The Nineteenth Century 125 



of day, may be well excused for omitting any minute account of such wild 

 proceedings. The whole affair, indeed, is preposterous in its conception, and, 

 I must say, brutal in its execution. Notwithstanding all this, however, I have 

 not only permitted it to go on in ships which I commanded, but have even 

 encouraged it, and set it agoing, when the men themselves were in doubt. 

 Its evil is transient if any evil there be, while it certainly affords Jack a topic 

 for a month beforehand and a fortnight afterwards; and if so ordered as to 

 keep its monstrosities within the hmits of strict disciphne, which is easy 

 enough, it may even be made to add to the authority of the officers, instead 

 of weakening their influence. 



In a well-regulated ship, within one hour from the time when these scenes 

 of riot are at their height, order is restored, the decks are washed and swabbed 

 up, the wet things are hung on the clothes' lines between the masts to dry; 

 and the men, dressed in clean trousers and duck frocks, are assembled at 

 their guns for muster, as soberly and sedately as ff nothing had happened to 

 discompose the decorous propriety of the ship's disciphne. The middies, ia 

 like manner, may safely be allowed to have their own share of this rough fun, 

 provided they keep as clear of their immediate superiors as the ship's com- 

 pany keep clear of the young gentlemen. And I must do the population of 

 the cockpit the justice to say, tliat, when they fairly set about it, maugre their 

 gentleman-hke habits, aristocratical sprinklings, and the march of intellect 

 to boot, they do contrive to come pretty near to the honest folks before the 

 mast in the article of ingenious ferocity. The captain, of coinse, and, generally 

 speaking, all the officers keep quite aloof, pocketing up their dignity with 

 vast care, and ready, at a moment's warning, to repress any undue f amiharity. 

 As things proceed, however, one or two of the officers may possibly become 

 so much interested in the skylarking scenes going forward as to approach a 

 httle too near, and laugh a little too loud, consistently with the preservation 

 of the dignity of which they were so uncommonly chary at first starting. It 

 cannot be expected, and indeed is not required, that the chief actors in these 

 wild gambols, stripped to the buff, and shying buckets of water at one another, 

 should be confined within very narrow limits in their game. Accordingly, 

 some mount the rigging to shower down their cascades, while others squirt 

 the fire-engine from unseen corners upon the head of the unsuspecting passer- 

 by. And if it so chances ( I say chances ) that any one of the "commissioned 

 nobs" of the ship shall come in tlie way of these explosions, it is served out to 

 him like a thunder-storm, "all accidentally," of course. Well; what is he to do? 

 He feels that he has indiscreetly trusted himself too far; and even if he has 

 not actually passed the prescribed line, still he was much too near it, and the 

 offence is perhaps unintentional. At all events, it is of too trifling a nature; 

 and, under the pecuhar circumstances of the moment, to make a complaint 

 to the captain would be ridiculous. Having, tlierefore, got his jacket well 

 wet, and seeing the ready means of revenging himself in kind, he snatches 

 up a bucket, and, forgetting his dignity, hmls the contents in the face of the 



