As regards the rank and file of the Navy, the difference of a hundred years has been so great and so commented on that to-day we perhaps tend to make it, seem far greater than it really is. It is to be doubted whether the “prime seaman” has altered to anything like the extent imagined. We are all too prone to forget that in the days of the Great French Wars _all_ the crews were not jail-birds, pressed-men, and riff-raff. The leaven of the mass were the “prime seamen,” who, in their own way, were as well trained for the naval service as are the bluejackets of to-day. Since then the “prime seamen” have had many vicissitudes. So long ago as the time of the Crimean War men of ten years’ continuous service were in existence, but whatever the “paper” value of this force may have been, the extracts given in Chapter VIII, Vol. I, make it abundantly clear that the “prime seaman” was in practice very scarce. It is long since then that the long service system was built up. Under this every bluejacket was a “prime seaman” either in _posse_ or in _esse_. He was entered for a period of ten years, with option to re-engage for a further ten years at slightly increased pay and a pension on retirement. At a later and comparatively recent stage this total of twenty years got increased to twenty-two years. The prospects were improved to the extent that the best men of the Lower Deck upon reaching Warrant Rank were able, towards the close of their careers, to reach the rank of lieutenant on the Active List. In a word, the idea of a Navy consisting entirely of “prime seamen” was more or less actually reached. This system had, however, one drawback. It was, relatively speaking, very expensive. When the Fisher revolution took place Economy was very much the motto of the day. It was pointed out that outside the Royal Naval Reserve, consisting of merchant seamen, no effective reserve existed. It was further pointed out that on board a modern battleship there were many duties which could just as well be performed by partially trained or even untrained men as by skilled men. Out of these two points (according to some critics), by using the first as a cloak for the economy of the second, a certain retrograde movement was established in the institution of the Short Service System. Under this the old time “landsman” was revived under another name. Under the Short Service System a man could enter the Navy for five years, receiving ordinary pay for ordinary duties, but without prospects of promotion or pension, except in so far as he might afterwards be utilised for reserve purposes. How far this scheme made for efficiency is a moot point, but it certainly led to economy. As certainly it was bitterly resented by the men of the Navy. The views of the officers on the subject of “ticklers”--as Short Service men were termed afloat--were less decided. Some considered the scheme an abomination; others thought it very satisfactory.