The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-25

who thus take q kindly interest in a
boy who looks promising do not treat
him with Partially, and he gets swat
ted about just as much as the appren-
tice who is d sluggard.
But the interest they exhibit in drill
ing sea-dore into his mind, and their
pains in instructing him on every little
valuable detail as the occasion arises,
plainly show that they have 'got him
in their minds" and observation proves
that the boys who are thus picked out
by the old-timers up forward as being
worth these efforts are the lads who
get the warrant officers blouses when
their apprenticeship is over. Ask any
warrant officer in the United States
navy to-day about the struggle he had
to finally attain the wearing of a
sword from the wearing of fgure-of-
eight knot, and he will begin to speak
affectionately of two or three grumpy,
savage old bo'sun's mates or quarter
masters to whom he claims he owes
most fohis success. 1t is a matter OF
pride with the old timers to thus boost
lad up the ladder.
Observation shows that the appren-
tees who go into the bluejacket uni
form as tough and incorrigible boys
become sensible, self-restrained and re-
liable seamen by the time they attain
their majority. On the other hand, the
lads who exhibit traits of goody-goodi-
become, in nine cases out of ten, hard
customers in the course of their APP
premiership, and not of much account
either for men-of-war or the shore.
The reason for this is not hard to dis
cover. Before entering the naval SER
vice the unmanageable boys have had
their period of boyish wildness, and are
about ready, when they find themselves
in the bell-bottom trousers to make
something out of theih opportunities.
Being tough" they are not easily con-
taminated by the burly roughness of
speech and manner displayed by the
old timers. The lk-and-water, gin
ger-lacking boy, on the contrary, who
enters the service with his mind some
what too fully stocked with precepts,
maxims, rules of conduct and shining
examples of the great, good and illus
trious, steps into a world entirely new
and strange to him when he puts his
foot over the starboard gangway OF a
man. war, and, after the absorbent
fashion of such a kind of boys, he i'm
mediately begins to become uncon-
sciously inoculated with the purely sur
face manners of the older men under
whom he serves emphasizes the dis
play of these manners in his own per-
son, and sooner or later becomes more
or less of rowdy.
From his very first day on board eth
er a training ship or a man-of-war pro-
per, the unfledged youngster is expect
ed to hop right out of his boyhood, and
to assume, to all intents and purposes,
the full status of a man. He lives
among men that have ranged the world
most of their lives; he works alongside
of them, and almost as much work Is
expected of him as from the old-timers;
he puts up with the same amount of
hardship, toes the same mark of disci-
pline, is quite as responsible at the
mast for derelictions, and just as liable
to tour in the brig in double irons for
misconduct, as his older shipmates who
regard the circumnavigation of the
globe as a bagatelle
The boy who at the outset of his ma
val life sheds a lonesome tear or two in
his hammock but who keeps up a
brave front when in view of his ship
mates, is the lad who may be always
marked for winner. 1t would be out
of nature for a youngster of any sort of
sensibilities whatsoever to plunge into
man-of-war life, with all of it's appa-
rent rigidity at first sight, without be-
ing bit taken back and oppressed by
the roughness of it ALL The navy is
composed, as a whole, fore and aft, Of
genuine, masculine men, and of deeply
affectionate and unswervingly loyal
men, too, when their esteem and conf
dence have been won; but in no envi-
ronment is the parade of even the
slightest suspicion of sentimentality
more quickly frowned upon than upon
the forward deck of a man-of-war. If
small kedge anchor happens to crush
bluejacket's foot his sympathetic
shipmates, deeply feeling for the in
jured man, assemble around his bunk
in the sick bay and call him "lubber''
and "hay huckster'' for permitting
himself to get hurt in that way. That
is their way of expressing sympathy,
and the injured man knows it and APP
preciateS it.
From the purely physical point of
view, apprenticeship in the navy is a
fine thing for a lad. Nine out of ten
naval apprentices, when they attain
their majorities, are strapping, rugged,
brawny men, capable of enduring any
amount of hardship, and possessing a
quality of health and soundness that
is bound to see them through many
ups and downs ashore, should they elect
to quit the sea when they reach the
age of twenty-one-which not many of
them do, by the way. OF course, in or
der to get into the navy at all, the APP
prentice must be sound of body, but
many of the lads only get into the SER
vice by narrow margins, owing to their
being understood or Of no very rugged
character of physical makeup. Once
they get to work on the decks of a man.
of-war, providing there is nothing la
tent and constitutional the matter with
them, it is amazing to see how the lads
begin to spread and grow. They are
put through the most exacting exer-
cises, quite aside from their daily bit of
heavy work-exercises that are de-
signed to bring every muscle of the
body into play-and the result is that
they very soon begin to expand, and the
steel gets into their muscles, there to
remain as long as they live. After a
year or so in the bluejacket uniform,
,,,oet oDnraptipaG haoip fn 1ook