TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9814, 25 August 1897, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Navy Department Americans of the United States ia for the Betting about a task American Nary, which there is no doubt the British Admiralty would very much like to imitate. It is intended, if possible, to re-organiee the p«r«onnet of the American navy so that in a few years it will be manned entirely by native-born citizens of the Republic. At preaent it appears that about one-third of the seamen on American warships are foreigners. The difficulty presented by the task of replacing these outsiders with native-born Americans lies in the foot that the latter are not eager to enlist, and in many cases only turn to the navy as a last resort. The American navy strength numbers some 25,000 men, exclusive of noncommissioned officers, and recruits enlist for three years, successive terms being for a like period. The best men, it is stated, come from the great lakes, and it is easy, to understand wherein . lies their superiority. To commence with, they are physically a fine stamp of men. Then; the peculiarities of navigation on the lakes make for smartness and alertness. There is little sea-room, and squalls are sudden and violent. The sailor on Lake Michigan learns bis trade in a hard school, which quickens his wits and hardens his nerves. It gives him also endurance, and lake sailors seldom complain of exposure when thoy join the navy. Formerly the best American sailors were those drawn from the fishing fleets of the New Eugland coast. That school, according to an American contemporary, produced sailors "whose equals tlie world has never seen," on which point Englishmen will be disponed to join issue with the writer. Such men, at any rata, are no longer available, because the industry which supported them has declined. Yet even now, we are told, boys of fifteen, true sons of " Captains Courageous,"

will make voyages while asleep -* nSM , would deter older men with their B eZ about them. American naval experts hoi! the opinion, it seems, that the American'ia not a braver seaman than the Englishßuu, but a better seaman. «H e will c - eoiUo » order while a man from the older couufcr/h thmking about it. Ho will do a fob J knotting or splicing while tho Britisher Z getting his tools. He is more intelligent and will learn twice as fas'... The reason of this is apparent. In nine cases out of ten the British sailor has been always a s„ Uor lhat is all he knows and all he oaves te know. The American recruit lm .y l, ave been a lawyer or a doctor, or a book agent used to invading homes and selling people tilings for which they have no earthly use » Considerinc that a little while previously the ■American writer was extolling, as the finest sailors the world ever saw, a vaco of men who were born in boats, grew up to manhood in them, and spent their lives in them, tho logic of these quoted remarks i s hardly perceptible. This lack of logic does not, however, affect the main question. The American naval authorities will deserve congratulation if they can put into practice their proposals, and one wishes it were feasible to replace every foreigner in the British Navy with an Englishman. But the American Navy with 25,000 men and th« British Navy with more than double that number are two very different things.

Tup. news from India is de« The cidedly more reasoning than Situation it was a week ago. The satis* in factory proof given to the India. British authorities of the

mobility of the British array in India, as shown by tlie rapidity with which large bodies of troops were concentrated at important posts on the frontier l in a few days, has not been without its effect on the tribesmen. Their submission, so far as it has gone, may probably be taken us the beginning of the end of this particular little affair, which at one time threatened to become so serious. They learned that it was one thing to make a treacherous attack upon a small military force, whose sub. picions, if any had existed, had been lulled by a show of friendship, and quite another thing to provoke the British into sending armies against them. They "climbed down," aud will no doubt put away their arms until a more convenient opportunity for using them appears to present itself. It is jusb possible, also, that they lost an influential backer just about the time Lord Elgin's note reached the Ameer. That potentate is just now very anxious to make it clear to England that he has had no hand in fomenting the revolt, and that "none of hi#*¥egular troops will be allowed to assist the insurgent tribes. That is quite as it should be, seeing that England pays Abdurrahman Khan some, thing like £60,000 a year, chiefly for the purpose of keeping him well disposed to the British. It is open to question, though, whether the military demonstrationsat-tin Khyber Pass and elsewhere on the Indo-' Afghan frontier may not have done some, thing to induce the Ameer's prosent frame of mind. It is satisfactory that he has spoken as he has done. Perhaps it would be just as well, while he is about it, if he were to denounce the statement that he circulated that pamphlet advocating a • holy war, and appealing for assistance to tlie Pa Mums and Sepoys in the Indian Army. It would be unfortunate if the disaffection already existing in parte of India were to spread to these' troops. The l'athang, in particular, are very fine soldiers, and several of the crack Bengal regiments are largely composed of them.' Their loyalty, we, believe, has hitherto t never suffered a breath of suspicion.

Ik an address lately presented

Public by the Lord Mayor and Sheriff' Health of London to the Queen, the in improvement in the state of' - England, public health during the reign was mentioned. Figures go to show that the improvement whioh ' has been effected iv this direction by science and the sanitary administration of municipalities is startling. Ia 18*14, we are reminded, Macaulay oompared the mortality of the London oi' that date with the London mortality of 1684. \ "When Macaulay• wrote the death rate was' about 25 per thousand} in 1685—not a - siokly year—one in every 23 Londoners died, a death rate of between 43 and 44 . ' per. thousand. At the present moment the London death rate is 14.9 per thousand.

(So that, in spite of the enormous increase of the population and the difficulties which such an inorease always places in the way of sanitary administration, the mortality of, London is less e than one-third of what it was three oenturies ago." So with regard to ihe wholo of England and Wfcles. During the first decade of the reign the mean annual death-rate per 1000 was over 22, while for tln> ton years ending 1890 it was 19, which means that, "on an population of twenty-nine millions, 77,000 pooplo were kopt alive in each year of the latter period who would have died in each year of the former." The calculations ot tho English Board of Health were supported by M. Monod, an ollloJal of the Fren«h Ministry of the Interior. This gentleman, being diesatisfied, it is*said, with the Waa&flof life in lfamcd, woub to England to study tlieeffectl of English sanitary adminietratton. His investigations led him to assert that tho reduction In the death-rate had saved even more lives than had been estimated by tiie Engli-h statisticians. The medical history of the reign has been remarkable for the practical banishment from England of at leaßt one disease- 1 typhus. It Was formsrly a scourge, but it ft said that "comparatively few of th* present generation of doctors hove seen art example of it." If smallpox has not been vanquished so successfully, it has bseti robbed of a good deal of its terror ; and the same remark applies, of course, in an equal or- lesser degree, to other diseases.