In those days the men at the guns were not half stripped, as they are now. One-half of them were armed with cutlass and pistol and the other half with magazine rifles and bayonets. This was to repel boarders. That's all gone. No battleship ever expects to repel boarders in these days. Protection for the gunners was made by piling up hammocks and bags--about the last thing that would be thought of, with its danger from fire, in these days, even if all else failed. Nowadays the recoil is taken up hydraulically, and the gun is shot back into place with springs. Even fewer men are required to handle an 8-inch gun than twenty years ago. One of these guns will shoot five times further and do ten times--yes, one might say almost a hundredfold--more damage than the old ones. And there are eight of these on a ship like the Louisiana, to say nothing of twelve 7-inch guns, four 12-inch, twenty 3-inch and twelve 3-pounders. In target practice on one of these ships ten shots are fired from each 7-inch gun, twenty from each 3-inch gun, twenty from each 3-pounder and as many from each 8-inch and 12-inch as can be got off in a given time. It may be stretching the proprieties to tell even that much, and to get back to generalities it may be said that about twenty-five tons of metal were fired from all the guns. The cost? Well, put it for convenience sake at $300,000 for the fleet. Expensive? Not a bit of it! That expenditure is the best money spent by the United States Navy. It is the premium of insurance paid annually for efficiency, and it will prove its value if these ships ever get into war. There'll be no hit or miss or reckless helter-skelter shooting then. To make the practice record here each ship has to steam about 100 miles in going over the course and in a general way it may be said that each ship made from thirty-five to forty runs on the range. There, that's about all to be said in print or elsewhere about target practice by this fleet. Well now honest, you say, didn't the ships do well, pretty well, just a little better than ever before, perhaps a great deal better? Just that much is what you want to know? Well, you'll have to ask the Navy Department about that. In its own good time and in its own way it may decide to give out such information and it may not. You'll never get an answer from the Sun's correspondent on this trip. CHAPTER XII ROUTINE OF A BATTLESHIP Life and Work on U. S. Battleship--Every Day Crowded With Duties and Drills for All on Board--The Overworked Executive-- Executive--Responsibility for Everything Finally Culminates With the Captain--All Effort Has in View the Efficiency of the Ship as a Fighting Machine--Minute Care in Seemingly Minor Details Makes for Perfection in Case of Crisis--Standing Watch and General Quarters--Catering and Hygiene--Smart Signal Work-- Launch Etiquette--Reverence for Quarter Deck and National Anthem.