat his career as before." 



It is curious that this anonymous pamphlet on garrotters 

 was entirely thought out one Sunday, while one of our eminent 

 preachers was giving a long sermon at Westminster Abbey. My 

 father was observed at the time to be seemingly listening with great 



* The yachting commenced in 1867, when a friend kindly lent us his yacht 

 for the season. Afterwards my brother built himself a yacht. 



