An intruder, in breach of well-settled precedent, might have expected to be looked on askance by the class which I thus unusually entered. Not the faintest indication of discontent was ever shown, nor I believe felt, even by those over whom I subsequently passed by such standing as I established, although the fact meant promotion over them. The spirit of the officer and the gentleman, which disdained hazing, disdained discourtesy equally, and thrust aside with the generosity of youth the jealousy that mature years more readily cherishes towards competitors. The habit in those days was to distinguish classes, not by the year of graduation, but by that of entry--colloquially, the so-and-so "Date"--a manner derived from an earlier period, when there was no other chronological point of departure for the career; and in those "days before the flood" nothing would have tempted us to depart from a time-honored custom. "Dates" frequently established among their contemporaries reputations analogous to those of individuals. At that time the "'41 Date," then in the prime of life, was obnoxious to those below it; not for its own fault, but because of its numbers, which, with promotion strictly by seniority, constituted a superincumbent mass that could not but be regarded bitterly by those who followed. At present there would be the consolation that retirement, though distant, would ultimately sweep them all away nearly simultaneously; but there was then no retired list. Whatever the motive, the Secretary of the Navy had been moved to introduce, in 1841, over two hundred midshipmen,[4] which put an almost total stop to appointments for several subsequent years, and gave the "Date" the invidious distinction it enjoyed. The well-known character in the service whose hoisting a demijohn for a flag I have before mentioned, and who found this great overplus above him, was credited with saying that those of them who did not drink themselves to death would strut themselves to death--a comment which testified rather to the warmth of his feelings than to the merits of the case. Of course, the greater the total, the more numerous the unworthy; and the unfortunate natural bias of mankind notices these more readily than it does the capable.