"An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds of things

Like landin' 'isself with a Gatlin' gun to talk to them 'eathen kings;

'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an' 'e drills with the deck on a slew;

There isn't a job on the top of the earth the beggar don't know nor do.

You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead, to paddle 'is own canoe;

'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse-soldier and sailor too." -Rudyard Kipling.

I

T is probably true that the majority of our citizens know so little of our naval and military establishments that they fail to discriminate between the United States marine and the United States bluejacket or sailor. This is in part due to the fact that the Marine Corps is comparatively a small corps, and in part to the fact that its operations are so intimately associated with those of the navy as a whole that they often pass without special emphasis in press despatches, just as reports of army operations often omit detailed accounts of the parts played by its various arms.

But while the Marine Corps is a co-ordinate branch of the naval service, it is none the less a separate and distinct organization, with its own officers, both line and staff.

Although the marine is essentially an infantryman, the attribute which especially distinguishes him is the fact that he is amphibiousequally at home on land or sea; he has been called the "web-footed soldier." And this employment of infantry as a part of the regular complement of war-vessels may be traced back to remote antiquity.

The distinction between the sailor and the marine appears to date from about 500 B.C., when, with the progress of naval science and the increase in size and difficulty of management of biremes and triremes, it became expedient to enlist for naval service two distinct classes of men-the rowers, or seamen proper, who had the management of the vessel and sails, and the marines or fighting men.

In 1664 the corps of British marines, was organized, and in 1740 three regiments which were raised in America were assembled in New York under the command of Colonel Spotiswood, of Virginia, for service in the colonies. This organization was the prototype of our present Marine Corps, which is

the oldest branch of our naval establishment; for, having, on the 8th of June, 1775, voted to dissolve the compact between the people of Massachusetts Bay and the Crown, the Continental Congress, on November 10, 1775,"Resolved, that two Battalions of Marines be raised consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors and other officers as usual in other regiments; that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken that no persons be appointed to offices or be enlisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve by sea when required; that they be enlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war with Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress; that they be distinguished by the names of First and Second Battalions of American Marines."

On December 13, 1776, Congress directed that thirteen ships of war be built, and on the 22d day of the same month passed a resolution declaring Esek Hopkins Commander-in-Chief, and appointed officers for all vessels in the service.

This was the first step taken toward the creation of the navy which has won imperishable glory for the United States, and these are the facts upon which is based the claim of the Marine Corps that it is the "oldest in the service."

In February, 1777, a battalion of three hundred marines under the command of Major Nichols was landed from Commodore Hopkins's fleet on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, assaulted and captured the English forts and took a large quantity of cannon and military stores. This, the first battle of the American navy, was won by the marines.

From this small beginning the Marine Corps has grown to its present strength of over ten thousand officers and men, and it has in all our wars, foreign and civil, maintained the prestige of its Grecian, Roman, and British predecessors for valor, loyalty, and discipline.

The rather common, though false, idea that