torpedo boat accomplished none of the terrific feats we expected. The duties performed by our own boats have already been described, and the principal business of the Spanish destroyers was evidently to keep out of the way. Their defeat by an ordinary yacht must have been very humiliating. One advantage possessed by our fleet around the entrance to Santiago harbor added materially to their harmlessness: the attack could come only from one quarter, and the skillful manipulation of search lights destroyed all hope of success. The contrast between our early fears of the torpedo boat flotilla and its subsequent achievements is simply ludicrous. It would not be safe to draw sweeping conclusions as to the use of these craft in future wars. If the Pluton and the Furor had been handled by Englishmen, the Gloucester would probably be at the bottom of the sea, and some of the larger ships might possibly have suffered a like fate.

The monitors seem to have been out of their element on the blockade. We had no need of them in the defense of coast or harbors, and, with none of the excitement of the chase, they served principally as prisons for a few unhappy officers and men. Our experimental craft, such as the dynamite cruiser, the submarine boat, and the ram, had no opportunity to indicate their possible utility. The Vesuvius threw a few hundred pounds of dynamite upon the hills outside of Santiago, and she may have exerted some moral pressure toward the surrender, but there is nothing to prove that she is of value to the country.

Men are, after all, more important than types of ships, and we may well inquire what we have learned about them in stress of action. It has been asserted that the war has demonstrated the perfection of our organization, and that it cannot be improved. This is like selecting a crew for a four mile race by a half mile spurt. The trade of the seaman has been changing during the past generation, and while we know him in peace, we have not had time to study him in a war which would call out all his strength and resources. So far as physical courage is concerned, we have seen that our sailors possess the same qualities in the presence of the machine that their ancestors possessed in the old sailing frigate. Time has not

changed their nature, however much it may have modified their occupation.

The attempt of Somers, ninety four years ago, to destroy the Tripolitan fleet with a fire ship is paralleled by Hobson on the Merrimac. The two cases have many points in common: both crews carried explosives for the destruction of their ships; both planned to escape in small boats after having applied the match; both entered boldly a well fortified channel; both left friends waiting outside to pick them up; and both failed to accomplish what they had set out to do. There the likeness ceases. One went in under steam, with directive power dependent upon himself, and all his men were saved; the other depended upon wind and sails, and all were lost. The deed of Hobson and his crew is only what we have a right to expect of our men and our race. Many officers of the fleet volunteered for duty as soon as they heard that the Merrimac was to go in. Few other opportunities for individual heroism presented themselves, and our list is brief only on that account. The journey of Lieutenant Blue on a scouting expedition around Santiago, the coolness of Cadet Powell waiting close under the batteries in a steam launch to carry back the Merrimac's crew, and the rescue of many prisoners from their burning ships are all of a piece.

The contrast between the two nations stands out very clearly in connection with the Vizcaya. The torpedo boat Ericsson ran close alongside of her, and sent a small boat to take off all that were alive of her crew. A few boats from the Iowa assisted. The Vizcaya was on fire fore and aft; the ammunition on board was exploding, and the guns that had been left loaded were going off one after another in the intense heat, to say nothing of the proximity of the shore. The position of the little craft has been described as perilous in the extreme. Our men risked their lives repeatedly to help their fallen enemy, but no sooner were the Spaniards transferred to the deck of the Ericsson than they urged immediate withdrawal, without regard to their comrades who had been left behind. To the honor of our navy, Lieutenant Ushur remained until every living being had been rescued from the burning ship. A similar scene was enacted around the two torpedo boat destroyers.

It was a case of mad panic on the one side, and of perfect coolness on the other. One officer of the Vizcaya afterward stated, on board the Iowa, that they were obliged to close the gun ports on the disengaged side of the ship, to prevent the men from jumping overboard rather than face the American gun fire.

Even the cadets fresh from the naval academy caught the spirit of their countrymen, and entered into the contest with the greatest zeal and fearlessness. During the blockade, a number of picket launches were kept close around the entrance every night, to guard against surprise. These small boats, in charge of cadets, sometimes approached within a hundred feet of the shore, and remained all night. They had orders to go out at the first streak of dawn, and they were almost invariably fired on. One boat got nine shots through her hull. The danger seemed to be an incentive to these boys, and there was considerable rivalry among them for the privilege of taking the night picket.

The behavior of the seamen, firemen, and marines was beyond praise. Happily few lost their lives, while all were prepared to risk them. The story of the men in the fire rooms of the Oregon has the true ring of the old navy. They had no share in the exciting, spectacular part of the fight. Their duty was simply to push the ship ahead with all their might. Shut up below an armored deck in watertight compartments, they were in the presence of dangers which they could not see, and their safety depended upon the good judgment and courage of their comrades. Yet they thought only of getting their ship into action. In the long chase of the Colon the strain began to tell on them, and the chief engineer, walking up to the bridge, requested the captain to "fire a gun just to cheer my men up.' The roar of a thirteen-inch rifle acted like magic upon their flagging energies, and gave them a new incentive to shovel coal. Apart from the rapidity of movement introduced by steam, the whole scene resembles the old fleet actions of the English navy in its best days. We may safely say that the blockade of Santiago, the carefully planned attack, and the total destruction of six good ships were carried out in a manner worthy of the finest traditions of our race.

It was a curious phase of the war to find deck officers serving as engineers on torpedo boats, and an engineer serving as deck officer on a converted yacht. The change from one duty to the other is not so violent as it seems, for the men received practically the same education at the naval academy. Our striking success is chargeable in a large measure to familiarity with machines. There was little opportunity for the desperate courage which the Spanish might have displayed. It would appear, therefore, that any system which contemplates a more thorough training in engineering all through the navy is in the right direction.

THE HEROES OF THE NAVY.

BY CHARLES C. FITZMORRIS.

[Charles C. Fitzmorris, author; born May 1, 1880, Fort Wayne, Ind.; educated in the public schools of that city and Chicago. Began his business life as a reporter on the Chicago American, with which he has been connected constantly and which he has represented as staff correspondent in various parts of the United States and abroad. Author of newspaper and magazine articles on various topics.]

The invention of the modern battleship, with its impenetrable turrets and fighting-tops, and long range guns, the advent into warfare of the submarine boat and the Whitehead torpedo, and, above all else, the Spanish-American war, have combined to relegate into a past that is seldom recalled to mind, the days when our navy was struggling for recognition— the days between the Revolution and the Rebellion. New conditions have brought forth a new class of men; new battles have given us another list of heroes. The modern warship, steelclad and speedy, has made the death grapple that Paul Jones loved almost impossible. The torpedo, moved by electricity and guided by a brain a mile or more away, has made feats like that of Lieutenant Decatur in the harbor of Tripoli unnecessary. But none the less the deeds of those men will live while there is history-men like Jones, Decatur, Worden, Perry, Farragut and a long line of others.

In the history of our country's brave men there is none whose exploits excelled those of Paul Jones, the Scottish gardener's son, who gave the best years of his life to his adopted country and died, forty five years old, penniless, in Paris. Not until a hundred years had elapsed was his body recovered and given a resting place in American soil, with fitting tributes from a grateful nation.

He was born on the estate of Lord Selkirk, at Arbigland, Scotland July 6, 1747. His father, John Paul-the son later added Jones to his name-was gardener in charge of the estate, and when Paul was born, remarked: "A boy eh? Weel, I mak' me no doot he'll be what his feyther and his grandfeyther before him have been-a gardener." But it was not destined to be. At twelve years of age the boy decided to go to sea, and