We have entered an era of unprecedented military activity. End of the war will by no means assure the consummation of its aim. We may stop only for a second wind. Compulsory military education shall be found necessary. The navy we now call temporary cannot shrink, but shall grow like a wild vine. To the government shall turn men and boys, and even women, for guidance and education. To teach them to fight will prove but a fraction of the responsibility. "Learn to live" shall read the first precept wherever arms be taught . . . And so it follows that we teachers must study and perfect our methods; must know intimately each peril, injustice, and ugly cruelty, as well as all the joys and advantages of the discipline we stand for.
There is an ancient tale about three old women who spun. One footed the treadle; one licked the yarn; one thumbed the thread. So zealous and unremitting was their labor that by the time of the tale's making the first had an enormous foot; the second a tongue like that of a cow; and the third a thumb that passed all human understanding not in on the secret.
The moral of that tale is one-sidedness.
If a man is one-sided he is deformed. If deformed he is usually a cripple. We cannot afford to cripple men in the navy—men who now of all times must be at the very pinnacle of physical and mental preparedness. Yet if we keep them forever aboard grinding, drilling, or worst of all just waiting, they shall become as one-sided as the spinners.
You who wear the football N's, don't you remember how in the old days we arrived in Philadelphia, rode in swift kingly limousines to our hotel; how we laughed and played, took a walk and saw a show; how old Scotty McMasters called up the bunch and said (I can't spell the way he said it), "I ken, lads, ye've worked these months. Play hard to-day, play hard . . . . and 'tis tomorrow ye'll fight like men I"
Scotty's teams were good ones. He taught us to play and to fight. But did he and all the other instructors we had teach us to teach others to play and fight? For that has been our problem this long-to-be-remembered summer; to develop 50,000 men into first class, A-1, bring-home-the-bacon scrappers.
The fighting part is not so difficult. We have drill and regulation books, target practice instructions, and the manifold lessons of the war. The last named are our greatest help. Show a healthy man how to fight, give him a good reason, and he will produce material for the war correspondents faster than they can write it, and so hot it will scorch their mud-splattered pads and pencils.
The playing part has been our bugbear. Amusement of military forces is an old problem with a new solution every clay in the century. So many elements enter in, from the kind of weather to the price of ice, that no constant set of conditions ever prevail. Volumes there are on the subject from Mr. James' Psychology to plain Jim Hoyle. But beyond a few simple fundamentals experience and common sense are the best and only guides.
Of these a vast fund fortunately lies in our fleet leaders. One may say, however, that recently they have been up against it. When the battleships came north in the spring the mouth of a tidal inlet was selected as a rendezvous. While the channel was of sufficient width to permit comfortable anchorage without overworking the running boats, it was certainly too narrow for big ship convenience. Surrounding country was low and in many places swampy. Bedraggled farmhouses squatted here and there half buried in an almost tropical vegetation. Clearings were few and far between. The land itself was not unlovely but there was an intangible unkemptness about it that suggested hookworm.
Further up the inlet narrowed. On each side stood guard a steamboat wharf and a. small warehouse. Back of them like a poor man's brood cringed a handful of country houses, one hostelry, and a dozen negro hovels. Both villages boasted a rural store, you know the kind—calico to cranberries—and one had a courthouse of which the walls were decorated by names and dates reaching back into the reconstruction period.
Here must our men find diversion. No railroads, no sewers, no theaters, no restaurants, no stores—not even a fly-specked soda-fountain! Since we were at war only a small percentage could go on furlough. Yet with new ships, new recruits, new missions, an extraordinary amount of work was demanded of the personnel—so much work, in fact, that recreation was from the outset a consideration worthy of the most careful scrutiny.
At first the men ran loose. Of course regular patrols and beach guards were established and ordinary rules of sanitation put into effect. But no real check was laid on the liberty parties. This course had two advantages: First, it was the quickest way of ascertaining the resources and possibilities of the country from a naval point of view; secondly, no better opportunity could have been afforded the natives to discover what they could expect in the way of demands for transportation, food, lodging, and entertainment.
