The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-09-27 00:00:00

THE COAL RACK BLUNDER.

We extract from the United Service Gazette the fol-
lowing amusing account of official sapience :

"When Sir James Graham regenerated the Navy Board, he
was, according to his own account:, especially careful to select
the ablest men that could be found for the offices of Accountant
General,' and Storekeeper General.' The following anecdote
of the almost maiden exploit of these favoured individuals may
be added to the samples we have already supplied of the curious
felicity' displayed by. the First Lord of the Admiralty in his se-
leCtiou of his "ministering spirits." Scarcely had the new
officers entered upon their responsible duties, when one or both
of them (for it seems they work in couples,) discovered in the
course of the examination into the expenditure of stores
_in the
respective ships of war in commission, a waste of coals in a Sloop
of war on the South American station, so monstrous as to
threaten a general scarcity of that useful commodity ! They
accordingly called upon the captain to explain without delay
how he could possibly have suffered so enormous a consumption
as that of from 40 to 50 chaldrons per week on board the vessel
under his command; and so highly important did it appear that
this profligate waste of black diamonds should at once be put a
stop to, that a ship was, it is said, sent direct to South America
with the dispatch. Captain Dickens; the commander of the
offending vessel, was somewhat astonished when the eorruniirii-
cation reached,him. He could riot, he declired, comprehend
the meaning:of so absurd an expostulation, as no such offence
as that charged against him could haVe been committed on board
of his ship for the best of all possible reasons That he had
only-taken out five chaldions of coals fora six months' voyage.
2. That he had burned nothing but wood since he had left-Eng-
land!. The astute commissioners were, as might be expected,
Completely posed by this reply; and it was not until some time
afterwards, that one of their Junior clerks, poisesSed of a little
more shrewdness than his masters, solved the alarming mystery,
by discovering that the terrible consumption of coals which had
excited so much astonishment and indignation, bad taken pliee,
not, on board a sloop of war on the South Anierican station, but
in a steam-packet of the same name lying in the Thames and
that the said coals had been used not in cooking the dinnerS of
Captain D.'s crew, but in propelling his vessel's namesake up
and down the river. TO prevent the recurrence of a similar
contre temps, and in mercy to the intelleCts of his newly-elected
representatives, Sir J. Graham directed that thenceforward the
names of all ships- of war in the service which resembled those
of steam-packets should be changed ; a decree which, in the
case of the vessel in question, has been duly carried into effect;
for that it may no longer be. confounded with the Lightning
steamer, it is now called the Laurel. Zn the same enlightened
and intelligent spirit, the New Navy Board kept .a poor master
seven months without his pay, after his ship was paid off; upon
the' pretence that some insignificant spar or trifling store was
missing; although it was at length discovered that the worthy
Man had nothing whatever to do with the offence imputed to
him. Unable to trace the neglect to its proper quarter, the sa-
pient persons issued a "circular reprimand' (a circular repri-
mand ! !) determining, like the Irish schoolmaster who flogged
his boys all round for the imputed offence of one, that the cri-
minal should not escape punishment. After much deliberation,
however, the missing spar was found, and the arrears of pay
havinsi been granted to the persecuted master, he was allowed
to go his way. It is needlest, of course, here to add, that the
New Navy Boaid is worthy its distinguished author, and these
piping dais of retrenchinent and reform !"