226 THE SEA. 



carpenters ; they were to be assisted by boys, trained by themselves. Three years later, the 

 standard was raised, and they were divided into three classes; in 1842 a slight increase of pay 

 was given, and they were advanced .to the magnificent rank of " after captains' clerks," and 

 were given a uniform, with buttons having a steam-engine embossed upon them. In 1847 

 the Government found that the increasing demands of the merchant and passenger service 

 took all the best men (the engineers' pay, to-day, is better on first-class steamship lines than 

 in the Navy), and they were forced to do something. The higher grades were formed into 

 chief engineers, and they were raised to the rank of commissioned officers, taking their place 

 after masters. The first great revolution in regard to the use of steam in the Royal Navy 

 took place in 1849, by means of the screw-propeller. In that year Dupuy Delorme 

 constructed the Napoleon, a screw-vessel carrying ]00 guns, and with engines of 600 horse- 

 power, and England had to follow. Then came the Russian War, the construction of ironclad 

 batteries, and finally, the ironclad movement, which commenced in England in 1858, by the 

 construction of the Warrior and similar vessels. 



It becomes a particularly serious question, at the present time, whether the system, 

 as regards the rank and pay of engineers, does not deter the most competent men from 

 entering the Royal Navy. Many very serious explosions and accidents have occurred on 

 board ironclads, which would seem to indicate that our great commercial steamship lines 

 are far better engineered. The Admiralty has organised a system for training students 

 at the dockyard factories, followed up by a course of study at the Naval College, Greenwich ; 

 and it is to be hoped that these efforts will lead to greater efficiency in the service. A 

 naval engineer of the present day needs to be a man of liberal education, and of 

 considerable scientific knowledge, both theoretical and practical, and he should then receive 

 on board that recognition which his talents would command ashore. At present, a chief 

 engineer, R.N., ranks with a commander, and other engineers with lieutenants. It is 

 probable that, at some date in the not very distant future, higher ranks will be thrown 

 open to the engineer, as his importance on board is steadily increasing. 



The seamen of all nations, it has, in effect, been said, resemble each the other more 

 than do the nations to which they belong. "As," says a well-known writer, "the sea 

 receives and amalgamates the waters of all the rivers which pour into it, so it tends to 

 amalgamate the men who make its waves their home. . . . The seaman from the 

 United States is said to carry to the forecastle a large stock of ' equality and the rights 

 of man/ and to be unpleasantly distinguished by the inbred disrespect for authority which 

 cleaves, perhaps inseparably, to a democrat who believes that he has whipped mankind, 

 and that it is his mission, at due intervals, to whip them again. But, on board, he, too, 

 tones down to the colour of blue water, and is more a seaman than anything else." The 

 French sailor is painted, by Landelle, as the embodiment of the same frolicsome light- 

 heartedness, carelessness of the future, abandonment to impulse, and devotion to his 

 captain, comrades, and ship, with which we are familiar in the English sailor, on the 

 stage. But although depicted as much more polished than, it is to be feared, the average 

 sailor could be in truth, he finishes by saying: f 'Il est toujours pret a coder le haut 

 du pave a tout autre qu'a un soldat." It would seem, then, that the French sailor 

 revenges the treatment of society on the soldiers of his country. Is there not a similar 