Results were immediate. The memory of the first Saturday liberty has been perpetuated in the orders and instructions resulting therefrom. The trouble was less from actual misdemeanors than of downright inconvenience. As the country had already been canvassed by officers' stewards there were no roadside mug-ups. Town was hot and dusty and at the same time coldly inhospitable. Potato patches made poor hangouts, and the farmers who watched over them were decidedly unpleasant. Undiscouraged the bluejackets trudged on. An oasis loomed up. It
was level, grassy, full of shade trees, and unpopulated except by—tombstones. A baseball diamond was laid out. "Batter up!" . . . .
Next day the news was out. A graveyard had been desecrated. "Liberty men ashore were guilty of conduct which reflected discredit upon the navy and the naval service." Infinitely more profane was the speech in which men embodied their resentment. But there was justice in their querulous complaints. And even among the authorities "what had we best do?" was the anxious interrogation.
The Navy League provided an answer. Clear of the town and on a breezy elevation that kindly society secured about 200 acres of open land bordered on one side by the river beach. Officers sarcastically suggested a sheep pasture when it became known that liberty men were to be corralled within a given space. "The very restraint will spoil their fun," said one.
"But there will be no restraint," was the answer.
"Then how are you going to keep them inside?"
"Simply by building and making our own amusement park so attractive that no others will be able to compete."
Which was exactly what happened. The field was first laid out in baseball diamonds according to battleship divisions. Each diamond had it's own backstop. Some had bleachers in one form or another. Improvements could be made by those concerned. The ground was rolled and trimmed in professional style. Regular schedules were planned and played and bets collected according to man's ancient privilege.
Theoretically this arrangement should have fulfilled all requirements. Through the week the navy worked and fed its men, even gave them movies and canteens. On Saturdays and Sundays "Navy League Field" was the playground. The balance of task and game was scientifically standardized by assigning definite recreation days and hours to the battleship forces and encouraging crews to take advantage of all liberty.
Practically, however, there remained unsolved the most potent problem in all pastime. "Count not men but stomachs," said a great tactician. Men may forget home, family and religion; may overlook courtesy and kindness, and outgrow hatred. But occupation that obscures appetite or thirst is occupation indeed
And so canteens came. Through the staff officer in charge applicants were granted leases for small shops to be erected on the grounds at the owner's expense and risk. Buildings were arranged along two sides of the land with a central pavilion between three contiguous diamonds. There were five canteens for soft drinks and sweets, one quick lunch counter, one kodak shop, a shooting gallery, news counter, and a watermelon stand. Their combined business was a roaring, snorting, silver-clinking success.
Appearances to the contrary, this strange array was not in-compatible with our personnel. Recruits are mostly in their 'teens. They have stomachs of ostriches and appetites of wolves. Their thirst on a scorching July afternoon may be accurately compared to the parched dryness of Sahara. They run and talk and generally agisticate until a drink per man per hour becomes more than luxury—with many it is (so they declare) a vital necessity.
One afternoon on a calm inspection I suffered under the blazing sun as one lost in Death Valley. After several rounds of "Belly-Wash" I fell in with the agent of Apple-O, the dernier cri of prohibition beverages. "How many bottles do you sell here on a week-end?" I asked, mostly out of curiosity.
"Guess," he replied, shifting a shredded two-fer.
"Well; we have more than 6000 men ashore this afternoon. They have six kinds of soft drinks to choose among. Perhaps twice an afternoon they visit the canteen. I say roughly 4000 bottles."
He stepped closer. "I can't exaggerate," he said, "because 5 per cent of what I make goes to your fleet athletic fund. Of one single kind of drink we sold yesterday and to-day 18,000 bottles."
I really gasped. "Then you ought to be a millionaire by the end of the summer," I managed to reply.
"Seems so, alright," he continued. "But here's the game. Breweries are rebuilding their plants to suit prohibition. Installation of new machinery and laboratories for developing healthy and appetizing drinks absorbs an enormous amount of capital. Times are unsettled. They dare not let the investments run. Consequently wholesale prices of all bottled products are equal to counter prices. On Apple-O, grape juice, ginger ale, Bevo and near beer, we make only by the bottle rebate, i. e, what. is paid us for the bottles returned. For instance we buy a case for $2.40. We sell it for the same amount, then collect and return the empties for 70 cents or about 3 cents apiece. In old times beer netted over 100 per cent. Just as soon as the brewers square up on their new plants profit on this soft stuff will jump. Already some of it's good for as much as.40 per cent outright to the little fellows."
