Times, customs and manners have greatly altered since 1870, and although there can be no doubt that, changed as in many respects our fleet men are from the sailors of the past generation, still the same courage and devotion exists in our present-day, highly trained, splendid naval seamen as ever instigated the grand old hearts of oak, who boxed yards about, pulled on bits of string called halyards, braces, etc.; and, totally ignorant of electricity, cursed steam. Moreover, there has been a great change for the better in the conduct and sobriety of our ever-popular and much-loved bluejackets when ashore on short leave. Settlers, old identities, in colonial seaport towns, will, I am sure, endorse what I have written above, for although during the forty years I lived in the colonies I never heard of one of H.M. bluejackets committing a crime, still some of their sprees were rather alarming to nervous people, while they shocked the puritanical, hypocritical humbugs, of whom there is always a superfluity wherever the Union Jack flies. For these cattle, being able to indulge in their pet vices _sub rosa_, or else being too narrowminded to make allowance for the festive pranks of high-spirited men, let loose for a few short hours after being cooped up on board ship for months at a stretch, where they have been subjected to the most severe discipline in the world, hold up hands in horror at poor Jack's frolics, and call the brave fellow, whose mess tins they are not worthy to swab out, a drunken, profligate sailor-man, unfit to be at large in this world, and sure to be damned in the next. Yet many of Jack's sprees were most diverting to the looker-on, as he would frequently introduce into his frolics some originality that, simple in itself, and most probably quite unpremeditated, still compelled anyone with the smallest spark of humour in his composition to thoroughly appreciate. I am now going to spin you a yarn about one bluejacket's spree that, if it does not amuse you, at all events afforded myself and some of my comrades, just down from the frontier, a hearty laugh. The scene was Wellington, New Zealand, the date somewhere about the end of 1871, when, the long war having burnt itself out, and the sharp fighting having smouldered itself away to the ordinary frontier defence work, myself and a few of my comrades had, for the first time for nearly six years, the chance of returning for a period to civilisation and enjoying such comforts and luxuries as were at that time to be obtained in the capital of New Zealand. This we were doing with a relish only to be enjoyed by men who have for years been living, or rather enduring, a hard bush life, utterly debarred from the ordinary pleasures of society, and the refinement of ladies' companionship.