baths are available for girls and female school
teachers. At some of these the charge is threepence for a bathe, and at
one it is a penny for members of the club. Twelve girls can be well
taught in a class. For a lesson of two hours, one teacher charges
fifteen shillings and another receives ten shillings, while others are
paid two shillings for each girl who is taught to swim twenty-five yards,
and the rest are rewarded by watches and other prizes for those who teach
the most girls to swim.

Mothers and sisters who can swim will not let their boys be unwashed on
the land and drowned in the water.

J. M.

The "London Schools Swimming Club" was formed in 1875, and it has already
(A.D. 1880) given instruction in swimming to 12,000 boys and girls, and
male and female teachers.

Footnotes:

{3} Shown by dotted lines in the sketch at p. 7. The Rob Roy is of
about four tons' burthen, but "tons," we know well, mean one does not
know what.

{10} "Swinging for the compass" is thus performed. The vessel is moored
in the bight at Greenhithe, and by means of warps to certain Government
buoys she is placed with her head towards the various points of the
compass. The bearing by the compass on board (influenced by the
attraction of the iron she carries) is taken accurately by one observer
in the vessel, and the true bearing is signalled to him by another
observer on shore, who has a compass out of reach of the "local
attraction" of the vessel. The error in each position due to the local
attraction is thus ascertained, and the corrections for these errors are
written on a card in a tabulated form, thus:--

For Steer

N. N. 0.25 E.

N. by E. N.N.E.

And so on. A half point looks a small matter on the compass card, but in
avoiding a shoal, or in finding a harbour, it makes all the difference.

{14} The Reformatory ship 'Cornwall' is at Purfleet. The three vessels
are within sight of each other. We shall sail back to each of them in a
future page, and have a more leisurely look on board.

{20} The after part of the well is rounded at each side, and it is all
boarded up. In the middle is a seat on which a large cork cushion can
rest, or this may be thrown over as a life-preserver or for a buoy, while
the life-belt to be worn round the waist is stowed away under the seat,
and an