He stopped and thought for a minute. Suddenly he swung about. "Why don't you navy people do this for yourselves? Here you have maybe 50,000 men. If they're not here they're at New York, or Guantanamo, or Narragansett. Even aboard ship and in the navy yards you buy our bottled goods, cakes and candy—whole trainloads of them!"
Then he luffed. I imagine he thought I might take him seriously and start a navy fruit juice factory. I did take him seriously; so much so in fact, that notebook in hand I started for a tour of the grounds.
I made the week-end, Saturday and Sunday, my unit of time. In that space besides the 18,000 bottles of Apple-O, I found there were sold to the bluejackets approximately 10,000 of imitation (non-alcoholic) beer, 3000 grape juice and 5000 of other kinds of drinks in the package so to speak, not to mention orangeade, lemonade and soda-water in bulk. Counting outside sales the total was about 50,000 bottles. With ginger-ale and Bevo at 15 cents, and Apple-O at 5 and 10 cents, the average was 10 cents per bottle, or $5000 taken in on soft drinks alone.
Watermelons also made a good profit. They came from Georgia—northern crops delayed by cold weather—via Norfolk at 10 cents to 25 cents apiece. They sold to the sailors as high as $1 for a single melon. About 1000 were sold in an afternoon.
Cakes, candy, tobacco and chewing gum were more difficult to estimate. By checking the most popular items I made a list that totaled up to a little less than $4500. A great many articles such as souvenirs, post-cards, clothing and knick-knacks I was unable to calculate. The fact that the stock disappeared testified to the amount of money spent.
One proprietor was in great spirits on having completely cleaned out. "Had one broom left," he chuckled. "Sailor came, said, 'Gimme a grape-juice.' 'All gone,' I says. Some cracker-jack then,' he says. ‘All gone,' is the only answer I can give. 'One broom left,' says I; nothing else.' The sailor planks down his money. ‘I'll take it,' he says; and he did!" Which illustrates the man-o'-wars-man's irresistible desire to be rid of his hard earned "iron-beans." .
I spent a few minutes at the shooting gallery. The owner sold oranges and lemonade on the side, probably to hold his trade. He had such a nice little place I asked him about the cost of lumber. To my surprise less than $100 worth of tongued spruce had gone into the pistol palace. Passing the time of day, "How many rounds an afternoon?" I finally slipped in. "Oh, 25,000 or so," was the nonchalant response. At the same instant my eye caught a sign: "Learn to shoot—three shots for 5 cents." For a moment I tried to figure the profit, but could only remember my confusion in attempting to envisage the 50,000 gross of bottles the fruit juice company orders at one time.
The lunch counter was the one place whose middle name was not Bonanza. Its meager profit for five hours work was but $250. I learned that the right sort of equipment would cost $2000 with $25 a day for help. No doubt though, the manager concluded, in the spring and fall a "grub joint" would pay for itself about once a week.
There were many other ways for the men to spend their money. Old broken down plow horses were saddled and rented for $3 an hour. I interrupted one skinflint who "let the boys take his rig" for $4 a passenger, or $20 an afternoon. Fortunately—even for the man, who must some day account for his sins—the poor beast died. Reasons for the tragedy are less obscure when one remembers that the G. E. Co. designs navy motors for 100 per cent overload to allow for unskilled treatment. Sailors and stables—the analogy is obvious.
Popcorn and peanut stands did a good business. Natives brought peaches and plums and even eggs. One enterprising woman tied her cow nearby for an advertisement and sold milk shakes faster than she and her pretty daughter could mix them. From jitneys to kodaks and bananas everything went with startling ease and profit.
By this time my notebook was full and my brain in a fever. I had discovered a gold mine! I pictured myself a second Henry Ford, making cherry flips instead of flivvers, candy and ice-cream cones instead of carburetors, and spreading rich bonuses among my old friends in the navy.
I sat down and checked my columns over. There was no mistake; $25,000 an afternoon was being spent for not more than $10,000 worth of goods. Profit 150 per cent . . . . War Babies weren't in it!
Then my mood changed. I realized that the fleet was getting stung for entirely unnecessary expense. I began to figure the proposition from a government-control point of view. Suppose on the land recently acquired at Hampton Roads the government saw fit to build and equip a canteen factory. Let the products include soft drinks, cake, candy and tobacco. Confine distribution to the navy, and possibly the marine corps and coast artillery. Limit the investment to $1,000,000 with an assumed value slightly above the recent treasury notes, say 4 per cent. Perhaps carry the cooperative idea into the Service by suitable bonds. Call depreciation and repairs (all navy work) another 4 per cent, and operating expenses 7 per cent, making a necessary gross debit of 15 per cent. In other words plan to operate on $150,000 a year cash.
