Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-02-07

and be men. Here ls another point that
will bear argument. Why don't the
good samaritans who give lectures to
these men before or after leaving Jail
urge them to go to the navy instead of
securing or trying to secure for them
some petty position, which will barely
give them a living, and allow them to
drift back to their old hauhts and asso-
ciates, to be watched and bounded by
the police? Let me tell you another
thing. When a man goes to the navy
yard and asks to be shipped they won't
ask him whether he was ever in Jail or
not"
A Sailors View of 1T.
The reporter talked with a group of
sailors about the call of the navy for
men, and asked them if they did not
think it a good opportunity for sailors.
One of them answered:
Sailors, sailors What do they want
of sailors? Why, there amt ropes
enough aboard those iron ships to prac-
tice splicing on. | tell you they don't
want sailors. Anybody will do, even
the rough and scruff of the city. Those
ships steer by steam or hydraulic power,
they hoist by steam, they can work
gun in position like you could small
vice. You'd want search warrant to
And reef tackle on board of them
"a true sailor wouldn't be no more
account than landlubber, only when at
drill on the fore and mainyard, furling
q sail that had been loosed to dry; then
all he'd have to do would be to put a
gasket into their hands and tell them to
wind it round the sail, for if you talked
nautical style they'd fall off the yard
arm with astonishment. Sailors! What
do they want of sailors? They're
all iron and steel, amt they? Well, why
don't they take ship blacksmiths, ma
chinists, a few thinkers, and couple of
broken down riggers who can splice
wire? That's the kind of crew they
want, and as far as fighting is concerned,
there amt none, and anybody that
knows how to hold on to plow will do
Just as well aboard these cruisers as an
A. B. after they get over sea sickness. "
Not Like 1t Used to BE.
The changes, character and conditions
of seamanship enter largely into the
question no doubt. The new vessels in
many cases have no sails at all, and
steam and electricity under the manage
ment of engineers and skilled ma
Chinists do all the work. While the
old-fashioned naval customs are kept
up, sailors are drilled in "boarding"
and carry cutlasses and so ON. That
sort of thing is, of course, entirely obso-
lete. 1t is at least amusing that a
sailor who helps to work gun that
sends an enormous proiectile six, eight
or ten miles-that can be scientifically
trained to hit an object that is below
the line of the horizon-should be armed
with a cutlass and taught to handle a
pike in 'repelling boarders."
The Coming Man-of- War in Action.
1t is shown that in the coming man
of-war the captain, in an engagement
from the coming tower will manage
the ship and carry on the Cohflict by
means of electric signals, buttons, tele-
phones, ETC., even to aiming aii,l firing
the guns, the men in charge of them
being merely the intelligent part of the
scientific machinery by which every
thing is conducted. The men will not
even see the object at which the gun is
aimed or the result of the shot. There
will be no cheering and enthusiasm
only scientific mechanical work. This
is what is forecasted in a recent article
descriptive of the new cruiser Philadel-
phia. and the improvements to be added
to other vessels, until the steam and
electrical appliances are almost wholly
relied upon in conducting an engage
ment.
Good Men Are in Demand.
However, that condi ton has not yet
been fully established, and meanwhile
men, good men, American men, citizens
of the United States and not foreigners
and prison birds, are urgently wanted,
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