The Sun.
London, England, 1830-11-18 00:00:00

MASTERS.--ROYAL NAVY.

TO TUE EDITOR OF TIIE SUN.
Stn,--I beg leave to offer to your notice some remarks
on the neglected state of Master a in the Royal Navy, where
merit and services are generally acknowledged, but who
have been far from meeting with that encouragement and
protection the highly important ditties of their station give
them a jest claim to.

The duty of Master in the Navy is both constant and
arduous, he not only navigates the ship, but bears a very
conspicuous part in battle, has charge of Boatswain end
Carpenters stores, and all others in the holds, signs the
Purser's accounts, .hip's books, &c. &c„ and he is also ac-
countable for ships of war when lost or stranded, and is
always tried for such loss, and in general censured or
punished in some way or other, as being held responsible
for ships and crews, when all other officers I emain
unim-
peached; and in fact, with propriety, it may be said, that
the trust vested in the Master is greater than any other
officer in the Navy, Captain and Admiral excepted ; yet
this officer is degraded in rank, and placed under te..tric-
tions totally different to all other officer. in the British
navy, having to undergo roue or MORE strict examina-
tions to qualify him for the highest rate of pay and half-
pay, all of which must take place in London, at a very
considerable expence, when the Midshipman by ONE
simple examination is made a Lieutenant, a Commander,
a Captain, and an Admiral, and is entitled to pay and
half-pay by seniority in EACH of these ranks, ach cum-
stance which must appear strange that the Master should be
thus perplexed with these severs! expensive examinations,
when the Midshipman by ONE passed examination should
be qualified fur an Admiral By some it is deemed very
necessary, by this mode, to keep Masters stationary, because
they are useful to young and unexperienced Commanders
and Captains, the very reason in my opinion which en-
titles them to superior rank with pay and half-pay by
seniority. I therefore should propose the incorporation of
Masters with Lieutenants, committing the duties of the
former, as now established, to the Second Lieutenant of
the ship, or making them common to all except in time of
action, when they should devolve on the Second Lieutenant.
I am certain that we should, if that was the case, have
many more thorough-bred seamenandjirst-rate navigators
than we have, as every officer must then depend on him-
self and his own nautical knowledge, without having the
Master to consult ; or to allow them, after six years' ser-
vice in the navy, to become eligible to obtain the rank of
Commander whenever they had distinguished themselves.
or their services had merited ouch promotion. With such
encouragement there would be no difficulty in getting
a sufficient number of men, of the.first information and
experience, to serve as Masters in the navy, which could
not be obtained during the lust war and unless they
are men amply rewarded by the country, that difficulty
will ever exist, as may be seen by the present Navy List,
where there are more than THREE Captains, including
Commanders, to ONE Master, the former being in number
ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX, and
the latter wily Ilya HUNDKED AND TWENTT.SIX,, which
most be considered a very great disparity when each ship
of war in commission requites a Captain, a Commander,
and a Master, which evidently shows that those officers
do not meet with that encouragement they merit, other-
wise they would not stand much the smallest in number
of any other officers on the Navy List, It has long been
the opinion of many dirt:nguished characters in the Navy
that 11Iaters were men of great trust, possessing superior
nautical skill, and ought to be allowed regular promotion,
instead of being thus degraded. 1, therefore, approve of
requesting you to insert this letter instead of addtessing
myself at once to the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the
hope of its attracting the attention of many besides, who
may lodge of the merits of the case, and yield mental
benefit to the naval service, and of course to the nation al
large, by due regard to its contents.
I ant, Sir,
A FRIEND TO NAVAL MERIT,
November 15, 1850.

MEDICAL EDUCATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE SUN.

SlR,—Another verdict of Manslaughter hart teen pro.
nounced by a Coronet's Juty ag find that successful im-
postor, John St. John Long. That uptight body of men
has fearlessly performed its duty, and all England will
wait with intense anxiety, the result of his trial, and his
consequent sentence.
Will the sentence again be a nominal one? Will this
wholesale destroyer of his Majesty's subjects be again fined
the sum of 2504, as the price of another le:low crecure's
life? (This is a method of advertising quite new in this
country, and one which bids fair to become very general
as it is both an expeditious and chap way of obtaining
celebrity.) We shall next hear that St. John Long
makes it a rule to put by the earuingu of one day out of
every week, as a sinking fund, to be appropriated to the
purpose of purchasing fresh notoriity at the death of every
subsequent patient ! lleaveo forbid that such a state of
things be allowed to continue.
Four patients have been sacrificed at the shrine of in-
fatuated imposture within the short apace of three months !
Thank Out they have been of that class of beings which
The San of Friday calls "Persons possessed of more
money than brains."

If the public cannot be aroused to a sense of billow,
for permitting the existence of pretenders to medical skill,
by encouraging them, the profession must nut akimbo',
and quietly submit to be I tughed at by a rice of tit. john
Longs. They ought at once, and in one tasty, to petition
the Legislature for redress; and there is no doubt hut that
a proper appeal will be listened to with that serious at-
tention which the subject so richly merits. There cannot
be a hotter time than the present fur giving the de.►th-
blow to quackery.

