Birmingham age-herald., 1894-10-25
JACK DISLIKES IT.
THE "MoNKEY DRILL" IS THE BANE
 or THE TAR'S EXISTENCE.

Men on the Ships Numbered Up and In
 Good Health Through Exercise = No
 "Soldiering" Is Allowed In the Drill.
 Good, kind Uncle Sam has provided physical culture for Jack. Folks ashore pay money for course of physical culture that isn't any better, if it is so good, and yet Jack thinks he Is hardly used in that he has to go through it every day that ism rainy He calls it ''the monkey drill. "
 The average Jack Tar is apt to be un- grateful, wherein he differs little from the rest of mankind. The point of the matter is that human beings object very decided 1y to having things that are for their good thrust upon them willy nilly.
 Jack is undeniably picturesque, but never is he more interesting to look upon than at this same monkey drill" He looks well when he is. swinging the big guns: Extreme range, forward! r Ex- treme range, aftl Extreme elevationl Ex- tremo deprcssionl'' Then you see him putting his back to it and doing his best ] to swing the long, glossy steel tube of gun in the best possible time, but the gun itself and the mechanism and tho rest of the drill distract the mind from the con temptation of Jack himself as well put up man. The monkey drill' accentu- ates that.
 It comes right after evening quarters, at 5 o'clock. The marines and sailors have all lined up on deck. The skipper has come out of his cabin and stands on the starboard side a littlein front of the gang way that goes down into the wardroom. The executive officer stands a little in front of him and little to the right. Both men stand with tautness and a crimp in the muscles of tho back and legs which says, "This is very important
 The. ships writer is on the port side, as stiff as wooden image and apparently dead to the world. The captain of marines comes and stands before the executive officer, salutes and conveys the important information that all are present or &C., counted for. Then he salutes, rises on his toes pivots around and departs in great solemnity. Tho engineer comes up from the bowels of the ship and says the boiler is all right, but there is rust on the ashwhip. There is less style about the engineer. because he has been doing this for many years. His salute is merely reminiscence, not half so priin as the young cadets, who was having colio when the engineer had his commission All the I officers report, and then the executive
 
 thinks fit.
 / Immensely solemn function it is al- , mdst pontiflcal in it's ritual. The bugler toots a tune, and then begins the monkey drill" The ranks separate, and the space between each man is increased, and squads arc formed, with corporal or bosun's mate in command,
 There are IS movements which have to ! begone through every evening. They are like those that used to be taught in the { public schools, only better. The men dou ble up their fists and shove out first one { arm and then the other with enough vio- < lence to get the good of it. They extend / the arms horizontally, then reach them /, up, then drop them down. They reach the arms out front and swing them back as far as possible. They extend the arms horizontally and wabble them so as to describe small circles in the air. They bend the body forward 'as far as possible, thenp bend back to the same limit, stopping at straight up be- tween each motion, because Jacks brain cannot stand being sloshed around vio- lently any more than anybody else's. They lean over sldewise so as to look up to tho fighting tops with the right eye and then with the left eye. This motion is almost duplicated later on, when the same thing is gone through with, but in the later mo- tion the arms are extended. That opens the upper part of tho lungs. Then comes the hardest movement of all The men stand stiff legged, heels to- gether. and bend over till the knuckies of the closed fist touch the deck. It looks easy Try it. If you are not in training you will find it isn't. Link your thumbs 5 together and swing for it, and if it doesn't stretch the muscles of your legs and back then Joe s dead, and Sal's widow.
 There are other motions of stepping out wide with one foot and then the other that show of the muscles of the upper leg to the best advantage, though the squatting motion perhaps does that best of all.
 The cadets arc meanwhile watching the men, and when they find some lazy lout 'soldieIing' and showing out limp arms and squatting down with a bowed instead of stiff back bone they tell him about it. The skipper keeps an eye on such a man, and if he thinks Jack is trying to dodge little health giving exercise the chances are that there will be little two hours extra duty ready for him--not enough to hurt him, but just to show that there is balm in Gilead and a physician there.
 In the army these setting up drills are the perquisite of a new recruit They Him. Der him up. and he is kept at 1t till he is as sore as a boil all over. But in the navy it is an everyday thing. It makes man ashore wish there was somebody to make him do the monkey drill every day. May be then his stomach would behave better, and ho wouldn't dream about falling off roofs and things like that.-Now York World. s-s-s-ss~-e-.s--ss.s..,sss.. 
 A Solemn Occasion.