"On Thursday, November 23, 1893, the Sans Pareils' gave a performance of a farce entitled 'Done Brown' and a musical burlesque, The Port Admiral,' in the dining-hall at Malta Dockyard, in aid of the widow and children of an English dockyardman who had died a short time before."

"The Fearless gave a most amusing entertainment on January 4, 1894, at the Malta Dockyard dininghall. The programme began with a farce, 'The Office Boy,' followed by songs and recitations, and winding up with another farce called The Tinker's Holiday.""

"On the following day the renowned nautical drama 'Black-eyed Susan' was given by the 'Dreadnought's' in the sail-loft of the dockyard, which was crammed full. This also was on behalf of the widow and orphans of a dockyardman."

That is the sort of thing that the Handy-man is constantly doing, all over the world. He works hard, we know, and he plays hard too, throwing himself gleefully into anything that promises a night's fun, and contriving to make his fun a means of lending a helpful hand where it is needed.

T

On the Sick List.

OME one has spoken of the delight of being

convalescent after a serious illness, when, in addition to the joy of feeling that one is on the highroad to recovery, there is the pleasant sensation of being waited on hand and foot in right royal fashion by all about us. It is said to be almost worth while to have been ill in order to taste this charming experience. Well, that's as it may be so far as shore-going life is concerned. On board ship it is never worth while being ill, in my opinion. I have done my little bit in that way, and, not even for the joy of the convalescence, do I wish to do any more. And I, of course, had my own cabin. Not that there is any reason to find fault with the arrangements made for the sick or the care taken of them on board H.M. ships. For when once a man is put on the sick list, everything possible is done for him. In the larger ships the hospital, or as we call it in the Navy, "The Sick Bay," is a well-arranged and cheerful apartment with good beds and every convenience; patients are well cared for, and made as comfortable as possible. If a Bill Shirker

comes along the night before "coal ship" with a pain in his back, he may be sent off with a dose from the fore topman's bottle; but let a man be really ill and in need of treatment and he will be well and kindly looked after. Still a ship is not a nice place to be ill in. There is too much going on just outside and sometimes over the sick-bay: drilling on deck, the many noises on the lower deck close by, perhaps the whirr of an adjacent dynamo-engine, or the scream of the "pipe" or the rattle of mess-kettles. Then in warm climates there is the heat of the galley hard by, to say nothing of the sick-bay stove-aggravated almost beyond endurance when ports have to be closed and hatchways battened down in rough weather.

I have been much struck with the kindness of men to one another in sickness. In all sorts of quiet, thoughtful ways a sick chum is remembered by his friends. There is the brief look in at odd moments, the cheery word, the little gift from one and another that is so acceptable to the poor chap lying "on the flat of his back" all day with little to do except to long to be on deck once more. When not on special diet, patients get their dinners brought them from their I remember being in the midst of a chat with a sick man once, who had just complained to me that he hadn't any appetite, when his chum appeared with his dinner-a plate literally full of meat, potatoes and plum-duff. "You will never get through that lot, will you?" "Oh, won't I, sir? don't you make any mistake about that!" Poor delicate creature, how I pitied him!

messes.