year, may follow any avocation they please at other times; it being a well-understood matter of agreement that they shall be ready for active service on the breaking out of war. Of course ship-owners did not at first relish this scheme, seeing that it established a new kind of competition against them for hands; but in practice no particular inconvenience has resulted. The men are permitted to take their drill whenever it best suits them; twenty-eight days per year all at one time, or in periods of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days. Certain qualifications are insisted on before enrolment, including a medical examination in regard to health. The 'retainer' which the seaman receives, and the prospect of pension, operate as inducements to steadiness and against desertion; and it is known that this is exercising a beneficial effect on the mercantile marine, seeing that ship-owners now give a preference to Royal Naval Reserve men whenever they can get them. Mixing with the regular men-of-war's men during the one month's drill is also found to be beneficial; and some of the Reserve go through all their exercises with as much steadiness as a regular crew. The Admiralty are empowered by parliament to engage thirty thousand men in this way; the Reserve now comprises twenty thousand; and it is believed that there would be no great difficulty in making up the full complement.

In a recently published Report by the Admiral Superintendent of the body, the following remarks occur: 'After all the expense the country has been put to, and will have to bear prospectively, for the organisation and maintenance of the Royal Naval Reserve, will the men be forthcoming when wanted? This can only be tested in the day of trial, when the Queen's Proclamation will call the Reserve out for active service; but I hold that we have as reliable guarantees that the men will present themselves, as under any system that could be devised on the basis of voluntary service. The men have entered on an engagement to serve, they have received drill-pay and retainers under this engagement, and without being branded by public opinion, could not shrink from the fulfilment of their duty. It would be doing an injustice to the élite of the merchant service to suppose that they are entirely devoid of patriotism, and would not desire to serve in defence of their country. Their prejudices against service in the royal navy have been in a great measure removed; and they would feel themselves competent from previous training to work the guns and handle a rifle and cutlass.'

Very little has yet been done to take the Reserve on a cruise for rehearsal or practice. A merchant seaman, to fit him for the Reserve, requires chiefly to be made familiar with the great-gun exercise, to handle the sword and rifle, to be steady and silent under instruction, and to obey implicitly the orders he receives. This training he will receive on board the drill-ships especially set apart for the purpose, or at batteries representing the section of a ship, quite as well as in a man-of-war. The Reserve of the first class (for the force is divided into classes) have already been seamen in the merchant service, and do not require instruction in seamanship.

The drill-ships and the practice-batteries are distributed pretty well around the coasts of the United Kingdom at about forty different stations—eight in Scotland, seven in Ireland, and the rest in England and Wales. There are nearly always some men on drill at every ship and battery; but it is noteworthy that in the fishing season in certain parts of Scotland and in the Isles the drill is pretty nearly in abeyance—herrings being more important just then than big guns and cutlasses. The first-class men are far more numerous than the second, shewing that the main body are already fairly good seamen before they enter the Reserve. As to numbers in different places, the drill-ships near busy ports are naturally more frequented than those off a thinly populated coast. The President in the Thames, the Eagle at Liverpool, the Unicorn at Dundee, the Netley at Inverness, the Castor at North Shields, the Dædalus at Bristol, are among the drill-ships which receive the greatest number of enrolled men for drill during the year. Liverpool takes the lead in the number of outsiders (seven-eighths of whom, however, are already merchant seamen) who apply for enrolment. Half the whole number in the force are under thirty years of age, young men with plenty of health and strength in them. Rather less than half are at home or in the coasting-trade; rather more than half voyaging in foreign seas, mostly, however, on short voyages that will end within a month. More of these voyages are to the Baltic and the North Sea than to any other waters; the next in numbers are those to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

The officers who command or control the body comprise lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, engineers, assistant-engineers, and midshipmen. The lieutenants must have served as sub-lieutenants one year or upwards; most of them have been duly qualified masters of merchant-ships. Midshipmen are promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant on the fulfilment of prescribed conditions as to efficiency, &c.

The men of the first-class now receive a grant of a suit of clothing on enrolment and re-enrolment—an arrangement which they much relish, as an improvement on the plan at first adopted, when each man was left to dress pretty much at random, provided he looked something like a sailor. Nearly all the A.B.s in the mercantile marine have joined or offered to join the body; thus affording proof that it is popular. The second-class Reserve are mostly fishermen, who are unacquainted with square-rigged vessels, and are unaccustomed to long absence from their homes; but they are fitted for coast-defence service. In Scotland and especially in the Shetlands, the second-class serves as a stepping-stone to the first. Their pay is less than that of the first-class, and they have no claim for pension; therefore they have an inducement to try for promotion. The authorities have had under consideration the question whether to establish a third-class, to consist of boys belonging to the mercantile training-ships; but no decision appears at present to have been arrived at.

In a discussion which took place at the Royal United Service Institution some time back, it was generally admitted that our band of hardy fishermen might be made to form an excellent Naval Reserve irrespective of regular seamen of the mercantile marine. 'There are,' it was urged, 'one hundred and fifty thousand men and fifteen thousand boys employed in the fisheries of the United Kingdom; besides the large number in the Canadian Dominion and Newfoundland. It would not be difficult to raise from among our large population of bonâ fide fishermen a Reserve equal to the full standard originally recommended. The drill could be taught in the most efficient manner and with the least expense to the government by sending a gunboat to visit the fishing-boats at the slack season. The local knowledge possessed by the fishermen would be of immense value in coast-defence; and there is an advantage in their having fixed places of residence and never sailing under a foreign flag; added to which is the value of their physical strength, hardy and domesticated habits, and good character.'

And now a few words for the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, another body intended for defensive purposes in the event of war. There is a corps known as the Coast Guard, to fulfil service on the coast in case of invasion; and under the same kind of control are the Royal Naval Coast Volunteers. These two bodies together comprise nearly twenty thousand men, all good seamen, and receiving liberal pay. But there is something more peculiar about the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers likely to interest general readers. They are virtually an offshoot or supplement of the Volunteer