I propose, Mr. Editor, that the following be submitted
to the consideration of your readers ; and. I hope that some
one (whose time and talents are not fully occupied) will
rake the subject up, end that, ere long, we shell have the
pleasure of saying, in reference to a year or two peat,
" There were quacks in those times." I think, if she
following proposition were adopted it would tilietually
arrest empiricism, viz.:--" That every ttarsan who is in
practice at present, or who shall Uereafier practlee the
profession of Medicine or Surgery, be obliged to pass au
examination at olio of the Colleges in the kingdom inatis
toted fin, that purpose." They who have already letsite.i
through one or more ordeals of that kind, AO who have,
in consequence, been admitted 1111014k4,11 of the various
College., will not, perhaps, be otiligad to go through them
again; if co, they will cheerfully submit; and, having
once been Annul cotapetent to undertake the responsibility
of their profesakm, they will, of course, enjoy the Rood
satisfaction of having acquired additional vt aiit, On the
other hand there are, many, very wady, who have
not been enrolled members of any College (a ride.
through some of the iashionable watering-phicca in
Kent, for will furnish many a hitneasatde ex.
ample),; anti although a few of them may he considered
c•iaier, the public ought to he told who are competent to
take charge of the greatest of
who are nut.

Surely ivy proposition is not a very hard one. They
whew abilities will curry them through an eutuinatiou
will be admitted with pleasure to the soeieSy and rank of
the reepectable part of the professinai and they who can-
not pass that ordeal AN Sorely very unfit persons tc, le
entrusted with qv; liaaVy and awful reiponuiluilitg a a
practitionv ti medicine or surgery. Till attar ail act as
ON he passed I would advise every pew* entering a
It'eth neighbourhood—a waterilv-plave, fur example.—
to consult a list published yeArty by the 'Royal College of
Surgeons in LonAcia„ sod they will soon find to whose
, care they cc„u eunfide the health and lives of themselves,r sn families.
A " College List" should be kept at every library or
reading.room, for public i,wuatuiptn. As persons can
only reflect upon li‘ql;asialves (if, after having perused a
" List of %aeons," they employ a man whoa name they
do uncut with in that list), they will only have thewselves
to blame in the event of neglect, or want of a ill ; which,
sooner or later, they are sure to finol w men, who,„
cation often commeneet woukhoute, or a brick-field,
end ends in a prisna ; us will some day be the ruse
Saint ,lei o Lang or his followers.

While I 1111 Oil the subject' it yvir it wit tg,

don what, I believe, is not generally knoWn, viz., that
although a penmen, not a menther of any of the Colleges.
may icceive an apprentice, and hie fee (his education it
! quite out nf the questinn), that apprentice cannot, legally,
be uthuitted to an examination, even at Apothecaries'.
hall. So, suppose a master, like St. John .Long, has his
name published in the daily Papers for the manslaughter
of such en one, hi. apprentice (who may have left Ilia
service Iwo years previously, and have passed that time at
time Hospitals, &e.,) will be told, upon presetting hint.elf
fur examination—" Your master is not an educated man,
his name is not in our list, &c. ; and we cannot admit
you to be examined until you have served five years more,
with one who has pursued a regular educetiou." I ant
aware they do often pass, but these circumstances are not,
at the time, known to the examiners. 1, myself, knew it
case the other day, where a young man mirumgell to fir,t
through his examination at the Hall ; and a week after-
wards his late master (a man 20 years older then him.
self, and of 14 years standing as an empiric !) requested
him to show him how to perform one of the minnr opera.
dons in surgery. These timings, Mr. Editor, must not he
tolerated.
I would also remind a parent that he should not always
be satisfied that his son was kept at bar./ work behind the
counter tinting his apprenticeship : that is not neressary;
and it will only be insisted upon where the master is twm
superficially educated to sit down occasionally for an hour
with his pupil, and answer those questions which natu-
rally present themselves to an inquitiug mind. Ido not
mean to say that an apprentice is not to make up the me-
dicines fur his master's patient., and to du every thing
that his psoiesaion may require to be dene; hut I
maintain, that many an intelligent young tm.n has ter-
minated his apprenticeship, without knowing any' thing
of his profession; from the absence of information
in these painters and lieutenants, who have crept into
the prohataion, and with whom it has been tin it lot (un-
fortunately for them) to have been obliged to live. With
many apoloeire for the length of ail letter, I rola tin
A AIEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE'.
OF SURGEONS.

Nov. 16, IRSO.

THE GRAND DUKE,

(From the BrigAton Qat,:U.)
Iti 1827 the Duke of Wellington supported the Coin
Hill in in; early stages, but by a dexterous amendment in a
subsequent stage threw out the Ilill.—lrs 182 e, 'when
Pr;rne Minister, he brought in anti carried a Corn Hi 1
similar in substance to the !till he had thrown out the pre-
ceding &ashy.
In 1827 he said, " I know that I Uri disqualified for •
being placed at the head of the Government, and I should
have been mad, and worse than mad, it I li.l ever enter-
tained the insane pt eject ;" yet in 1828 be accepted the
flirt of Prime Minister.
Up to 1828, inclusive, the Duke had been the open,
avowed, and active opposer of Catholic Emancipation, anti
in the 'minuter and autumn of that year he held nut no
prospect to ft lends or enemies of any relaxation of hia op.
position ; on the contrary, lie bullied Lord Anglevea for
favouring such an idea ; and in 1829 he mad. Catholic.
Emancipation a Government measure.
In 1880 he expressee a resolution not to listen to any
measure proposed fur Putliattuntary Reform, and thereby
excites opprobrium against him throughout the United
Kingdom ; and if he had not gone out %Vr should have had
him veering round, and probably been himself the p•rson
to propose such a measure, rather than resign the other of
Autocrat.
Field Marshal—he a Soldier, and nothing vise !! !