into a 'Gun Carriage
Factory'--and this is now no more. It is a good many years indeed
since the Gun Carriage Factory was closed down; and in Madras at this
particular time, when there is a very pressing demand for house
accommodation, many people wonder that such spacious premises in so
busy a quarter of the city should have been lying idle for so long and
are hoping to see them once more serving some useful purpose.

Another reminder of the nautical conditions of those days is to be
found in the existence of an 'Admiralty House.' 'Admiralty House' is a
fine residence in San Thome, and is now the property of the Raja of
Vizianagram. It was apparently the San Thome residence of the Admiral
of the East Indian fleet. That official had another residence within
the Fort, which used also to be called 'Admiralty House'--the house
which Robert Clive occupied at the time of his marriage, and which is
now the Accountant-General's office.

We will glance at one more reminder of the nautical Madras of bygone
times. At Royapuram there is a large house which is now styled 'Biden
House,' and is used as a harbour-masters' residence, but which until a
few years ago was called 'The Biden Home' or 'The Sailors' Home.' It
is not an ancient building, but it was nevertheless built in the days
of the sailing-ship, and is a reminder of the times when sailing-ships
used to lie out in the Madras Roads and the 'Sailors' Home' offered
seamen entertainment more physically and morally wholesome than that
which was provided in the low-class hotels and saloons which laid
themselves out for the spoliation of Jack ashore--and of the time when
the wreck of a sailing-ship on the Coromandel coast was not an
uncommon occurrence and parties of distressed seamen were not
infrequently to be seen in Madras, for whom a temporary 'Home' had to
be provided. The 'Old Salt'--the picturesque sea-dog of sailing-ship
days--has disappeared except from story-books--the old-fashioned
seaman with earrings in his ears and a villainous 'quid' in his mouth,
dressed in a blue jersey and the baggiest of blue trowsers, and
lurching as he walked, always 'full of strange oaths', and larding his
speech with nautical jargon. On shore, after a long sea-voyage, and
with money in his pockets, the 'Old Salt' in an Eastern port was not
always a factor for peace and progress. He was not uncommonly too
frequent a visitor at what the Madras Records call the 'punch houses,'
and the Recor