Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-12-31
LIFE ON A TRAINING SHIP.
Educating Sailors for the United states


Educating Sailors for the United states /
Navy.
We happened to arrive at the training
ship at Il very oppoitune moment. There
was to be lecture on international law
in tine war college, which had brought
over many interested listeners from New
port, and the weekly drill of all the boys
in the class was taking place on the lawn
before the college building, while the
New Hampshire band, established be-
meath a spreading beech hard by, breathed
martial music for the performing regi-
ment. 1t was a fine fall morning, the
water blue and the sky cloudless, but the
air was chilly, and the few spectators in
carriages drew their wraps closely about
them, and now and then gave an invol-
untary shiver. To and fro over the green
sward tramped the boyish rank and file
in their white apparel, the sailor caps set
jauntily upon their close cropped hair
and the rifles carried over their shoulders
with careful precision, as they marched
by twos by tours, by platoons, went
through the manual of arms, and per-
formed all sorts Of military evolutions.
To our unsOpliisticated eyes, their move
ments were malvels of grace and pre-
cision, and we were not little grieved to
heal. one of the trig young army officers
who were looking on critically observe
that it was very apparently the navy,
and not the army, represented there.
At noon the drill was over, and the
troops filed through the arnory, deposit
ing their guns as they went, and returned
to the ship, where dinner was presently
served. We followed them, climbing up
the plank gangway that led up the side
of the hull, and found ourselves on the
uppermost deck of the five which the old
vessel boasts, for it has almost as many
stories as a New York apartment house.
Everything was as trim and neat as
constant care and work could make it,
The planks in the flooring of the deck
were white as white could be; no speck
of dust or dirt was anywhere to be found,
and the exquisite order of naval man
agement pervaded all. A sentry in the
uniform of the United States marine
corps and white cotton gloves that didn t
fit walked up and down before the cap
tain's quarters, and various officers, in
braided fatigue jackets and becoming
caps, were coming and going in discharge
of their various duties. Below, on the
second deck the boys were at dinner.
They sat at long tables, row after row,
displaying as good appetites as any set of
land lubbers could boast, and as this was
the occasion of the departure of the COM
missary, it was being celebrated by an I'M
usual feast. Each embryo tar had large
supply Of roast turkey, with potatoes,
white and sweet, and for dessert a bunch
of grapes and paper bag of candy, deli
cacies which were duly appreciated.
They had not the sort of manners at
table that one looks for in Newport society,
these gay young sailors, FOR their knives
went into their mouths with alarming
frequency, and they ate with an eager
ness and rapidity which Don't and kin
dred books of etiquette would denounce
severely. But they were well and strong
and hearty, and, perhaps, enjoyed their
dinner quite as much as if it had been
served on delicate china and eaten with
gold forks and knives in the most elegant
and approved fashion. On this deck they
sleep, in hammocks of canvas. slung in
long rows from iron hooks set in the beams
overhead. During the day the hammocks
are neatly dashed up and piled away on
the upper deck. AT O'Clock each even
ing every boy luluS his own hammock,
sings it, arranges his blankets and cover
ings the poor things are not allowed the
l luxury of a pillow and puts himself to
sleep; and each morning at 5 80 he rises,
and is allowed half an hour in which to
dress himself take down his swinging
bed and lash it up, and to dispose of the
cup of cocoa that is all the breakfast he
gets until o'clock.
The routine on board ship is very strict
and regular Every soul in the class has
mis- appointed duties at drill, naval and
military, and in the school room. and he
is held strictly to account for them. The
life is pleasant, if little monotonous, and
most of the boys profess great deal of
sorrow when they are forced to leave the
good old ship which has been their home
for six long months, even while they re-
joice at the prospect of going to sea. Bad
boys are discharged as soon as their evil
doing is found out. There are dark cells
in which they are imprisoned for various
otfenses. Sunday Herald.