Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-25
THEY POINT TO VICTORY
Figureheads Have Always Been a PROM
inent Feature on Warships
Each Nation Had Its own Emblem
Famous Models That Are
Now at Annapolis.


From the Philadelphia Record.
Sad to relate. our modern mariners give
very little thought to figureheads. A war
ship feels any number of times securer
with few torpedoes up her sleeve than
she possibly could with the most aesthetic
or formidable figurehead on her stem. In
fact. look about any harbor and note how
few ships boast anything in the shape of
this sort of a mascot. Yet, time was when
vessel would as soon have thought about
starting out with leak as without fig
urehead and the farther back We go the
more was this fact. The earliest discov-
cred model of a figurehead belonged to a
pleasure boat of one of ancient Egypt's
dark-eyed queens, being in the form of a
lotus, and so very much to her mind and
heart that she had it buried with her: but
Warships with animals carved upon the
prows are known to have existed in Egypt
Defore the day of this queen, in fact, as
early as 1000 b. c. The subject usually
correspondent to the name of the ship. This
was before the Introduction of rams. A
lew ngureheads, as well as anchors and
rams. found in the ruins of the locks at
Athens serve to give notion of the dimen-
slons of ancient Grecian warshps. The
niche occupied on the Flying Dutchman by
the human skeleton was the niche that in
the middle ages was occupied by a saint.
ana TINS in turn was an outcome of a way
tney mad in the days of the Roman consuls
VI tdhilS tTelT lareS or tutelary gods
In the after part of the ship
Apparently each particular nation had a
favorite emblem. The owl was as con-
spicuous on the Athenian ships as was the
cock, that emblem of vigilance on the
prows of the Phoenicians. The shining
blade OF ST Theodore, the patron saint of
the Nenetfans. was their favored figure
head. while the British lion became so uni
Versally the tgurehead of English ships
that other nations who followed closely the
naval architecture of this first nation on
the sea- adopted also the lion as much to
conceal their identity as because they were
quit after English models. So common
was this that in France the curve of the
bow was known as the sweep of the lion
OF the few tigureheads preserved at our
Naval Academy that of the Delaware
which was launched at Norfolk in 1870 at
tracts the most attention. This image
called by some Tecumseh, by others Pow
hatan or even King Philip, is not believed
TO be portrait, but rather to represent a
great sachem or a powhatan, a title having
among the Indians "a Significance quite like
that of pharaoh among the Egyptians At
any rate, here he is. with his tomahawk,
MS arrows and his stern brow as much a
part of the scheme the cadets them
selves.
After the civil war the figurehead of the
columbus. which Commodore Macauley
burned and sunk at Norfolk in 1861 in order
that the confederates might not gain pos
session, was fshed up and brought to the
academy The tgurehead of the Mace
DOMAIN, which was for four years used az a
practice cruiser, is there, too The Mace
DOMAIN. originally a French ship. was cap
tured from the French by the English in
1872, after short fierce fight she became
an American ship. A wooden figurehead in
the shape of a lion did duty as a mascot
on her quarter deck at the time of her cap
ture Other of our historic figureheads are
the bust of Washington, from the line-of-
battle ship by that name, the figure of st
Louis on receiving ship and the gilded
eagle which once belonged to the Niagara
lost in obscurity, let US hope and believe
that the hgureheads of our warships will
lead them TO a thrilling victory. This is
surely presaged by the ffgurehead on the
Massachusetts, of Commodore SchIey's fleet
which surely stands for Samothrace-The
Winged Victory.