Nothing is more loudly regretted by the praisers of old times than the gradual of under the stress and burden of these days, and nowhere is the decay of etiquette more pronounced than at sea. Romance persists because until can run itself humanity must do so, and where men and women live romance cannot die. But were it not for the Royal Navy, with its perfect discipline and unbroken traditions, etiquette at sea must without doubt perish , and that soon. Such fragments of it as still survive in the Merchant Service are confined to sailing-ships, those beautiful visions that are slowly disappearing one by one from off the face of the deep. Take, for instance, the grand old custom so full of meaning of “saluting the deck.” The poop or raised after-deck of a ship over which floated the national flag was considered to be always by the presence of the Sovereign, and, as the worshipper of whatever rank removes his hat upon entering a church, so from the Admiral to the powder-monkey every member of the ship’s company as he set foot upon the poop “saluted the deck”—the invisible presence. As the division between men-of-war and merchantmen widened so the practice weakened in the latter, and only now[185] survives in the enforced practice of every person below the rank of Captain or mate coming up on to the poop by the lee side. And among the officers the practice is also observed according to rank, for with the Captain on deck the chief mate takes the lee side. But since in steamers there is often no lee side, the custom in them has completely died out. To etiquette also belongs the strict observance of the rule in all of “Sir” on to every reply to an officer, or the accepted for his position to a tradesman who is a petty officer, as “Boss” for boatswain, “Chips” for carpenter, “Sails” for sailmaker, and “Doctor” for cook. A woeful of etiquette is committed by the Captain who, coming on deck while one of his mates is carrying out some manœuvre, takes upon himself to give orders direct to the men. It is seldom resented by junior officers for obvious reasons, but the chief mate would probably retire to another part of the at once with the remark that it was “only one man’s work.”  
In many cases etiquette and discipline are so closely interwoven that it is hard to know where one leaves off and the other begins, but in all such cases observance is enforced as being one of the few remaining means whereby even a simulacrum of discipline is maintained in undermanned and oversparred sailing-ships—such as the repetition of every order given by the hearer, the careful avoidance of any interference by one man with another’s work in the presence of an officer,[186] and the of each officer’s rightful attitude toward those under his charge and his superiors. Thus during the work of the day, work, that is, apart from handling the ship, the mate gives his orders to the boatswain, who sees them carried out. Serious always arises when during any operation the mate comes between the boatswain and his gang, unless, as sometimes happens, the boatswain be hopelessly .
 
In the private life of the ship every officer’s is his house, sacred, inviolable, wherein none may enter without his invitation. And in a case of serious dereliction of duty or disqualification it becomes his prison. “Go to your room, sir,” is a sentence generally equivalent to professional ruin, since a young officer’s future lies in the hollow of his Commander’s hand. The saloon is free to officers only at meal-times, not a common parlour wherein they may meet for chat and recreation, except in port with the Captain . And as it is “aft” so in its degree is it “forrard.” In some ships the carpenter has a berth to himself and a workshop besides, into which none may enter under pain of instant wrath—and “Chips” is not a man to be lightly offended. But in most cases all the petty officers berth together in an apartment called by courtesy the “half-deck,” although it seldom resembles in a remote degree the , fœtid hole that originally bore that name. Very are the petty officers, gravely conscious of their dignity, and sternly set upon the due maintenance of their rightful status as the[187] of the ship’s company. Such a grave breach of etiquette as an “A.B.” entering their quarters, with or without invitation, is seldom heard of, and quite as infrequent are the occasions when an officer does so. In large ships, where six or seven are carried, an apartment in a house on deck is set apart for their sole occupation, and the general characteristic of such an is chaos—unless, indeed, there should be a senior of sufficient stability to preserve order, which there seldom is. These “boys’ houses” are bad places for a youngster fresh from school, unless a

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