Then there is the premium-paying grade. A great many alterations might be made on their behalf, to the end that a parent who is put to the expense of outfit, premium, etc., may have something definite for his money. It need hardly be said that if a boy is a born duffer, one can hardly expect any skipper or officer to make him anything else; but there is a medium in all things, and every sailor knows that there is no trade in the world where the first duty to an apprentice is so much neglected as it is at sea. I can honestly assert that I was never on board of but one ship in my life where any attempt at all was made to teach the apprentices their trade. That ship was the _Harbinger_, before she was taken over by Lord Brassey's committee, and made a special sea-training ship for cadets. In my day she was just a fine merchant ship, belonging to Messrs. Anderson, Anderson, and Co., and commanded by Lieutenant Henry Y. Slader, R.N. he formulated stringent rules that every apprentice on board should have a share in all sailorizing that was going on; that, as far as lay in their power, these young gentlemen should work the sails on the mizen, the smallest mast of the three; that one apprentice should always be on duty on the poop, so that he might be in touch with the officer of the watch, who was supposed to lose no opportunity of imparting to him practical instruction in handling sails, trimming yards, etc. In addition to all this, Captain Slader was himself in the habit of taking these young men through a practical examination in navigation at stated intervals, and inviting them to dine at the saloon table in rotation on Sundays. Now, this treatment had its due effect in the building up of those apprentices into first-class seamen and officers, as indeed it might have been expected to do. Yet it was only on a par with common-sense workshop treatment, and it was certainly no more than any parent who had paid a premium of £70 to £80 had a right to expect. But even on board that fine ship the lads were left entirely to themselves in their watch below. They all lived together in the fore part of a small afterhouse, and unless the senior apprentice happened to be a young man of fine, forceful character, the tone of their "diggings" could not help being bad. Be it noted that among that splendid set of youngsters, the midshipmen of the Royal Navy, there is always to be found a sub-lieutenant who is responsible for the behaviour of the gun-room--who rules it, in fact, in despotic fashion. And the conditions there are very different to what they are in the Merchant Service. The lads don't sleep in the gun-room. They are not herded together in one small apartment which serves as bed-room, bath-room, dining-room, and sitting-room.