What our naval officers and men are to-day in their work and duties is best demonstrated by a glance at the crew of a modern man-of-war in commission. First and foremost, of course, is the captain, not infrequently referred to by those under his command as the "skipper", "the Old Man", or sometimes as the "Owner". His rule may be termed a benevolent despotism. He can no longer be the tyrant that he occasionally was "in the days of wood and hemp", and has no desire to be anything of the kind. He is far too much of a gentleman and a good fellow. But there can be little limitation to his monarchy or the machine would not work. He lives somewhat apart from his subjects, having his meals in lonely state, and only occasionally comes into the ward-room, in which most of the ship's commissioned officers live and move and have their being. The sub-lieutenant's, midshipmen's, junior engineer officers', assistant paymasters', and clerks' mess is known as the gun-room. In the old days what is now the ward-room was called the gun-room, and what is now the gun-room, the midshipmen's berth. It is probable that this enforced seclusion is one of the worst trials of the captain's greatness, since he has spent the whole of his previous service afloat in the _camaraderie_ and good-fellowship of the ward-room and gun-room. At sea he passes a great portion of his time on the bridge, and in most ships has a special sea-cabin in its close proximity. He is the supreme court of justice on board, and as he can dispense punishment up to ninety days' imprisonment with hard labour "off his own bat", it must be a pretty bad case, or one in which an officer is concerned, that he has to send before a court martial. This should be remembered when, as is sometimes the case, comparisons are drawn in the Press between the numbers of courts martial in the naval and military services, or between those held on the men of the navy and on those of the marines. A naval court martial is a very big affair, only resorted to on rare occasions, while in the army, besides the general court martial, which may be ranked with the naval court, there are district and even regimental courts martial, the latter very small affairs, composed of three junior officers, which deal with offences which in the navy would probably be settled off-hand, if not by the commander, at any rate by the captain. When marines are serving ashore in their barracks they come under army rules, so that the proportion of courts martial held on a given number of marines must always be expected to be greater than in the case of a similar number of bluejackets or stokers. No comparison as to good conduct or otherwise can therefore be instituted along these lines.