lasting injury, both to the brain and general health, frequently arises from over-mental exertion in early youth We daresay many of our readers will remember those beautiful lines of Byron, on Henry Kirke White, in illustration of this idea, beginning with

Oh, what a noble heart was here undone,

When science self-destroyed her favourite son.

Practical fortification work out of doors, and the topographical acquirements classed under the head of military surveying, materially assist to diminish the evil in question; and we think the latter might be considerably extended, with infinite advantage to the future staff-officer, as well as to the present health and vigour of the cadet. The wild country around Sandhurst is admirably calculated for military sketching; and as it is universally admitted that the acquirement of the coup d'œil militaire, or rapid judgment of the nature and advantages, or otherwise, of ground, for either offensive or defensive objects, is materially assisted by great practice in sketching, either with or without the aid of a compass or other instrument, we would gladly see increased facilities afforded to the cadets for practice in so valuable an art.

It appears that of late years the higher aristocracy have not been in the habit of sending their scions intended for the army to Sandhurst; but as from the nature of things in England it is impossible but that men of family will attain to high positions in our profession, we conceive that it would be both for their own advantage, and most assuredly beneficial to the service, if gentle means were adopted to constrain such to pass through the college course. Hitherto, however, we should say their entering it has been rather injurious than otherwise to the institution; for aware that a commission awaited them when of proper age, without the toil of working for it, they have commonly figured but as so many drones in the hive; and their idle habits have not only been prejudicial to themselves, but far too often ruinous to others, who had nothing save their own exertions to depend upon. And then how galling for the industrious cadet to see, as has been too often the case, the idler, sent away or withdrawn from the college, gazetted immediately afterwards to an ensigncy, while he had hard study before him for perhaps two years more, ere he could pass the examination, in order probably to find himself under the command of his quondam and discarded fellow-pupil. The remedy for this latter serious evil is simply for the Commander-in-Chief to make such an one wait for his appointment until, at least, his own generation has quitted the college.

We have little doubt that the age of admission to Sandhurst will ere long be fixed at not less than fifteen or sixteen; and assuming two years' stay to be sufficient, a cadet will be eighteen or nineteen when he obtains a commission, and that is certainly young enough to take the command of men, and perform other duties of an officer. For such as may enter the army otherwise than through the college, we would propose nineteen or twenty as the earliest age of appointment, in order that they shall not derive an advantage from evading it. The effect of this rule would be, of course, not only to drive young men of rank into the college, but would, as we believe, stimulate them to work when there.

We will not close our remarks upon the important subject of Military Education without just glancing at a point, which being, strictly speaking, a matter of discipline and not of teaching, lies almost beyond the limits of our province. We allude to the disagreeable habit of smoking, which is now so generally indulged in by young men, and, indeed, their elders. We trust we are mistaken in the surmise, but we think the smoking nuisance is still only in its infancy amongst us, and that the day is not very distant when a pipe-stem will be seen protruding from every man's coat pocket, as has for years been the case throughout the whole of Germany. Moreover, we believe it would be as easy to dam up the Mississippi as to stem the smoke torrent; and such being our view of the question, we would advise a compromise between the governing powers of colleges and offenders against the rule prohibiting the said luxury. For instance, the cigar or pipe might be tolerated anywhere but on the high roads, or within sight of college. In our opinion such a measure would neither tend to increase or diminish the evil, but it would greatly relieve the defaulter list, and free cadets from the espionage and dogging which are so distasteful to youths of spirit; and which, besides, never do any good.

COLLISIONS AT SEA.

HAS it ever been the reader's fate to be suddenly roused out of his bed in the dead of the night by the hand of a burglar grasping his throat, or by the house falling about his ears, or by his bed being on fire, or by any other startling episode occurring during his horizontal repose? If he has, and is also possessed of a fertile imagination, he may, assisted by a graphic description, inadequately realize what it is to be suddenly roused in the dead of the night out of his hammock by a severe collision on the high seas.

A good rattling shock of an earthquake creates in most minds a topsyturvy sort of sensation. The stunning effect of a smash upon a railway, or the passage of a 68-pounder through the oak ribs of a ship, are each in their way calculated to discompose susceptible nervous temperaments; but it is well known that very timid ladies have become used to earthquakes in countries where they are common, and even to anticipate their occurrence as an agreeable event, when not too "shocking;" and everybody knows that Nelson's sailors minded shot no more than if they had been peas. But we think no amount of practice would enable a man to bear with composure a severe collision on the high seas, on a dark night, and a strong wind blowing. We remember being on one occasion roughly shot out of our hammock by the Lady Lorton, of Liverpool, running into our starboard bow, and opening our eyes and ears to about as topping a climax of tumult and hubbub as it is possible, or rather impossible, to imagine.

