TRAINING-SHIPS. 41 



Governments, as governments, may be paternal, but are rarely very benevolent, and 

 the above excellent institutions are only organised for the safety and strength of the navy. 

 There is another class of training-ships, which owe their existence to benevolence, and deserve 

 every encouragement those for rescuing our street waifs from the treadmill and prison. The 

 larger part of these do not enter the navy, but are passed into the Merchant Marine, their 

 training being very similar. The Government simply lends the ship. Thus the Chichester, 

 at Greenhithe, a vessel which had been in 1868 a quarter of a century lying useless never 

 having seen service was turned over to a society, a mere shell or carcase, her masts, 

 rigging, and other fittings having to be provided by private subscriptions. Her case 

 irresistibly reminds the writer of a vessel, imaginary only in name, described by James 

 Hannay : * " H.M.S. Patagonian was built as a three-decker, at a cost of 120,000, 

 when it was discovered that she could not sail. She was then cut down into a frigate, 

 at a cost of 50,000, when it was found out that she would not tack. She was next 

 built up into a two-decker, at a cost of another 50,000, and then it was discovered 

 she could be made useful, so the Admiralty kept her unemployed for ten years ! " A 

 good use was, however, found at last for the Chichester, thanks to benevolent people, the 

 quality of whose mercy is twice blessed, for they both help the wretched youngsters, 

 and turn them into good boys for our ships. Some of these street arabs previously 

 have hardly been under a roof at night for years together. Hear M. Esquiros : " To 

 these little ones London is a desert, and, though lost in the drifting sands of the 

 crowd, they never fail to find their way. The greater part of them contract a singular 

 taste for this hard and almost savage kind of life. They love the open sky, and at night 

 all they dread is the eye of the policeman; their young minds become fertile in resources, 

 and glory in their independence in the ' battle of life ; ' but if no helping hand is 

 stretched out to arrest them in this fatal and down-hill path, they surely gravitate to the 

 treadmill and the prison. How could it be otherwise? . . . The question is, what 

 are these lads good for ? " That problem, M. Esquiros, as you with others predicted, 

 has been solved satisfactorily. The poor lads form excellent raw material for our ever- 

 increasing sea-service. 



The training of a naval cadet i.e., an embryo midshipman, or " midshipmite " (as poor 

 Peter Simple was irreverently called before, however, the days of naval cadets) is very similar 

 in many respects to that of an embryo seaman, but includes many other acquirements. After 

 obtaining his nomination from the Admiralty, and undergoing a simple preliminary ex- 

 amination at the Royal Naval College in ordinary branches of knowledge, he is passed to a 

 training-ship, which to-day is the Britannia at Dartmouth. Here he is taught all the ordinary 

 acquirements in rigging, seamanship, and gunnery; and, to fit him to be an officer, he is 

 instructed in taking observations for latitude and longitude, in geometry, trigonometry, and 

 algebra. He also goes through a course of drawing-lessons and modern languages. He is 

 occasionally sent off on a brig for a short cruise, and after a year on the training-ship, 

 during which he undergoes a quarterly examination, he is passed to a sea-going ship. His 

 position on leaving depends entirely on his certificate if he obtains one of the First Class, he 



* In "(Singleton Fontenoy, 'B..N,'' 



