Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/309

Rh NAVY 297 taught practically, and every inducement is given to officers to study and to qualify for the post of gunnery officers in the fleet. Extra rates of pay are given to gunnery lieu tenants according to their proficiency. For the training of the men, who up to 1852 were almost devoid of special skill, there was created a class of &quot; seamen gunners &quot; who act as instructors on board ship, under the orders of the gunnery officer. Examinations are held at stated times for the purpose of testing the progress made by officers under training. In the higher education of naval men at Greenwich College gunnery forms one of the principal features. The necessity for this special training, and for special efforts to induce men to undergo it, will be evident upon comparison between the guns of thirty years ago and those of the present day. The cannon with which the greatest victories of the British navy were won were 12-, 16-, and 24-pounders. Out of 104 guns carried by Nelson s &quot;Victory,&quot; 44 were 12-pounders, 30 were 24-pounders, and only 30 were 32 s. In the Russian War, 56 s and a few 68 s constituted the armament of the large war-ships. Now ships go about with 2000-pounder guns of most scientific make and character. For the proper handling and management of these refined engines of destruction it is clear that very special knowledge and very careful training are required. The issues involved in miss or hit are too momentous to be left to careless or ignorant hands. Hygiene. The state of health on board of a ship of war is, generally speaking, not exceeded in the most favoured spot on shore ; and the sea-scurvy may now be considered as unknown in the British navy, since the universal intro duction of lemon juice, or citric acid, without an ample supply of which no ship is permitted to sail on a foreign voyage. From the official returns collected by Sir Gilbert Blane, M. Dupin, a French author well versed in naval subjects, drew out the following table, which exhibits at one view the progressive diminution of sickness, death, and desertion in the British navy, calculated on 100,000 men : S ck sent to Hospitals. Deaths. Desertions. 1779 1782 1794 1804 1813 40,815 31,617 25,027 11,978 9,336 2,654 2,222 1,164 1,606 698 1,424 993 662 214 10 Hence it would appear that the diminution of sickness and of deaths was in the proportion of 4 to 1 nearly between the years 1799 and 1813. The diminution of desertions from the hospital in the same period is not less remarkable. The following returns, of more recent date, show the advance of medical science in this department : Sick sent to Hospitals. Dead in Hospitals. Run from Hospitals. 1820 3,564 362 2 1830 3,137 187 2 1840 6,589 225 1 1850 9,743 309 1855 11,748 384 2 Annexed is a memorandum showing the invaliding and death-rates in the navy afloat, including the deaths in hospital, from 1856 to 1881. Comparison with the dead lists of former years, even those cited above, will show the wonderful decrease caused by greater medical knowledge and better sanitary arrangements on board ship. This will be the more apparent when it is borne in mind that the old statistics show only the deaths in hospital, not those which occurred on board ship, through disease or the enemy. The high death-rate of 1870 is accounted for by the sad loss of the &quot;Captain&quot;; and those of 1878, 1880, and 1881 by the sinking of the &quot;Eurydice&quot; and &quot;Atalanta&quot; and the blowing up of the &quot;Doterel.&quot; Average Invalided. Dead. Com ill omen ts corrected for Time. Number. Ratio per 1000. From Disease. From Injury. Total. Ratio per 1000. 1856 51,730 098 19-3 G29 172 801 15-5 1857 42,470 1,460 34-4 623 196 819 19-4 1858 43,120 1,763 40-9 873 242 1,115 25-5 1859 52,825 1,994 37-7 624 262 886 16-7 18RO 64,025 2.844 44-4 712 226 938 14-7 1SK1 62,485 2,391 382 716 224 940 15- 18fi2 58,870 1.944 33- 684 218 902 15-3 1863 54,090 1,903 35-1 414 205 619 11-4 18fi4 (52,500) 153,000) 1,881 35-4 461 281 742 14- 1865 (50,6601 (81,310} 1,687 32-9 416 164 580 11-3 1866 J48.775) 149,475; 1,698 343 393 llfi 509 10-2 1867 J50,lloi (51,000) 1,492 29-2 432 155 587 11-5 1868 J50,390[ 1,755 34-2 333 127 460 8-9 1869 {48 ^of 1,574 32-2 358 126 484 9-9 1870 (43*350) 146,710)&quot; 1,646 35-2 315 603 918 19-6 1871 (47,260) 147.-460) 1,523 32 302 102 404 85 1872 (46.710J 146,830) 1,609 34-3 266 119 385 82 1873 45,440 1,688 37-1 274 104 378 8-3 1874 44,530 1,745 39-1 301 121 422 9-4 1875 44,360 1.526 34-4 304 88 392 8-8 1876 45,010 1.63G 36-34 270 14f&amp;gt; 416 9-24 1877 44,940 1,613 35-89 221 96 317 7-05 1878 46,400 1,662 3581 247 422 669 14-41 1879 44,745 1,475 32-96 279 105 384 8-58 1880 44,770 1.393 31-11 207 356 563 12-57 1881 44,400 1,388 31-26 234 252 486 10-94 Totals... ( 1,272,515 (1,279,935 44,288 346 10,888 5.228 16,116 12-59 The encouragement given to the navy from its first regular Pay. establishment has marked it as a favourite service. The sea-pay, the half-pay, and other emoluments have generally been superior to those enjoyed by the army, but subject to great fluctuations in every reign, and to frequent changes in the same reign. From the Black Book of the Admiralty it appears that the pay of the navy was fixed as follows in the time of Richard II. : &quot; If the admirall bee knight batchellor hee shall have every day at sea four shillings for himselfe, and for each chevalier gooing in his company two shillings, and for every escuier arme twelvepence a day ; and shall have in consideration of thirty homines d armes, at the end of each quarter of a yeare, one hundred markes, and so hee shall have for every one. And shall also have for each archer sixpence a day. And soo everyone of his captains shall have theire wages of him. And if the admirall is a baron he shall have six shillings and eight- pence a day; and if hee is an earle hee shall have thirteen shillings and fourpence a day.&quot; The admiral had also fourpence in the pound for all wages paid for his fleet ; but out of this he had &quot; in the night tyme, all the while that the fleet is at sea, to carry at the topp of his mast two lanthornes, to the end that all the masters of the ffleet my know and perceive by the light and the admirall s course, what course they shall steer.&quot; &quot;As to the marriners wages upon the voyages of the king or the admirall, each master of a shipp shall have sixpence a day, and every constable (or gunner) of the ffleet shall have the same wages by the day. Each marriner shall have threepence halfpenny per diem, and each marriner shall have sixpence per week for consideration &quot; (or bounty), &quot;and each sea boy shall have twopence halfpenny per diem.&quot; The establishment of half-pay was of slow growth. Though the navy, as we have seen, was put upon a regular establishment under the reign of Henry VIII., neither officers nor seamen received any pay or emolument in time of peace until the reign of Charles II., when in 1668 certain allowances were made to flag- officers and their captains out of the 200,000 a year voted for the whole naval service ; and in 1674 certain other allowances were granted, by order in council, to captains who had commanded ships of the first and second rates, and to the second captains to flag- officers, on the ground, as assigned in the preamble, that they had undergone the brunt of the war, without sharing in the incident advantages of it, as prizes, convoys, and such like, which the com manders of the small classes of ships had enjoyed. But the first regular establishment of half-pay for all flag-officers, captains, first- lieutenants, and masters was by King William, in the year 1693, XVII. 38