The Washington times., 1901-10-20

discovered that If he kept taking all
that was coming there would be no
room in the ship for his own stores.
SO he filed an official objection to TAX
ing more. The objection was sustained
with proviso: that he should stop
taking stores at a certain hour on a
designated day, no matter what might
be left behind. Somehow, work did not
seem to progress SO rapidly after that
permission was given, but 1t may have
been only a coincidence. At any rate,
the appointed day and hour arrived
and found the dock near the ship hold
ing a collection of articles sufficient to
fill a seagoing tug to her gunwales. Not
bit of it would the captain touch, for,
with watch in hand. he called time
at the appointed minute
At that time the hold of the ship was
so full that the hatch covers could not
be put on and all the storerooms of the
ship were equally well filled. The cap
tain congratulated himself and retired
to his cabin, leaving the various store
keepers and heads of departments who
had stores left out to settle things by
themselves. They did the not unusual
thing of appealing to headquarters.
The next morning the captain received
a telegram from Washington directing
him to take on board a complete ice
water distilling plant and storage tank
that was then waiting on the dock.
Now anyone who knows what a distill-
ing plant is knows ii is not so very
small. On the dock the tank loomed
up as big as small house and its ac-
companying parts covered much space
alongside it. Where it was to be put
was d question. The executive officer
suggested, with an outburst of his in
nermost thoughts that wouldn't look
well in print, that the thing be slowed
below decks and in the hold, where
few hours before there seemed room for
not even a piece of saltwater soap to
go. This incident only shows how like
an omnibus a ship is.
But other things besides stores are
needed to prepare ship for sea. There
must be the men for her crew and the
officers to run her. All come by orders
from the Bureau of Navigation of the
Navy Department until Ill vacancies
in the ships complement, fore and aft,
are filed. In addition, in the case of
the Indiana on her present cruise, there
are the landsmen for training. They
come from receiving ships where they
enlisted in drafts of various sizes, with
the bags and hammocks on their backs,
a miscellaneous looking lot of young
men, usually who are to be made into
navy sailors during the coming six
months. 1t seems quite an undertaking
in some cases in spite of the wedding
out process that the recruiting officers
always resort to before accepting
landsmen for enlistment, and the fur
ther handicap recruit has to pass be-
fore the surgeon, but no matter how
green recruit may look when he gets
shifted into his first outfit of navy
clothes he will undergo a wonderful al
teration by the time he is able to tell
with certainty which side of the ship
carries a red running light and why.
The last day before going TO sea is
anyways lDleftSLiuS- 1neTe are sure 10
be more or less eleventh-hour stores
that some behindhand storekeepers
have neglected to deliver on time. They
often come after the last gangway has
been hauled ashore and nothing con-
meets ship and shore but a single line
ready to be cast off. A few minutes of
hustle lands everything on the quarter
deck, there to remain until there is
more time later on to stow it Then
there is the last batch of mail to go
ashore, both private and official, and
the pilot to be received, if he has not
come on board before this time.
Casting off from the dock, the navy
yard tugs take hold and swing the big
ship into the stream, where her own
engines can be used and her own rud-
der utilized to guide her out to sea.
And this is the way a ship obeys an
order to sail