The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-07

cause on board of an active ship each man
will have his position marked out and will
receive thorough and systematic drilling
for well-defined duties. The $50 rlen, more
or less, of Il large ships complement are
made up into divisions. each of which has
to do with certain parts of a vessel and it's
work; one, for instance, is trained to man
and operate the guns, another finds it's dut-
les almost entirely i'm the engine and boiler
munition HOSTS, and so on. The only duties
required ct all hands indiscriminatey are
the odds and ends that fall under the term
seamanship, which are, except in the case
of landsmen, provided for by the require
ments of the recruiting service. Landsmen
are supposed to do what seamen designate
the dirty work of the ship, which means
the scrubbing. cleaning. mess work etc.
but, much to their disgust, no enlisted men
are absolutely exempt from such calls.
THE DAILY DRILL.
I've spent all my life on the water. pref
~ nearly" said one recruit, but never
served on a man-of-war, and don't know
much more about a gun than the man in
the moon. All the same. I've been drafted
to the Columbia, and have only been here
two days. Yes. like it here. and am sorry
that I can't rest up a bit on the Vermont
it's just about easy as pie. We turn out
in the morning about $50 or s, get break
fast, scrub our clothes and clean ship and
then get ready for inspection. We have to
look well, have our shoes shined, and all
that sort of thing. Then we have our set
ttng-up drill, or boat drill or gun drill and
lie around until dinner. After that we have
more drill out on the deck, and that's
about ALL We swing our bammocks about
O'Clock in the evening, frolic around and
turn in any time before 8. We have to turn
in then whether we want to or not
The personnel of a receiving ship is made
up of the captain, executive officer, two
leutenants, petty officers, and a crew usu-
ally composed of old men who have seen
long service and are not particularly active.
A marine guard, under a lieutenant, is al
haps to inspire early in the breasts of re-
cruits the traditional feeling of hostility.
Lieutenant Ingate is in command of the de-
tail on board the Vermont
Capt. Merrill Miller in command of the
ship, has recently been without the serv-
ices of his executive officer, Lieutenant
Commander Mark, who was detailed as
judge advocate of the Havana court of in
curry but the captain has not found that
recent1 efforts ct recruiting have given his
remaining officers additional work.
II fail to detect" said the captain, ANY
greater desire of men to enlist in view of
possible trouble abroad than has been the
case in ordinary times. We have had as
many as thousand men aboard at once
but last week we had only 3O5. We will
pretty we'll deplete our supply this week
for / have just sent $50 men, eighty of
whom are apprentices to the cruisers Min
reapols and Columbia at the League island
yard, and / will soon get rid of about ninety
she goes into commission. We find trouble
III getting hold of the men we want, and
have always experienced this more or less
Our standard in the navy has been high
you know, and a man must have had some
experience at sea to make him valuable to
US Now that some of the restrictions have
been removed by Secretary Long. we expect
to have considerably less trouble"