The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-06-01
BOYS WILL STILL BE BOYS.
EVEN IFTHEY ARE TRAINING TO RUN
UNCLE SANS BIG WAR SHIPS.
How the Annapolis Naval Cadets Manage
to Snatch a Little Dangerous Fun De-
spite Rigid Rules and Exhaustive
Studies-Life at the Academy.

ANNAPoLIs, May 16.-The life led by the
naval cadets at Annapolis is a hard one, but 1t
is not all study, drill, and discipline. The
cadets are boys-strong, healthy, high-spirited
boys-and consequently they are bound to have
a little fun and frolic, at no matter what eX-
pense. The embryo cadet must be man cor
rect in every physical requirement before he can
even take the examination, which, If passed,
will allow him to enter within the charmed
walls. In addition, he must be mentally what
the world calls ''bright," or he will find an in
superable obstacle at the very outset of his
career when he comes face to face with the en-
trance examinations, which are always a severe
test of a mans knowledge Since he must,
therefore, possess exceptional mental and physl-
cal attainments, it is only natural to suppose
that in him we shall find fully developed the
average boys love for fun and excitement; ana
it is so. We find it embodied in him from his
''pleb'' year, when he at first hardly knows how
to take things he sees around him, through the
third and second years, until he arrives at the
full dignity of the tirst-cassman. With his eX-
tended privileges here he finds new opportuni-
ties for its exercise and on the two years cruise
following graduation day he shows the people
of other nations what healthy American boys
are made Of Returning as an officer, part of
his love of fun clings to him. and part of it
will probably go down with him to his grave,
AS candidates before entering, studying un-
der the various tutors in the town, they band
together and become menace in themselves to
townspeople to whom absolute quite is the
greatest solace. In their rooms in Annapolis
they come together and play poker with fury
which to the observant spectator would I'M
mediately signify that there was no such festive
amusement in the place of their future abode.
Those who fail to pass, but obtain reappoint-
mcnts, only retire for the time being from the
Academy, and usually undertake to instruct
those to whom the life will be all new in some
of the trials which they will have to go through
later on This instruction the "green' men
gratefully accept and after getting the taste of
soap out of their mouths, and wringing their
clothes dry from an unexpected drenching, they
settle down with remarkable composure to the
fate which awaits them, and which frequently
appears worse in the anticipation than in the
reality.
During this period of candidacy let them but
enter the Academy grounds on an ''off-day,'
Wednesday or Saturday, and they will be i'm
mediately spotted by the cadets, who can tell a
candidate as far as they can see one, and it is
not unfreuuently that the latter will be halted,
told to salute button up his coat, turn out his
toes. or any other thing that may enter the
Young despot's head at the moment.
Once within the sacred precincts after having
passed his examination, the cadet hpds himself
known as ''pleb," and here his bed Is by no