The object of the Merchant Seamen's Orphan Asylum is sufficiently indicated by its name. Founded in 1817, the institution had for nearly fifty years been carried on with success. Upwards of 800 children had found shelter and training, but this number represents a very small proportion of the orphans left destitute through the calamities of which merchant seamen are constantly in peril. This asylum was at first located in the parish of St. George's-in-the-East, and subsequently removed to the Borough Road, where the first stone of a new building was, in 1861, laid by the Prince Consort. The building was opened by Earl Russell in 1862. The support given to the charity encouraged the building of the present asylum, near Snaresbrook, in a healthy and beautiful part of the country. It was for the opening ceremony of the erection of a new dining-hall that the Prince and Princess of Wales visited the Asylum, on the 28th of June, 1866. Received by a guard of honour of the Hon. Artillery Company, their Royal Highnesses were conducted to a tent where luncheon was served. In proposing the health of the Royal visitors, Lord Alfred Paget, who presided, said that "he had known His Royal Highness almost, he might say, before he knew himself, and that he could bear testimony to the interest he took, not only in every manly English sport, but in everything which tended to contribute to the advancement of such institutions as that whose success he testified by his presence on that occasion his desire to promote." In returning thanks the Prince of Wales said:--