Show THE SCARED BRITONS ncnsoii 1viy Britain no toiiffc TIl isulcb the Waves in San Francisco Argonaut ocknigne gnise it as the majority of people 1ig1i do there IS a veritable war to jI1 1 try 1Itltin the English nation at the oc1rt tg1tug timl A the 1 cause of it I 10 not nt JflSCI1t scrhllmage which to the Egyjtiall dJUJt lII1S 1h1l08t ausur to dignify by the It of war but to the apprehended ii0tjIjtiCS iia1I1t which may at any moment England and Russian t Sik out between evenside one hears the chances of n everY On i1eIi i war discussed and while there is 5 Sipiit of brag and bluster given to tin p1enl r then1 is a most plentiful lack of either iir lxpression or display of that cool the etlleJ 1 confidlnce ill the army and nay rlJldl would be the case were eIther or both of f theSe national bulwarks known in l satisfactory condition It is al bf i to w eI1 for people to exclaim within the < very nfortible ll1illlits of such mutual admiration admir-ation toiieties as club smokingrooms Hid friPiuHy dinnerparties that t Well iuk Vni again as we did in the Crimea I niJ give vent to the timehonored aphor Hn I that one Englishman is oqual to sis KuMsi This latter precept is I be ltu oiu dear to the hearts l of every na Ion on eaillu and in tune of war is use to lull into a delusive sense of security till apprehensions of people who are con Idlt t 10 permit national I conceit to take the lace of national ability England doe of the maxim at possess a monopoly Liouhtless the Kussian thinks than One ItiiaIi is equal to six Englishmen relics 5Ls belief that on jM t ts Germany a uerman unit irf the equivalent of any olicr nations half dozen But talk isnt fight with men any more than it i is at school with boys as I dare SLY mot of us lemember and all the imliuiluil pei > onal courage of vaporing lipropsat lionie wont add one man to tin army abroad or a ship to the navy Hnweui in the present instance taking into eoasulerition the fact that the llus ijttI army on a war footing is about two million throe I hundred thousand strong ul1 that Englands forces scraping together to-gether everything that she could lay her hands upon including regulars militia Indian army yoemanry volunteers and loot under ri irui > up considerably eiLlit hundred thousand all told there wins to he a 1 sort of painful necessity that OIK Englishmen should equal three ItiihSians at least for were both armies brought face to face the Russians would luve three men where England has one t 11 j a VWW of such a state of things it is i it 111 tii it there should be a feeling far i < i I iii mere uneasiness abroad in t ull I Ls to the constitution of England Eng-land s 1 myso far as the regulars are i onerned have had something to say heretofore on its pitiably weak over oifuvred and undermanned condition so I need not repeat But when one thinks of the regular army being in so wretched a state one naturally feels in lined to wonder what the other troops must be Another thing to be thought of when the Crimean war is referred to is this In that war England had Prance for anal an-al and since its termination the Rus san army has been reorganized Yet nother is the present superiority of ussias navy It has often been the shipn to say when the weakness of the jzlish army has been adverted to ever mind weve got a navy any W Now the question arises Have we I mean of course such a ivy as not only would be fit and com jptent to cope with Russia but one to tntitle us to retain in our national song the line Britain Hules the Wares If statistics mean anything and if what one reads in the papers has any weight dearly we have not How can we claim the supremacy of the seas while France has seventytwo ironclads against twentyeight of ours and three hundred and sixtysix vessels against two hundred hund-red and thirtysix of ours in commission or how can our fleets contend wtth those of Russia whose navy consists of three hundred and eightynine steam MShels twentynine of which are iron da sIt s-It is not because England doesnt spend money enough every year in building ships that this unfortunate condition of things exists It is because the men in lOtf at the head of the admiralty are not lit to fill the posts that their politics Hive j them The Earl of Northbrook is tho First Lord of the Admiralty and the noble earl knows nothing whatever about a ship or the management and direction of naval affairs ° Then Sir Thomas Brassey the prince of English snobs is the Secretary of the Admiralty and his knowledge of maritime matters prior to his appointment to aid in the conduct of thoR of the nation was gained by cruising cruis-ing about the Mediterranean in the snobbish snob-bish luxury of a vulgarly begilt yacht called The Sunbeam with his wife ala a-la who as Lady Brassey with tliouss Is of Hounds a year aspires to a prominent iKisition in the literary world but who as Miss Allnutt of London before her marriage no one appears to have ever heard of What such a man can possibly know about the navy or how it should be managed it is i difficult to imagine The otier day he had ship armorplated on both sides only and let the bow and stern go bare a feat in modern naval architecture for which he has been considerably con-siderably lampooned by Punch Yet he goes about the country making speeches Jwit the navy and its marvelous Ilhnency as though he were born and bred at sea Not many weeks ago another of his ships owing to the unseaworthi ness of her build neally rolled herself over in a gale in the Bay of Biscay But perhaps the most satisfactory proof n the inefficient state of the navy has just been given in the hiring by the Admiralty if j f the Cunard liners Umbria Etru J1J and Oregon