CHAPTER VII. DISCIPLINE AND PUNISHMENT. A special scale of punishment is laid down for the boys of the training ships. Those generally given are the following: First. To have their meals at the defaulters' mess-table on the main deck and to stand between the guns during the hours of recreation. Second. Boys of careless and inattentive habits with reference to clothes, hammocks, or bags, are made to carry their hammocks or bags on their shoulders for a time not to exceed an hour a day-and this to be limited to three days. Third. Stoppage of liberty not to exceed two months. Fourth. Stoppage of pocket money not to exceed two months. Fifth. Caning over the breech not to exceed twelve blows. Sixth. Confinement not to exceed seven days. In aggravated cases the delinquent may be put on bread and water for from one to three days. Seventh. Birching (by special order). Light punishments have generally been found sufficient; the cases are very few, the conduct in general being remarkably good. LIBERTY AND LEAVE. General liberty is granted on Thursdays from one o'clock until sunset. In winter, when sunset occurs at a very early hour, this time is extended. Boys, whose parents reside in or near the port in which the ship is lying, are permitted to go ashore on Sunday afternoons. Other boys are allowed to go at the same time for a walk or ramble ashore, accompanied by some of the instructors or ship's corporals. A playground is rented near the ship where the boys can go on liberty days for outdoor games. A certain number of holidays are given through the year, as follows: Sixteen days from the second Thursday before Easter. Sixteen days from the Thursday nearest September 1. Twenty-one days from the Thursday nearest December 15, making a total of fifty-three days yearly. Boys are required to go home at their own expense, except that a shilling a day may be allowed for maintenance en route. The railway companies carry them at a very low fare, and when the time for leaving arrives an agent is sent on board to provide the tickets, so that the boy starts from the ship untrammeled. If a large number go in one direction a special train is frequently provided. Boys who do not go home are excused school during the holidays. Immediately on his return from leave, each boy has a bath, has his hair cut, and is medically examined. I have had the opportunity of observing the conduct of these boys when ashore on liberty in large numbers, and I have never seen them otherwise than orderly and neat. Their conduct, judged from close observation at many different times, was most excellent. My chief opportunities were at Devonport and Plymouth, towns lying adjacent, with a combined population of 150,000, and where every temptation to young men or boys is offered. A certain number of ship's corporals are sent ashore at the times when the boys are on liberty, with instructions to arrest any one and send him off to the ship, whose conduct is reprehensible to a great degree. A report of minor delinquencies is sent in the next morning by each corporal. I noticed amongst these such reports as "swaggering," "wearing hat improperly," &c., but saw no reports of a serious nature, though the watch kept is evidently a strict one. The reports of the corporals are not confined to boys of their own ship. I may here remark that I saw but one drunken sailor at this port (Plymouth and Devonport) during a stay of nearly two weeks, though many ships were in the harbor, and a great many men ashore. This change of conduct for the better is attributed by every one to the influence of the training service; I have conversed with many officers on the subject and found this opinion general. Ten or twelve years since the men of the English fleet were accustomed almost as much as our own to get drunk when ashore. We have almost come to consider it the normal condition of a blue-jacket when on terra-firma. That a change can be effected is shown by that which has taken place amongst the sailors of a race, the lower orders of which are notedly given to drink. I find Captain Fitzroy, so long as four years since, in some remarks before the Royal United Service Institution (July, 1875), in discussing the discipline of the fleet, saying: "For six weeks in the spring of last year I was at Plymouth, and during the whole of that time I only saw one blue-jacket badly dressed or drunk in the streets. I men tion it to show how much better their conduct is on shore now than it was some years ago. I attribute it mainly to the admirable system of training," &c. The opinions of other officers in the same discussion were equally emphatic. BADGES. Good-conduct badges are given those recommended for general good conduct and efficiency both at drill and study. To obtain a badge a boy must know all the running and standing rigging; have a fair knowledge of the compass and lead line; be able to make all the bends and hitches laid down in the instruction tables; be able to pass an earing; and be able to answer well in a rica roce examination. He must be fairly advanced in great-gun, infantry, and cutlass drills. He must be able to read and write well; to write fairly from dictation; know arithmetic as far as compound division; have a fair knowledge of the ontlines of geography, and must have made fair progress in religious knowledge. The wearers of these badges are generally selected at the quarterly examinations; they are exempt from punishment except by special order; enjoy all the privileges of a boy petty officer, and are not employed as sweepers or bag-stowers. A boy is awarded the badge or deprived of it by the captain in person. The badges are furnished gratuitously; they are the same in shape as those worn by the men, but are somewhat smaller, and are similar in shape to a sergeant's chevrons. They are of gold for the mustering suits; red-worsted for their every-day suits; and blue for the duck suits. Petty officer boys wear in addition a small crown of gold and crimson. No boy is allowed more than three badges. RECREATIONS AND AMUSEMENTS. After study hours, the school-room is thrown open to the boys. They have here all conveniences for reading, writing, and playing games. Chessmen, checkers, dominoes, puzzles, &c., are provided in great plenty for them, and I noticed very many at such games. The school-room is well lighted in the evening, as are also the main and middle decks. There is an excellent library of 800 volumes (some of the ships have many more). Periodicals of all kinds are supplied, especially such as are suited to boyish tastes. A magic-lantern is also furnished each ship, in connection with which lectures are given twice a week in winter under the superintendence of the chaplain. A vaulting-horse, parallel bars, and a horizontal bar, and thirteen sets of dumb-bells are furnished as part of each ship's equipment. The horse and bars are kept on the quarter-deck, and are always placed for use out of study hours. On Thursday afternoons and on all holidays, the full apparatus is set out. Boys in entering are passed through a course of twelve lessons in gymnastics before being put to gunnery drill. A non-commissioned officer of marines is detailed as an instructor in each training ship. In connection with the subject of amusements, &c., what is called the capitation allowance may be spoken of, as it is the fund from which all the above is supplied, in addition to meeting many other expenses. The allowance is 12 shillings or $3 per annum for each boy. The reg ulations defining its expenditure state the following items as the principal ones for which it may be used: 1st. Mess gear not ordinarily supplied. 