fatal and down-hill path, they surely gravitate to the treadmill and the prison. How could it be otherwise?... The question is, what are these lads good for?” That problem, M. Esquiros, as you with others predicted, has been solved satisfactorily. The poor lads form excellent raw material for our ever-increasing sea-service. The training of a naval cadet—_i.e._, an embryo midshipman, or “midshipmite” (as poor Peter Simple was irreverently called—before, however, the days of naval cadets)—is very similar in many respects to that of an embryo seaman, but includes many other acquirements. After obtaining his nomination from the Admiralty, and undergoing a simple preliminary examination at the Royal Naval College in ordinary branches of knowledge, he is passed to a training-ship, which to-day is the _Britannia_ at Dartmouth. Here he is taught all the ordinary acquirements in rigging, seamanship, and gunnery; and, to fit him to be an officer, he is instructed in taking observations for latitude and longitude, in geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. He also goes through a course of drawing-lessons and modern languages. He is occasionally sent off on a brig for a short cruise, and after a year on the training-ship, during which he undergoes a quarterly examination, he is passed to a sea-going ship. His position on leaving depends entirely on his certificate—if he obtains one of the First Class, he is immediately rated midshipman; while if he only obtains a Third Class certificate, he will have to serve twelve months more on the sea-going ship, and pass another examination before he can claim that rank.(37) The actual experiences of intelligent sailors, or voyagers, written by themselves, have, of course, a greater practical value than the sea-stories of clever novelists, while the latter, as a class, confine themselves very much to the quarter-deck. Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast” is so well known that few of our readers need to be told that it is the story of an American student, who had undermined his health by over-application, and who took a voyage, _viâ_ Cape Horn, to California in order to recover it. But the old brig _Pilgrim_, bound to the northern Pacific coast for a cargo of hides, was hardly a fair example, in some respects, of an ordinary merchant-vessel, to say nothing of a fine clipper or modern steam-ship. Dana’s experiences were of the roughest type, and may be read by boys, anxious to go to sea, with advantage, if taken in conjunction with those of others; many of them are common to all grades of sea service. A little work by a “Sailor-boy,”(38) published some years ago, gives a very fair idea of a seaman’s lot in the Royal Navy, and the two stories in conjunction present a fair average view of sea-life and its duties.