Only fancy the deck of a crowded homeward-bound Indiaman, dimly lit by a few straggling ship lamps swinging from the beams, giving just light enough to reveal a ghastly row of livid pale-faced men, women, and

children, standing huddled about their open cabin doors, every one of them asking, in tones of alarm, "What has happened?" No one knew, though every one felt that some dreadful calamity had occurred. Like myself, they had been suddenly roused in the dead of the night by some violent concussion; and, in the first moments of consciousness, they were vainly endeavouring to ascertain the cause of alarm. Something, however, had gone wrong; for the hoarse noises on deck, the bawling, hurried, contradictory orders of the officers, the crash of falling masts and spars, the horrid grating of some heavy body, which seemed to be rasping off our bulwarks as easy as if they had been made of cobwebs ; the swearing of the seamen, as they rushed about like demons, regardless of our questions; the manning of the pumps, the lowering of boats, the sounding of the well, the burning of blue lights-each in its way, told that some sudden calamity had befallen the ship.

"All hands on deck!" shouted a voice down the hatchway; and as we were included in the summons, on deck we went, and then we read the whole case at a glance. We had run foul, or, rather, the Lady Lorton, a Liverpool trader-for that is the way we put it-had run foul of us; and the two vessels, the one a wreck and the other damaged, lay about a quarter of a mile apart, brought to a sudden standstill on a boisterous night upon the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

We are not going to grill the reader's feelings by reciting a tale of horrors, for our kiss in the dark was but an insipid affair compared with others. The embrace of the Lady Lorton merely carried away our starboard whisker and cathead, and ripped off our bulwarks from the waist to the poop; while the Liverpool trader, as her owners can verify, if these few lines should happen to meet their eye, lost both her masts, which, in falling, crushed a boy's leg, a pig or two, and a coop of fowls, while the concussion split her bows open from her figure-head down to her water-line, and, of course, she leaked like a sieve.

As soon as we were upon deck, we began to coolly examine the state of our vessel, and we could not avoid thinking it was somewhat odd that, in the midst of the wide Atlantic, with miles of sea-room on either side, it should so happen that these two vessels could not manage to pass one another without a collision. The chances were a thousand, ay, ten thousand to one at sundown, when not a sail was visible from our decks, against our running foul of any vessel that might, like ours, be navigating those latitudes. In the English channel, or in any crowded sea-way, the chances would be reduced, and vigilance becomes a duty; but here, in the wide Atlantic, it struck us as rather odd, and impressed us with a very high opinion of the value of a good look-out.

Our train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the officer of the watch dispatching us in the second cutter to the assistance of the disabled brig. She was blazing away her blue lights and guns to show that she was in distress. We found her so; but, with plenty of hands, we managed to stop her leak, rig a jury foremast out of one of our spare maintopmasts, and with this she sailed the next day under a foresail with a leading wind, for Jamaica.

Now, we venture to say, that nine collisions out of ten that occur at sea may be traced to the same causes that brought us in contact with the Lady Lorton, viz., a blind look-out, and standing upon our rights;

and as collisions at sea are greatly upon the increase, it is worth while to bestow a few moments' thought upon this fruitful source of disaster; for we believe it to be the most terrible of all casualties that can happen to a ship. In noticing the increase of collision at sea, we must, of course, take into consideration the vast increase of ships that is now required by our extensive commerce. Still, the ratio of disasters resulting from collision is greater than the increase of our shipping warrants. The inference is, then, that there are other reasons than the growth of our commercial marine to be given for the true cause of the rapid increase of collisions at sea. The ratio of wreckage of 1856, exhibits a decrease of 6.38 per cent. as compared with 1855; but the collisions show an increase of 27.94 per cent. as compared with that year. Taking these figures for what we believe them to be, facts, let us endeavour to investigate the causes that produce such deplorable results.

