The Sun. — 1859-01-31 (London, England)

TRAINING-SHIPS FOR BOYS.  The training-ship now about to proceed to the Mersey, the et-decant 28-gun ship Conway, is, we believe, only the first of a series of ships to be similarly fitted and employed. The Conway will be employed as a training-ship for boys between the ages of 13 and 15. They will be received in three classes. One class will consist of lads whose parents are able and willing to pay a moderate sum for their support and education ; another will comprise those whose friends can contribute in a lesser degree ; while the third will consist of poor boys, orphans or others, who have no friends to help them. An association has been formed to supply the funds necessary for the support of the establishment, which will be raised by voluntary contribution. The merchants of Liverpool have subscribed liberally for this purpose, and the Admiralty have lent a ship well calculated for the service as a commencement, and have fitted her as for sea. After some probationary terms have been gone through the most proficient among the lads will be allowed to chocse between the royal and mercantile services—the Admiralty, we presume, undertaking to receive boys recommended by the association into her Majesty's ships. The Conway has a superintendent and a schoolmaster, receiving moderate o f boysbut increase,impro o improving salaries ; and, as the numbersh staff will be augmented; but it does not seem a part of the scheme to educate the lads beyond certain elementary standards, or to fit them for pursuits of a higher character. The boys are to be trained for the sea, and prepared in morals and discipline for apprentices to the sea service. We hope to find the Admiralty taking thehint from the Liverpool Association, and fitting out a number of the old men-of-war, now rotting in ordinary, as training ships for boys. From 5,000 to 10,000 lads should be trained annually: The merchant service would be glad of one moiety, and the Royal navy could dispose of the other. Every ship Might carry double her present complement of stout• boys with .advantage. The boy of 16 who leaves England for a foreign station usually returns a smart young seaman of 18 or 20, fit for anything, and from this stock we derive the best men under the pendant. Were this principle acted upon, the cry of want of seamen would soon cease to be uttered ; for the boys who entered the merchant service would, in most instances, be true to their first masters, and enter freely in ships of war were their services required. The Royal navy has no worse enemy to contend against than prejudice. The merchant seaman hears the Royal service badly spoken of ; every punishment is set down to the account of cruelty, and the rules of a man-of-war _are often described as inhuman and debasing. Ajen who know little about it, or whose bad conduct has brought upon them needful punishment, de.r ginbte in misleading others ; but if naval discipline ' were inculcated as a part of their education,iiti and boys were made to look upon the r t posed as needful to the general assertions would often of hardy, men would find their damaging verted, and the egulations of ItheanolaiNeultural coml. be successfully vindicated. T g°°(.tions contropersuasion need be strong-limbed boys. the recruits, for if a well-dressed ties would alway fuizitstllioaolranrgoe siip, country church suasieldorinlad obtaining on a Sunday, we will answer for it he would be an object of attraction to scores to go into any of boys of his own age, all eager to enrol themselves in the same service. Boys descriptioni received on board a trainin a short time have the rough edge taken off, and be prepared to begin a sailor's p wouldisi g s ohfi this career with right notions ; and. it is well known that during the long war the finest and braysst sailors we had were found among those who a few years previously had the p ouge followed h U d Service Gazette.  FRIGHTFUL SUlClDE.—Yesterday. afternoon a painful sensation was created in the neighbourhood of Camden-town by the suicide of a man named George Keephig, 28 years of age, in the employment of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne, Camden-town, who destroyed himself by cutting his throat with a razor, at his lodgings, 33, College-street, Camden-town. It had been observed for some time past that his mind was in a wandering state. The father of the unfortunate man was in the room at the moment the dread • ful act was committed, but although he used every exertion to prevent its perpetration, so determined was the deceased that be effectually succeeded in accomplishing his object.