2d. Extra fittings for school-room, bath and model rooms. 3d. Materials for keeping mess-traps clean, blacking and shoe-brushes for each mess. 4th. Thread for tailors, and materials for repairs for shoemakers, shoestrings, braid for watch-marks. 5th. Music. 6th. Two to six cents a week for prizes for petty officer and badge boys. 7th. Allowance of 1 shilling per diem to each boy requiring it, as subsistence money on his way to and from home, when on leave. 8th. Bats, balls, and other requisites for games and amusements. 9th. Expenses for excursions. (An annual excursion by steamer is given the boys to some pleasant place adjacent to their port.) 10th. Extra expenses for Christmas dinners. The accounts of this fund are kept separately; the expenditure is under the direct control of the captain, and he has much latitude regarding its disposition. Boys are allowed 6 cents weekly as pocket-money, which is given them before going ashore on Thursdays. I think the preceding will show to what civilizing influences the boys are subjected. They are well fed, well clothed, and well treated, and taught to be excessively neat in clothing and in person. They meet with no harshness, their treatment throughout being thoroughly humanizing and kind. Many of them of course are greatly elevated in the scale of well-being by entering the service; but great numbers likewise come from families in good circumstances of life. These are not degraded, as was formerly too much the case, by life on board a man-ofwar. The life is made as pleasant and comfortable and respectable as life on board ship can be. There must always be certain drawbacks; ships cannot always afford the space sufficient for proper comfort and cleanliness; but what can be done in the English service has been done. The sailor has been made a man of high respectability, instead of the drunken, careless fellow of some years since. The men who man her ships are a body of whom England is justly proud. There is no town. in England so distant from the sea but that the man-of-war's man is often seen, and always in uniform, which he wears as if he respected it. The army is on a very different footing. An enlistment in this is regarded as the last resource of the ne'er-do-well. The people of the country village regard the name of soldier as much synonymous with the word vagabond. While of late years the character of the soldier has been falling off, the character of the sailor has been steadily improving. So much has the former been the case, that it is felt that something must be done to induce the enlistment of more respectable men in the army, and the adoption of a training system similar to that of the navy is much discussed. The basis of my remarks on the subject of the army are the late parliamentary debates on the army bill of the present session, so that I do not make them unadvisedly. So much, on the other hand, has the sailor grown in popular estimation, that double the number of lads offer themselves that can be accepted. Every boy who goes on leave, on his return is followed by a number of applications from his district to the authorities of the ship. Whether for peace or war, men so trained and disciplined are valuable to any country. They are, on the average, even if they serve but one enlistment, twelve years under discipline; they are obliged to serve until twenty-eight years of age at least. A great many do not serve beyond this, but it is a mistake to suppose that they are lost to the country, or that their training goes for naught; the country at large will benefit by it; society gets a young man in the prime of life; sober, disciplined in mind and body; a valuable man to any community, whether civil or military. We in the United States expend vast sums in educating the children of the nation; we recognize education as one of the necessities of our national existence; why cannot the same principle apply with even greater force to those who are selected to uphold the national honor and interests, and who may be emphatically termed the children of the nation? Money so expended is well spent, and though the cost to England is something over $500,000 a year for these boys, the result is well worth it. The principle has been recognized in the unequaled training of officers given by our government, to those both of the Army and Navy, and every officer hopes in our system of training lately established, a result which will give us a class of men worthy of a nation which has made the education of its people its boast. The command of an educated and thinking class of men is a benefit, too, to the officer; affording him a stimulus, and releasing him from the necessity of directing too much of his energy and time towards the mere disciplining of those under him, collected, as they have been too much with us, from every nation, and addicted to every vice to which the waifs of humanity are subject. The last ship in which I served had, in a crew of 301 men, the representatives of seventeen different nationalities. Is it not time that a country of fifty millions of people should be able to find among its own citizens enough to man the few ships we keep afloat, instead of calling upon Finland and the Sandwich Islands (both of which countries were represented in the crew I speak of) for its defenders? We protect almost every species of labor but that which goes towards the working of our guns and the handling of our ships. COST OF TRAINING. The average cost per boy for one year by returns of August, 1878, was £45 158. Sd., or about $225. This cost, however, included an expenditure for the whole force of £32,212, which was incurred by the following: Wages and food of that portion of the crews which would be discharged to shore if the ship were paid off. Difference between full and half pay of certain officers; special allowances, &c.... Repairs of ships, tenders, coal, &c. Total The total expenditure of last year was Deducting above amount.. There is a total on account of the boys of................. Giving an average expenditure for each of about £33, or about $160 for twelve months. This includes the following Clothing and bedding gratuity.... Wages for one year as second class boy. Food for one year. £17,505 14,707 32, 212 £113, 590 32,212 81,378 .£6 08. Od. 926 18 6 9 |