At first sight this sum seems absurd. From the brewer's side it is—slightly. But he operates. We would co-operate. He splatters the countryside with bill-boards and posters. "Drink Squelch's Grape Whizz" profanes our loveliest hills and dales to the tune of $50,000 a series. Advertisements in the big magazines, "Million-a-year" circulations, run into tens of thousands of dollars. One manager with his center of buoyancy marked by a 5-caret spark dilated on these publicity coups. "Advertising campaign, eh!" he snorted at my naive inquiry, "Why, young fellow, it costs more to put my pop on the counter than it does to pull a president info the White House—and we face a re-election every summer!" He mopped his apoplectic countenance. "I can prove it too." He did; he had the certified statements.
Who pays these campaign bills? The consumer of course, we among the rest.
Besides not advertising, this naval canteen factory would be almost free from freight and transport bills. Not long ago one pacifist declared there was a running loss of $5,000,000 a year in empty cargo space on naval vessels, supply ships and tugs, doing coastwise service alone. No doubt there is something in this assertion. At any rate I happen to know that there is sufficient available room to carry canteen stores to all naval stations and fleet bases. Since routine duty of vessels so utilized would not be disturbed no allowance need be made for freightage, save the actual handling.
Then there is the agent's loss. Did you ever see a real drummer hit your village? If he runs true to type Gaby Deslys has nothing on him for letting the old homestead know who's there. But it takes money—dollars for drinks, halves for hacks, and quarters for quick lunch preparations for "making a killing." A good man allows about 5 per cent of his gross sales in order to make them. That is, if he can stack up a $20,000 order he feels free to let his expenses for board, lodging, entertaining, advertising and general notoriety tally to $1000.
In the end who coughs up .that $1000? . . . . The seaman second class at $38.50 a month, and others like him.
We would send simple lists to the sub-stations. Requisitions, in customary form would eliminate all agent fees and expenses. Even banking nibbles would become unknown by simply transferring cash to another department at the .navy yard or aboard ship. Or books could be drawn with detachable tickets in place of cash. Simply duplicating the accounts at the ship or yard, at the factory, and at the Navy Department would stand for all the labyrinth of account clearing without which the brewer could not work.
Factory superintendents, managers, foremen and help would be as necessary as in a civil plant. But much of the office work could best be done by our regular pay, corps; and the experience of it would almost pay for their time. A kind of modified civil service would apply to the employees in the same manner in which our new armor plants will be organized. Broader and greater results, better hours, and less waste are the attractive possibilities in any industry owned and operated by the government, with no desire for profit, but only reduce its servant's living expenses and to improve the conditions under which he lives. The great incentive of individual rivalry would be fostered as in the great industries throughout our country by an effective bonus system with promotion based on individual results. Contrary to popular belief national competition would not suffer simply because there need be no conflict of territory. Having our laundry done aboard ship gives us immensely greater satisfaction with cleaner clothes and smaller prices. Yet shore laundries suffer no hardship, in fact are in no way affected by our thrift, simply because they have enough customers without bothering with the navy. This must always be the case because the percentage of military forces remains small except in wartime when the private concern becomes of necessity a subsidized ally to the government.
I could describe a score of other ways in which consumer's cost of canteen stores could be cheapened. Tags, label and trade-marks, when run into the millions, cost very appreciable sums. Patents, special rights, royalties, and litigation, not to mention specialized taxation increasing year by year, form no small part of the season's loss . . . . of course to be taken up in the selling price.
Let me roughly dissect the dollar bill our sailor lays on the counter. To the manufacturer's profit 10 cents; to wholesaler 5 cents; agent or middleman, or both, 5 cents; to retailer 15 cents; for advertising and transportation of both material and product, 8 cents; tags, labels, packing, and like items, 7 cents; by operation, depreciation, stock interest, dividends, and unavoidable losses (insurance, etc.) about 35 cents. For actual raw material and conversion to what is sold 10 cents.
That my figures are conservative was evidenced by two representatives of different establishments who agreed that their branch houses took up to 12 per cent and the soda-fountain man as high as 50 per cent or even 60 per cent of the gross profit.
