The Anaconda standard., 1899-09-03
MoBlLlziNG eRiTAiN'S FLEE
An Interesting Spectacle to Those Fond
of Naval Pageantry.

OF naval RaSeantry.
rainy day for mobilization is bad
and fine weather is a thing to be prayed
for And they got it to-day at Ports
mouth and with a vengeance. For the
heat was enough to make your bloom
ing eyebrows crawl" as / think the
service laureate POLITICALLY puts it. No
sweating troop train in siding could,
even in the joyous east, have been much
hotter than Portsmouth dock yard was
to-day. 1t was early when the muster
began and even then it was hot as
the men commenced mastering on the
gritty parade ground close by the depot
ships at about $50 o'clock.
The men fell in in their white working
rig and it made one feel cool to look at
them. Stream after stream of them
passed off in ships companies to the jet
ty, where the vessel they were to com
mission was lying. In many hands
We're bundles, a ditty box or a straw
hat in its White casing, but the heavy
gear was only In evidencA in the many
loaded trucks that the useful dock yard
trains were slowly drawing through the
year. The kit bags We're deposited in
stacks beside the ships for which they
were Intended. In each mans posses
sion whether seaman or engine-room
rating, was his ticket, which told him
all about himself and his place in his
new ship. His card told him beside his
rating and his gunnery and torpedo
qualification, which he presumably
knew, his number in the ships books,
in the watch bill and of his hammock
the number of his mess, his division,
his watch, his part of his watch, his
boat station, his duty aloft, his station
at quarters or field gun drill, his place
in his rifle company and the number of
his rifle and his place at fire stations
And SO 1t is scarcely to be wondered at
that on visiting the ships a few hours
later one found a sedate officer of the
watch taking the deck as cooliy as If
she had been in commission month,
parties quietly passing in ammunition
and the ships cooks busy preparing the
mems dinner.
In going over the newly mobilized
ships interest for me centered mainly
in the south lock, where lay the torpedo
boats and the two newly mobilized de-
stroyers, the Chamois and Sylvia. The
latter, of course, join the destroyer flo
tilla, but the former attend Lieutenant
Wentworth, who acts as commodore of
this smart little fleet, his boat being
No. 81, and the scene was one that
brought home very strongly to the OBJ
server the marvellous training the royal
navy gives and what a unique instruc-
tion it is. OF the 10 boats only two
We're commanded by lieutenants, each
of the remaining eight having as cap
tain an acting sub-lieutenant. Each of
these young gentlemen takes to sea and
assumes the entire responsibility for
some E30, 900 worth of the queens prop
erty and the lives of some 20 or 80 of
the queens lieges, including their OWL
In age they average, say, 10 or 20 and so
before they are of legal manhood each
of these youths assumes a responsible
ity that would weigh very heavily on
many experienced seamen. And he as
sumes it. too, with absolute confidence
in himself and with the absolute conf
dence in him of those under his COM
mand.
Can anything give higher praise to
the training of the British naval Off
Ger? 1t is no eXaggeratiOn to say that
while yet boy he is made a man such
as no other service in the world can
produce. Another thing that struck one
in studying the mobilization is that
the crews of the paid-off ships We're
kept together. Thus men who had done
long commission together, worked in
unison and knew one another, found
themselves again commissioning a new