The increase in the number of avoidable collisions may be traced in many instances to the practice of lumbering up the decks of vessels with cabins, funnels, booms, boats, and other obstructions, impeding the view of the man at the helm, and to the fact that more ships proceed to sea now with incompetent crews than ever was known. We are not alluding to under-manned ships, as we shall notice that evil presently; no, we mean incompetent crews. There are enough men in the ship, perhaps, but they are not seamen; nay, they are but poor specimens of landsmen-the offscourings of society; they know nothing of the duties of a ship, they cannot reef or steer, nor keep a good look-out; and as for heaving the lead, that is out of the question, for they are quite ignorant of the marks. To increase the hazards a ship is likely to encounter with a crew of this sort, it often happens that a great many of the men are foreigners, and speak different languages. Some of the men do not understand a word of English, so that a captain of a merchant ship is often placed in great difficulties by this very circumstance alone. Vessels, also, now leave English ports shamefully under-manned. We have heard of an instance which, but for the undoubted veracity of our informant, we should have deemed incredible. Then the increase of steamers is another cause of collision; for steamers employ more landsmen than sailing vessels, consequently, landsmen are too often found at the helm, on the look-out, at the lead-in short, performing those duties that ought only to be trusted to men accustomed to such important offices. To these evils must be added a bad look-out; and, lastly, the absurd practice of captains of vessels "standing upon their rights" when close hauled, and acting up to the letter of the law.

To make ourselves intelligible upon this last but most fertile source of collision both by day and by night, we will just narrate what has happened, in nine cases out of ten, when ships have rùn foul of one another in full sun and moonshine, with all hands upon deck, the vessels in sight and well under command-when, in short, the last thing that ought to have happened was a collision. And yet the evidence as constantly given in our admiralty-courts proves that the stubbornness with which captains of vessels sometimes stand upon their rights have oftentimes brought both parties to grief.

By standing upon their rights, captains of ships certainly obey that maritime law which requires that a sailing vessel with a free wind

shall give the right of way to the vessel that is close-hauled, because the free-sailing ship can be more easily handled than the ship that is "jammed on a wind." For the same reason, steamers are required to give the right of way to sailing vessels on all courses.

We have alluded to this cause of collision which we have named, a captain's notion of what are his rights. We will explain our meaning. Two vessels are at sea in a moderately fresh breeze, with broad daylight and fine weather, all hands on deck, and the two ships are not only seen by all hands, but are expected; indeed, it is evident that they must pass close to each other. The one is a close-hauled ship, and the other running free. The close-hauled ship stands upon her rights and enforces the law of the case, and holds on without shaking a leech or slacking a bowline, and is as indifferent to the movements of the fastapproaching ship with the wind over her taffrail, as if no such vessel was within a hundred miles of her. We have no intention of blaming a captain of a close-hauled ship for holding his course in this manner, as he is only following out the law as laid down by our courts for his guidance in this position. But yet, as we shall presently show, we think he ought not to be totally indifferent to the movements of the ship running free, as he cannot always know whether she has a good look-out on board. Numerous instances have occurred where captains have so stubbornly maintained their rights in this respect as to lose sight of self-preservation, until it was too late. How often has it happened, in evidence before our courts upon questions arising out of collision at sea, that each captain, instead of looking out for his own safety, looks out, the one for his rights, and the other for his convenience; and the result is, that both vessels are damaged, if not lost, with a great sacrifice of human life. If we read the account of nine collisions out of ten, we shall find that the vessel which stands upon her rights, and acts up to the strict letter of the law, could have avoided the collision had she so willed it.

This law regulating the manner in which vessels are to pass each other at sea is as simple as possible; and yet, notwithstanding our scientific resources over the elements in masts, sails, hulls, improved rudders, engines, paddles and screws, accidents from collision are upon the increase. The wreck-register for 1855-6 states that the total number of wrecks and casualties which have occurred to vessels on or off the shores of the United Kingdom, is 1141, representing a burden of 176,554 tons. In examining the various causes of these disasters, it is observed that collision forms an important item. Thus 247 collisions are reported in the register as follows:-Ships totally lost in collision, 55; ships seriously damaged in collision, 178; ships slightly damaged in collision, 14. In 1854, only 97 collisions were registered by the board; in 1853, only 73; and in 1852, only 57. If we go still further back, we find that, according to Lloyds' List, 12,363 wrecks and disasters occurred to vessels on the shores of the United Kingdom during the four years previous to 1850; and of these, 2,665 sailing vessels and 146 steamers were wrecked, or put into port in a sinking condition, in consequence of collision at sea.

With a crew composed of men of no capacity and of different nations, captains of vessels ought of course to sail with great caution, and inU. S. MAG., No. 344, JULY, 1857.

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