In other words if the Secretary of the Navy called you up to-day and handed out a check for a million dollars, with factory rights on the Jamestown Reservation, some trivial allowance of pay clerks, a few paymasters, and the proper authority for untrammeled movement, you could be in full swing at the end of 10 months. You could supply shore canteens at 15 permanent bases and at least four transient stations. Granting each only four months capacity business for 20 per cent of the naval forces on the coast you could absolutely count on nearly $200,000 worth of business.
In a fleet of 40 major ships you would cater to canteens doing business at a minimum rate of $1000 a week, or $160,000 a month. Or, putting it another way, if every one of the 150,000 men who have spent no more than a dollar a month for tobacco, sweets, soft drinks, stationery, and other luxuries—many spend a dollar a day—your gross yearly revenue from their sweet teeth and tobacco tongues would be $1,200,000. In three years you could return the secretary's million. You could establish and solidify a navy relief fund of prodigious catholicity. Most important of all you would at the very outset cut canteen prices no less than 40 per cent with such surety of quantity and quality that there could be no question of outside interference.
This factory idea is only the beginning of a gigantic reformation bound to come. Properly to control and to regulate the amusements of our men, and to handle contingent difficulties would be a task of like size with the manufacturing end, and nearly of equal profit not only to the government but to the soldiers and sailors for whose benefit the project first aims.
Take the uncouth jitney, that mud-daubed, cut-throat denizen of our liberty docks. Our naval experience with them has been wide as the land, long as the coast, and cruel as a rainy Fourth of July. To enliven the argument I can copy from my encyclopædic notes. Friday morning, August___ at__________ I counted on or near the dock 63 ramshackled jitneys clustered across the wharf tail like so many suckling pigs. There were 48 Fords, 1913 vintage preponderating, 12 automobiles and 3 hacks. Most liberty men were bound for one of four destinations at fares $10, $6.50, $3 and 75 cents, respectively. The $10 trip could be done in three hours with five passengers. The 75-cent skip was a matter of half an hour, and I counted 11 bluejackets in one small Buick! Can you count the dollars?
What are the chances for a navy jit? Bought in bulk 100 Ford touring cars, fixings and traps, would form a full rolling stock at less than $40,000. I interviewed most of the jitney drivers, several of whom I had kept check on through the day. The highest day's earnings was reported by a wild-eyed Irishman who swore he had gleaned $105 from our lavish sailormen. He even showed me the money, and I saw no other way he could have gathered so much, vagabond that he was. A 12-year old lad took the booby prize with $10.25. The average of those who, except for the fact that they drove a jitney, seemed honest was about $50.
Suppose the navy had just bought 100 new cars, and each ship sent two drivers. The lot would have been paid for in two days! For an indefinite time thereafter the fleet could have ridden free of charge. Or, put on a par with the “Factory," in about six weeks time at one-third the regular fare the cars would all have been paid for and the volunteer drivers have earned a handsome sum besides their diverting week-ends.
Movies naturally and cogenitally come next. On Navy League Field lived the glib dispenser of Mary P. in five reels—we wished it were 50. Afternoon finds him beset by ship operators. Morning smiles with him upon a luscious pile of 10-spots, one for each worn-out pock-marked film he has loaned overnight.
It may be tiresome, but calculate this celluloid Klondike: Any old reels will do, comedies, tragedies, weekly reviews (dating back to the fall of Sumter)—"posalutely absatively" anything will do!
Let's say we have a hundred of them. We can serve them out—one man could do all the work and raise a crop besides—say five a week to 40 ships. They can go direct or by express. In 20 weeks or about 5 months the gross receipts would come to $40,000. Then we resell the films, or perhaps let them out; and we balance books to find that the net feather lining of the little deal is about $30,000, or $72,000 a year! And here we sit in calm smugness while the widows wash clothes till their knuckles bleed. . . . .
So far I have dwelt upon only directly profitable possibilities. I have passed over ice and trucks and bumboats and lodgings, and a dozen other forms of easy pickings, because I have no exact figures with which to delineate them. But I wish to touch on several indirect matters of business and administration which very directly affect canteens and jitneys and other necessary nuisances.
