AMERICAN FLEET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13726, 16 April 1908, Page 6

AMERICAN FLEET.

THE APPROACHING VISIT. Tub Mayor (Mr. A. M. Myers) has replied to the Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, thanking him for his promise to advise him early of the decision of the Government as to the entertainment of the United States fleet and other details connected with the approaching visit of the fleet. Inquiries made at leading hotels yesterday elicited the information that so far very few bookings had been made for accommodation at the time of the fleet's visit to Auckland, but it- is anticipated that there will be a rush very soon. THE AMERICAN JACK TAB. A correspondent writes: The American naval officers and naval men who are to be New Zealand's guests in August are not difficult to entertain. They are much the same good-natured, good-hearted, and jolly fellows as are found in our own navy, or, perhaps, I should s.'ty, they are very much like colonised Britishers. The fact that they speak the same language as ourselves, and like the same things, gives us the cue as to how to make them enjoy their visit to New Zealand. Most of them enjoy the same sports and games as we enjoy. They like, when they have a spell ashore, riding and driving and fishing and shooting. They like social gatherings, and the younger ones are fond enough of dancing, especially when they can get such delightful partners as Dominion girls. And, of course, they like that delightful kind of flirting which says so much and means so little, common to all naval men. I have had many pleasant days on an American warship, and was for some months a member of a mess composed of American and British naval officers, and sepnt as pleasant evenings there as one could wish for. It was in a tropical country, where social intercourse is usually of a free character, and things were on a war footing, and the marked jealousy of foreign. Powers may have thrown the two peoples of the same race more closely together than usual. Still, alter many weeks of close intercourse, I come to the conclusion that no matter where I had met these Americans, or under what circumstances, I should have found them real good fellows. They are frank, kindly men, averagely of high intelligence. Perhaps they are a shade more easy in their manners than the British navy man, and yet, curiously enough, I thought them a trifle more insular in their ideas, but it must not be forgotten that the British naval officer is about the most cosmopolitan of Britishers. It was difficult, however, in the uniform white mess jacket of the tropics to distinguish which were British and which American. In some cases there was a difference of accent, but in countenance, in opinions, in ways, they were the same. They had much the same ran of names, and even where the names happened, to be foreign, the language was not different. There was a Von ———, and I declare he broadened his v vvels like a Yorkshireman, and I learned the reason for it when I heard him talking to his neighbour. "Your people live at Scarborough? Why, I've .raid my mother say that her people came from that place ever so many years ago." Some of the Americans were quite interested in tracing the pedigree of Britishers who held the same name, and, I believe. one or two relationships were established, or, at anv rate, claimed.