Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-07-10

for the tidiness. They do not know that
every electrical button in the ward room is.
t1r inc ward room officer. practically an
AIaooins lamp, the mere touching of which
brings servitors scurrying to him, the ser
V1tors being rated as ward room attend
ants. Nowadays the ward room attendants.
as wen as those OF the mess room are mostly
Jap boys-and the man-of-war Jap boy
KNOWS enough about orderliness and clean
nness 10 turn over q very large residue of
MS Information even to the New England
n,,,h Jap boys are absolutely perfect
their usefulness in the ward and mess
rooms OF men-of-war. The ward room cffi-
GERS young woman friends always notice
that the mattress on the poor fellows bed
Is sunk about foot below the bed rails.
TO prevent him from being tossed out on
the deck in heavy seas.
Long at Meals.
Inc ward room officer, however only uses
this individual room for sleeping and dress
ing purposes. The officer of the decks an
prentice messenger boy, when he is sent aft
| 10 md a certain officer knows enough to
look first for that officer in the mess room
at sea, that is to say, for few enough
/ ward room officers remain aboard their
SHIPS In port when they are not standing
watches. The length Of mess-room meal
on a modern man-of-war is sufficient to
s,artie even confirmed civilian table
tory meal, no ward officer occupyine more
than two hours ct it, including the smokes
TO follow. One o'clock luncheon, however.
Is little less rapid it ordinarily lasts lat
sea- until or o'clock. But dinner, serv-
cd at or o'clock, lasts until long after
pipe down." which, for the men forward
IS the end Of all things on a man-of-war
moi mat the officers occupy all of this time
IN eating. But the aftermath of the two
last mentioned meals is counted in the
meal hours, and includes the consumntfon
OF tobacco and other spirit-upraisfne things
u! tne recapitulatfon of the news of the world
III yarn shape, and the singing in unison of
songs, chants and ballads, ancient ard
modern, with the tarry BLOW the Man
Down as the invariable wind-up. to the
accompaniment of mandolins, guitars, zith-
ers, DanJoS and strfEged Instruments with
out names from Turkestan or Tifis
Every man-of-war dinner in the ward
room room is d symposium. Any civilian good
1elloW none other is ever invited) who has
ever peen entertained at dinner in the ward
room OF an American man-of-war will
d1iate Tor long time afterwards upon the
subtleness of the Chinese cookery, the
sweetness of the tobacco, the tang" of the
wines, the excellence of the stories the
melloWness or the righteousness of the
music. Not all civilian visitors to ward
rooms of men-cf-war have the luck which
certain citizen of this town rejoices over
ana talks ABOUT down to the present day.
succession Of a dozen days and nights in
the ward room of the old Adams in Homo
lulu harbor, with Robert Louis Stevenson
at the head of the table, smoking cigarettes
ana slipping Scotch whisky, the while he
kept twenty uniformed men in magnetic
trance; but one rarely happens into the
ward room of any American man-of-war,
IN any port. without finding there some
man or other whose name has made a
noise in the world. For American naval
officers. without being provided like the
officers of other great navies, with enter
tanning funds, are nevertheless exceedingly
n for foft l,x,;,.-
when they wish particularly to enjoy them
selves in informal fashion, sans nub-dub
as they term their official receptions to in
vfte one distinguished citizen or citizeness
10 their Symposiums at a time; and such an
1nvitee must be on his or her metal on such
an occasion. Nothing could be finer or
more instructive, for instance than to see
the late Kate Field seated at a ward room
table, solitary woman surrounded by
thirty men, who knew their world as they
knew their compass, yet mistress of them
all in sparkle and brilliance, holding them
now enchanted and plunging them again in
to Iproars of merriment. The ward room
dinner test is one which few even of the
cleverest men or women can get through
with spectacular success.
A Matter Of Station.
Yet. with the finest ship in the fleet, and
the best crowd of officers for congeniality
and lack of friction, the ward room Of
ficers' happiness in cruising is largely a
matter of station. Luxurious surround
ings and good shipmates do not atone
for the lack of pleasant people ashore
whom the ward room officer may visit
There is no consolation in it that his uni
forms are always well brushed, or his
mufti'' or civilian clothes carefully press
ed by the ward room attendants; for the
officer whose ship is anchored in the muddy
1ang-Tse -Kiang, eight hundred miles up
with the dead bodies of celestials, con-
stantly drifting by and becoming fouled
with the anchor gear: for the officer whose
ship Is listlessly patrolling the west coast
of Central or South America where there
is nothing to be had to eat and in the
ports of which yellow and chagres fever
stalk impartially: for the officer whose ship
is engaged in the chase of shifty seal
poachers in the unspeakably foggy and
gloomy Boring sea, or for the officer whose
ship is employed in surveying and chart
ing duty in Smiths straits, with no ship
visible from ashore except mummified bar
barian Patagonians in beach-combed plug
hats and expansive smiles. On bad station
the cruising life of the ward room officer is
mandolin music. Men who are cooped up
together in the ward room of a man-of-
war on bad station for several years be-
come pretty familiar with each others
characteristics, not to speak of each
others stories. and, well as they ordinarily
pull together, each Of them has his hours
when he would sacrifice a good deal for
the sight of other countenances and the
room shfpmates. After two weeks, say,
of sea, fair weather or foul-then port
wherein the men and women at least know
how to dine with their forks, a port
from which the troops of girls come off in
the steam cutters to traipse over the ship
this is something like the ward room Of
ficers' idea of it, and tennis and tea ashore,
and bicycling and buggy riding. and the
fellowship of the clubs-any place where
the mail is not month or two in coming,
and where the Inhabitants of the beach
do not all appear to be engaged in the
bumboating business.
Highly Priced Dillets.
All in all, the home stations are highly
priced nowadays by both bachelor and
married officers-by the married Ones be-
cause they may see their wives and fami-
lies once in while and by the bachelors
because-well, there is Newport and Bar
Harbor and Narragansett, adjacent WASH
ington, not too far removed from the coast,
New York, with their girls and newspapers
and Engiish-speaking civilization, for the
summer cruise on the Atlantic home sta
tion with the turquoise skies of the West
Indies to follow when the sun circles hence
down that way in our winter and then, on
the Pacific home station, there is San Fran
cisco and the Bohemian Club, and the
flower fiestas of San Diego and Los Angeles