Police and patrol parties come under this head. During my illuminative week as acting Chief of Police I had under me at different times about 150 officers and men. So far as my duty was concerned my experience was limited to almost entirely different conditions than we found in the neighborhood to which the work had been assigned. Yet I feel safe in saying that with 10 good men who had learned the job I could accomplish in three days what it took me one week to do with an inexperienced party of 150.
I recall the resourcefulness of one chief petty officer on patrol. His despair at untrained help for what had proved to be the rather specialized job of garbage disposition illustrates my point. His squad of 10 not unwilling seamen seemed to be unable to enter into sanitary work with the soulful enthusiasm refuse cans and rotten melon rind should inspire. Which was to be expected. Seeing this and, I believe, sympathizing with those under him, the C.P.O. visited all shop and house owners in the neighborhood to which he had been detailed.
"If I pay half will you hire a man to clean up every day around your place?" he inquired.
Of course each one agreed, without knowledge of the others, as was part of the plan. The petty officer then robbed the local mill of its best yard foreman, a burly negro who would have sold his soul for the five dollars a day now so easily to be made by cleaning up a handful of house grounds and shop fronts.
The C. P. O. returned to the nine neighbors with whom he had bargained. The negro testified to each that he had been paid "by dis hyeh officeh, suh" 50 cents for a day's work at cleaning. Each person coughed up another 50 cents—not dreaming that eight others were doing the same. Thus for a half a dollar a day and one competent man that wily sailor accomplished in good shape what his squad wouldn't or couldn't at any price. He crowned his success by levying the 50 cents per day upon his men in turn as price of their leisure.
This episode is but a single instance of a general difficulty. Why not a permanent police gang? The vestal might carry a small carefully instructed party fully versed in all forms of sanitary, police, patrol, and general municipal cleanliness work. For extensive areas each member of this quasi-commission could lead a corresponding squad from some other ship.
Put the police gang into the ship's bill. Make it, like the fire and rescue party, a concrete group, a strong, keen tool in the hands of the executive officer who now can only say "detail four men and a petty officer." Such an offhand unit may well be compared to a broom sent ashore and thrown up on the dock, utterly valueless until someone happens along who knows how to put it to work and has both the authority and the will to do so.
This police business does not take us away from the recreation expense question. I found that field canteens hired from one to four men at wages running as high as $5 a day for intrenching work, refuse excavations, drainage and other labor. Ice procured at fabulous prices melted with tragic rapidity for want of shelters that skilled help could easily and quickly have built. Fruit gone stale or rotten, infected other fruit when even ordinary protection could have saved it and the money it was worth. Small boat transfers and ferries extorted outrageous prices for handling canteen material. And so on through so tiresome a list of losses that one sheds all patience in having to argue against such obvious extravagance.
Discussion of this subject of service co-operation invariably leads up to the question "then why not everything—clothes, coal, lumber, books, every detail of our living expenses produced by the fostering government and sold at factory cost?" Some day, no doubt, we shall have such sublimation of teamwork. But for the present no great gain is in sight along any of those lines. Textile mills shave percentage to decimals when computing their profits. Great tailoring houses give us full page Apollos in Bline-Stock garments, but they make those garments by the million and use the profit of bulk production for such advertising.
The canteen business is a horse of a different color. The explanation of this difference lies in a psychological maxim: "Emotion makes men mad." It is only after careful forethought and figuring that one buys a new suit or a pound of butter. But let the gaiety of a picnic, the enthusiasm of a game, or the garbled variety of a Saturday night grip one's week-day equilibrium and it makes little difference whether cracker-jack costs two cents or two dollars. When the whim strikes it's "gimme two, boy, and keep the paltry change!"
No wonder men fight for trade like that—trade to mad-caps, loony spendthrifts scattering their silver like so many buccaneers. Advertising is cheap at any price so long as it captures the market, for the market will pay any price the advertising demands. What does quality matter when quantity is the key to a million dollar trade? "Catch their eye and you've hooked the scam of their pocketbooks . . . ." Is it to be wondered at that our canteen bricks are gilded?
It hurts to think of buying 10 cents worth of slops for a dollar's worth of real sub-signed money. Our one chance lies the way of the home grown product—co-operation—independence. It's a get-rich-quick-Wallingford scheme on the face of it, but with a prospect big enough for every sailor in the navy to have his slice, and so real as to startle out of his cold complacency the most incorrigible Laisser-Fairist in our fleet. . . . .