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- 1959
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- 1926
- text
- exempted from the perils of battle. In ships of war, the members of the
“music,” as the band is called, are generally non-combatants; and
mostly ship, with the express understanding, that as soon as the vessel
comes within long gun-shot of an enemy, they shall have the privilege
of burrowing down in the cable-tiers, or sea coal-hole. Which shows
that they are inglorious, but uncommonly sensible fellows.
Look at the barons of the gun-room—Lieutenants, Purser, Marine
officers, Sailing-master—all of them gentlemen with stiff upper lips,
and aristocratic cut noses. Why was this? Will any one deny, that from
their living so long in high military life, served by a crowd of menial
stewards and cot-boys, and always accustomed to command right and left;
will any one deny, I say, that by reason of this, their very noses had
become thin, peaked, aquiline, and aristocratically cartilaginous? Even
old Cuticle, the Surgeon, had a Roman nose.
But I never could account how it came to be, that our grey headed First
Lieutenant was a little lop-sided; that is, one of his shoulders
disproportionately dropped. And when I observed, that nearly all the
First Lieutenants I saw in other men-of-war, besides many Second and
Third Lieutenants, were similarly lop-sided, I knew that there must be
some general law which induced the phenomenon; and I put myself to
studying it out, as an interesting problem. At last, I came to the
conclusion—to which I still adhere—that their so long wearing only one
epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle them) was the
infallible clew to this mystery. And when any one reflects upon so
well-known a fact, that many sea Lieutenants grow decrepit from age,
without attaining a Captaincy and wearing _two_ epaulets, which would
strike the balance between their shoulders, the above reason assigned
will not appear unwarrantable.
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