a prescribed uniform, certainly; but regulations, like
legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude
in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In
my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet
kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the
captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I
remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled
to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me
disparagingly of another, "He's the sort of man, you know, who would
wear a frock-coat unbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My
friend had achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he had
defined a species. On another occasion the same man remorselessly
wiped out of existence another species, consecrated by generations of
blue-books and _Naval Regulations_. "I know nothing of superior
officers," he said; "senior officers, if you choose; but superior,
no!" Whether the _Naval Regulations_ have yet recognized this obvious
distinction, whether it is no longer "superior officers," but only
senior officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I
have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times
past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minutiae is symptomatic
of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and
precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting
her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of
a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest;
but in 1855-60 frock-coats had not been disciplined, and in accordance
with the tone of the general service we midshipmen were tacitly
indulged in a similar freedom. This tolerance may have been in part a
reaction from the vexatious and absurd interference of a decade before
with such natural rights as the cut of the beard--not as matter of
neatness, but of pattern. Even for some time after I graduated, unless
I misunderstood my informants, officers in the British navy were not
permitted to wear a full beard, nor a mustache; and we had out-breaks
of similar regulative annoyance in our own service, one of which
furnished Melville with a striking chapter. Discussing the matter in
my presence once, the captain of a frigate said, "There is one reply
to objectors; if they do not wish to conform, they can leave the
service