Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-06-25

l
| an American naval sailor attains the rate
| Of chief petty officer he very rarely gives
| 1t up, but ships over and over at his rate
| until he Is too old for service. The civil
| service maxim about few dying and none
| resigning'' holds with reference to naval
| chief petty officers. Not infrequentiy. how
ever, chief petty officers are broken and
reduced to the rating of ordinary seamen
for violations of regulations and these are
the opportunities of the first-class petty Of
| hcers A chief petty officer may only be
broken by sentence of a general court
martial, and his offense must be pretty Sc
rious to bring on such a punitive vista
tion rs this The fact is very little known
| oy the way, that a commissioned officer
,, " lhe United States navy may, by SEN
tehce OF a general court-martfal be >.re-
auced to the rete of ordinary seaman.
IEis regulation was made during the civil
| war. and 1t is still the statute books
| et'ioosh II Is not carried in the naval book
VI regulations. The statute has never been
| repealed, and many years ago il was en-
| pioved on the China station for the reduc-
tion OF an officer. tried on a serious charge
S',oa ode erdinary seaman's rate. This re-
uuceu olhcer was. of course. permitted to
leate the service. 1t is not Likely that the
statute VIII ever be used in the American
| navy again. 1"ii
Work In Light.
When a man gets to be a chief pe-tv off,
'e' III 'he line In the American navy his
position is largely a sinecure He is Then
men aboard his ship who serve in his par
ticular branch, and his duties are a,nos,
entirely removed from his shoulders by tho
pe.'E ohcefs under him. There are ntmer-
Gus petty officers of the same ratings Grst
second snd third class. aboard all of the
SHIPS. and these men understand how
greatly 1t is to their interest to make II
SOFT for the chief petty officer directly
ABOVE them 1t is the business of the sig
nal quartermaster. a chief petty Officer for
instance. to see to all of his ship's bunting
10 attend to the displaying and dimming
OF the standing lights above the spar Ceck
unG 10 stand by for every manner Of sig
naIns. day and night. The uuarterr,as-
.ers, nrst. second and third class, how
ever DO not permit the chief signal quar-
t t to overwork himself at these,
easy for them If they did. for the
chief of a branch has the recommending
or turning down of Men under him in his
nands. The chief signal quarterusst er may
smoke ms pipe and look aloft and feel
Eretty confident that his chores aboard are
Delns attended to by the inferior petty Off
GER, GERS OF his branch and the seamen and
iandsmeE under the Petty officers In short
the deck chief petty ofio ers do nor nnrforn,
sny actual work themselves They make
tneir daily reports. morning and evening
s,ov vu i,.as.' ana they keep an eye open for
sl0Veniiness in their departments = but
wnen they put on the blouse of their rate
hands. VIZ LIE
Guy oMcerH.
Besides these line petty officers of tho
oeck, there are staff petty officers of the
deck. The chief carpenters mate. for ex-
ample. is a STAFF petty officer of the deck
and he has a crew under him of rated men
known as shipwrights. These shipwrights
stan petty officers, are all men who have
zone their period of work at shiDbuildinp
ashore and aboard ship they have consta nj
tlnkering of some sort or other to nerform
with the woodwork-which by the W. 10
growing less and less on American men,of-
war with each new batch of ships The
S sup painter Is line petty officer not,
hoWeTer a chief petty officer, and he is in a
little institution by himself His assistants
are all hands, and he is simply the mixer of
paints. Ifen there is deck blacksmith,
another stan petty officer and an institution
by himself. He has a portable forge that he
occasionally manipulates on deck but his
Jop Is largely sinecure. So is that of the
plumber and hitter. The plumber and filter
IS PROBABLY the least overworked man of a
snip company. The saiimaker's mate has
II pretty soft, too. There are few ships in
the United States navy of today that carry
SO much as Steadying sails and the sail
makers mates chief job is that of keeping
the hammocks in repair. When a man dies
ABOARD, the sailmaker's mate sews him up
In his hammock.
All of the line chief petty officers are in
the way of promotion to warrant officers
blilets, and there are likely to be many of
these during the progress of the war and
the men who wore the uniform of chief
petty officers before the outbreak of the
war, have already been warranted gentle
men of the quarterback. and are now salut-
ed Dy their former messmates forward.
Standing in the Navy.
Chief petty officers in other nayies. in
the English navy. for example, rate a great
deal higher than they do in our service.
They are practically officers exact the i'm
plicit obedience of the men they direct and
are literally. and not nominally, the repre-
sentatives forward of the officers. 1t is
not quite so in our navy. The unrated men
forward yield certain amount of defer
ence to The chief petty officers and obey
them when work is in progress but they
address them Familiarity and almost on
equal terms, and waste no efforts in their
desire to break down the barrier between
the bluejacket uniform and that of the
chief petty officer.
Other staff chief petty officers are the
equipment yeoman and the paymaster's
yeoman and the apothecary. The two yeo-
men of the deck are clerks, the equipment
yeoman to the executive officer, and the
pay yeOman to the paymaster They per-
form only clerical work. and while they
draw more pay than most of the other
chief petty officers. they rate after the
men of the line in the chief petty officers
uniform The apothecary draws the same
pay as the yeoman, but he should by right
be warrant officer, and probably will be
when the navy reorganization bill goes
through Congress. The apothocary of an
American man-of-war owes his direct obed-
fence only to the ships surgeon, and he
is always an invaluable man in the hand
ling of the sick. When the ships surgeon
or surgeons become sick the apothecary.
simply an enlisted man. handles all of the
patients aboard himself and the examina-
ton that an apotLecary must pass before
he gets into the service at that rate is
extremely difficult, considering the rates
pay, $50 a month. The apothecary is the
compouEder of the medicines and the
nurse-in-general Of the sick men. He is
practically always on duty. Many of the
apothecaries in our service are fmmunes
from some of the worlds worst plaques
immunes, too. from experience with plaques
gained in the navy. An apothecary now
serving with one of the ships attached to
Dewey's Manila fleet has had, since he en-
tered the navy. a couple Of decades ago,
yellow fever, smallpox. Asiatic cholera,
chagres fever. and long list of other dis
eases contracted in infected ports, and he
Is valuable, lively man today.
I'm waiting for the leprosy to come
along" said he to the writer. upon recov-
ering for his dose of cholera. THAT ought
to finish me-"
In the Engineers Gang.