the Guion liners Alaska and Arizona and the National Na-tional liner America the fastest six 1 I earners that cross the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool These steamers are I 10 be fitted out as fast cruisers with iiftetn guns each and are to be employed 111 the rapid transport ol troops in the tVeimL of a war with Russia That the reliant service should have to be drawn Upon at a critical moment is a Utar admission by Brassey and his con Xres that the mercantile marine has c iter ships than the vaunted royal navy and > that all the talk he and others of his ilk lllv < been indulging in as to the cfli VIcney of the navy has been inflated rub ueip Nth Y any means a small matter l ltCrlst to be considered in connection with 1 the is tll chartering of these steamers t nil fat that they are taken away from J nussjiiger and mail service between Bland and the United States With l l nalcd tubs such as the Gallic and n pthiiM to do the work we shall not hear 11 j II1Ul11 of fast passages from Sandy I 1Iook to t Queenslown ana will take and our letters i 1 day or two longer in going and COmimirig Whjt Its true that the Inman and bin Str lines have some fast steamers n1 IIOUC that come near the Oregon bad Alh8kV and it will seem likegoilg lrail years in the annals of transatlantic Nirhrfc100 to read with admiration and > tmririi oYauc ° J u > e seven eight anJ nin day fiG S8 of thc City of Berlin the erinanie and the Servia It seems indeed very hard lines not on on international correspondents who ha v grown accustomed to getting their letters across in a week but upon the thousam of passengers who will be flocking to Europe Eu-rope during the Because summer a set < of bungling officials conduct England naval affairs they are obliged to stay at sea longer than they should I dont mean to say that all the Lord Commissioners as they are called of the Admiralty are civilian landlubbers There are four admirals two fulls a vice and a rear One of the II fulls is i Lord Alcester pronounced Awlster who as Sir Beauchamp Seymour t a peerage for battering down the historic town of Alexandria and also achieved by virlure of the same heroic act th popular designation of Bombard assort a as-sort of suggestive companion to Eon bast the title bestowed upon Lor Wolseley Lord Alcester has been a good deal ridiculed upon his elevation to < the House of Lords for so comparatively trivial an achievement arid one which placed beside the Nile or Trafalgar sink into pigmy insignificance But the royal navy is not blessed with the possession of any Nelsons on whom to lavish dignity rank and honor and England has to make the most of such material as she has Out of the seventynine flagoflicen admirals of the fleet viceadmirals and rearadmirals what man among them has gained any distinction as a commander Tim ViceAdmirals Sir JohnCommerell and Sir W Hewett and RearAdmiral Salmon have for individual in-dividual bravery won the Victoria Cross the highest reward for personal valoi England can give i and are known as V Cs But a man can be personal courageous to the limit of foolhardiness without possessing either talent or acquired ac-quired knowledge in the art of manoeuvr ing a squadron in action at sea The fact that the Duke of Edinburgh the Prince of Leiningcn Prince Lewis of Battenberg and Prince George of Wales as well as the Earl of Clan william are ollicers in the navy doesnt appear to do it any good in a fighting sense The Duke of Edinburgh is commonly accredited accred-ited with being a good officer Hundreds and thousands of men who arc not dukes and sons of the Queen are that and no one thinks anything about it But beyond the ordinary ability of the average aver-age sailor 1 dont suppose he possesses any merit to place his name higher than the position of the mere accident of birth has put to it One thing is known and that is when the English fleet was sent up the Dardanelles in 1878 as a quiet menace to Russia by Lord Bea consfield the Duke of Edinburgh was not given any command some people indeed in-deed saying he couldnt be trusted on account of his Russian sympathies through his marriage with the Czars daughter If he couldnt be trusted then surely he cannot now However trust or no trust there is no more likelihood of his being employed in any naval post of importance than that his brother the Duke of Connaught would be given other than a command of army reserves re-serves in case of war How one cant refrain from comparing the English Princes with the Crown Prince and Prince Frederick Charles of Germany in the FrancoGerman war of 70 1 About the only naval officer who has really gained any sort of distinction is Lord Charles Beresford His doing so is a slap at the scientificplodders who think that a man must pass all their absurd examinations ex-aminations or else he wont be of any use I dont mean to imply that Lord Charlie is in the faintest degree an ignoramus But it is safe to say he cares more lor practice than theory and has iven most convincing proof of his ability to meet with and overcome difficulties hat no forethought of naval examiners ould presuppose the existence of People Peo-ple may say he is lucky Perhaps he is but he is at any rate seemingly able too to-o on with his luck without hitch or hindrance As a matter of fact he doesnt know what fear is and that is where a great deal of his success comes from As for the common run of English naval officers they are dancing flirting loud boisterous lightheaded fellows who think more of the effect of their brass buttons and epaulets on the minds jf the ladies than they do of the scientific study of navigation steamship gunnery or torpedo practice on their own |