p becoming
obsolete, any more than there is over the fact that the best suit of
to-day may be that for the office next year, and may finally descend
to a dependent, or be cut down for a child. Whatever money a nation is
willing to spend on maintaining its first line of ships, it is not
weaker, but stronger, when one of these drops into the reserve and is
replaced by a newer ship. The great anxiety, in truth, is not lest the
ships should not continue valid, but lest there be not trained men
enough to man both the first line and the reserve.

Here the present article, as at first contemplated, would have closed;
but the recent disaster to the _Maine_ has produced its own crop of
sudden and magnified apprehensions. These, to the professional mind,
are necessarily a matter of concern, but chiefly because they have
showed the seeds of a popular distrust before sown in men's minds. As
evinced, however, they too are fallacies born of imperfect knowledge.
The magnitude of the calamity was indisputable; but the calm
self-possession of the nation and of the better portion of the press,
face to face with the possible international troubles that might
ensue, contrasted singularly with the unreasoned imaginations that
immediately found voice concerning the nature and dangers of
battleships. The political self-possession and dignity reposed upon
knowledge--not, indeed, of the eventual effect upon our international
relations--but knowledge, bred of long acquaintance with public
affairs, that, before further action, there must be investigation; and
that after investigation, action, if it must follow, would be taken
with due deliberation. So men were content to wait for justice to
pursue its even course.

But the fact that such an appalling catastrophe had befallen one
battleship fell upon the minds imperfectly informed in naval matters,
and already possessed by various exaggerated impressions, loosely
picked up from time to time. Men knew not what to think, and so
thought the worst--as we are all apt to do when in the dark. It is
possible that naval officers, being accustomed to live over a
magazine, and ordinarily to eat their meals within a dozen yards of
the powder, may have a too great, though inevitable, familiarity with
the conditions. There is, however, no contempt for them among us; and
the precautions taken are so well known, the remoteness of danger so
well understood, that it is difficult to comprehend the panic terror
th