e of
my "messmates" in this boat, was a young fellow who had been second
captain of the mizen-top on board of H.M.S. "Vengeance;" but not liking
the style of discipline, especially--as he said--the irritating
substitutes for flogging which have been introduced of late years into
the Navy, to suit the mawkish sensibility of public opinion in England,
as well as the clamours of the all-ruling Press, he took the first
opportunity of running away, to seek his fortune in the Far West. He
observed to me one day, "Those chaps who kick up such a devil of a row
about flogging in the Navy, whatever their intentions may be, are no
real friends to the sailor or the service."

As a slight illustration of the truth of his remarks, I may here observe
that a purser in the American Navy, in which service they have lately
abolished flogging, told me, that soon after the paying off of a
line-of-battle ship in which he had been serving, he happened to meet
fifty of his old shipmates in the port, and asking them what they were
going to do, they told him they were about to embark for England, to
take service in the English Navy; for said they, "Since corporal
punishment has been abolished, the good men have to do all the work, and
that wont pay." Only three of the fifty had ever been in the English
service. There can be no doubt that many gentlemen of sensitive minds,
seeing the names of their brother officers dragged before the public,
through the House of Commons or the columns of an anonymous Press,
endeavour to keep up discipline by other means, which annoy Jack far
more, or else, slackening the bonds of discipline, leave all the work to
be done by the willing and the good; anything, rather than be branded as
a tyrant in every quarter of the globe by an anonymous assailant,
knowing full well that, however explicit a denial may be inserted, ten
people will read the charge for every one that reads its contradiction.
But I am wandering from my young friend, the captain of the mizen-top.

If he did not look very well "got up" in his red shirt, at all events he
was clean in his person, thus forming a pleasing contrast to a young
chap who came in the evening, and seated himself on the table, where I
was playing a game at ecarte with my companion. His hands absolutely
appeared the hands of a nigger, though his voice was the voice of a
white; travelling my eyes up to and beyond his face, I found it was all
in keeping; his hair looked like an In