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These are but a few leading cases from the four folio volumes of the Reports of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. They are fairly taken

at least I trust they are,and they do unquestionably prove the frightful prevalence of "chips" in the "Civil Government of the Navy," to use the old technical name for the functions of the Navy Board. Are we to conclude that the Commissioners had nothing to put before Parliament save one great "Satan's Invisible World Displayed" of corruption? I do not think so. In the first place, the men were often much better than the element of slovenly confusion

Sir Andrew Mitchell. The not have been carried out Chatham officials reported that without the connivance, or at she was fit to be purchased for any rate the criminal carelessthe Navy. So she was bought ness, of the Master Shipwright. at £4, 10s. a-ton, £2241 in Yet it was highly convenient all, furniture and stores in- for the living officials that they cluded. She was taken round were able to throw the whole to Woolwich, and there her blame on a dead man who could sides and upper works were not say them nay. thoroughly repaired, at a cost of £8273. When the war began again, after the breach of the Peace of Amiens, she was commissioned by Captain Boys, and sent to join Vice-Admiral Patton in the Downs. She had hardly joined the flag before it became necessary to lift the floor of the bread-room in order to get at a leak. When the carpenter was able to examine the bottom, he at once reported that the ship was not as much as fit to ride at anchor. Her timbers were rotten from end to end, and there was nothing to keep the water out except the copper sheathing. She was sent back to port, and put out of commission. As the Naval Inquiry was now in full swing, the case was thoroughly examined. It was found that the bill for wages was swollen by an overcharge of £2234, 18s., out of a total under that head, and apart from materials, of £3853. When the officials were called upon for an explanation they replied that the Master Shipwright, "the late Mr Tovery,' had kept the job entirely in his own hands. Of course, the fact that Mr Tovery was dead does not prove that he was innocent, and indeed such a fraud as this could

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in which they worked. If we hear of such Master Shipwrights as Mr Tovery is said, with a painful appearance of truth, to have been, it must not be forgotten that Sir Robert Seppings was among his colleagues. The capacity of Seppings as a shipbuilder amounted to genius, and his probity was above question. Much of the evil arose from the foolish old use and wont which insisted on paying men by proportions and percentages, and therefore made it their interest to exaggerate expenditure. Much again came from the absurd attempt to give

a just and necessary increase of wages by a sham system of piece-work, instead of doing it by an honest revision of rates. There was a great deal of immoral good nature shown to men like Bonnallack-at the public expense. The Navy Board threw responsibility on subordinates and shirked the work of supervision, for which indeed it was often unfit. A general belief, propagated by examples in high places, prevailed that men in the King's service did no sin if they took their squeeze. Yet, while the Commissioners found gross and constant examples of overcharges, they do not say that work was badly done. H.M.S. Amaranthe ought never to have been bought into the service, nor ought new upper works to have been put to a ship rotten below the water-line.

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the less, the repairs given her were honestly done. As one reads on, the conviction grows that the dockyards which fitted out the fleets of Howe, St Vincent, and Nelson were founded on probity. Every man took his chips, his squeeze, but he did his work. The caulkers' foreman might present an outrageous bill for the work of his apprentices, but the man of his gang who caulked his "stint" of inchand-a-half seam did it workmanlike. The Navy, in short, was saved by the innate respect for good work, and the point of honour of the individual workman, which are the redeeming virtues of our race. Therefore we can contemplate chips with equanimity. They are not associated with the memory of national defeat and dishonour. DAVID HANNAY.

A TRIP INTO CENTRAL CHINA, AND A NEW VARIETY OF DEER.

BY A. E. LEATHAM.

IT does not fall to the lot of every big-game shooter to get a new and hitherto unknown, and on that account unnamed, variety of wild animal, and it follows that I was not a little pleased when I was told by Mr Lydekker of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington that the little dark grey skin, which I had taken there to ask the name of, belonged to a new variety of Tufted Deer. Although the officials had already received some years before a skull and an imperfect skin, which had been bought from a Chinaman on the Yangtse river, they had been unable to identify the species; but on receiving mine they had no doubt that it was a new variety of Tufted Deer, and therefore named it after the locality of China where I had shot it.

This is the account in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London,' 1904, vol. ii., published October 1, 1904 :

"ICHANG TUFTED DEER. By R. Lydekker.

"The genus Elaphodus has been hitherto known by two species, the typical E. cephalopus (from Tibet) and the perfectly distinct E. michianus from the Ningpo district, province of Chekiang, on the east coast of China. A few days ago Mr A. E. Leatham called at the Natural History Museum, bringing with him for determination the skull and skin of a young male Tufted Deer (Elaphodus), shot by himself last January in the mountains near Ichang, province of Hupei, Central China. Ichang, it may be mentioned, is fully a thousand miles from Ningpo, and the deer killed by Mr Leatham was shot high up in the mountains far away from water, whereas E. michianus is reported to inhabit the reed brakes on the Ningpo rivers."

Mr Lydekker goes on to explain the difference in the colour and the markings on the skins, and also several differences in the bones of the skulls, from which he concludes: "There is no doubt as to the specific distinctness of the Ichang Tufted Deer, which may be named 'Elaphodus ichangensis."" And he says: "It is characterised, as compared with E. michianus, by its darker and more uniform colour, white tail, smaller antlers, larger tusks, shorter nasals, and more evenly circular preorbital fossa, while it is smaller than E. cephalopus.'

I had gone out to Shanghai, and spent all the autumn of 1903 in shooting from house

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boats up the Yangtse river and neighbouring canals, which are the highways of China,

when a keen ornithologist invited me to join him in a trip in the mountains in Central China. He had started a few days before me from Shanghai, so I followed him up the Yangtse river by steamer to Ichang, just a thousand miles from the sea, and only 129 feet above it. There is a tide running up all the way, and the innumerable boats and junks make use of it in coming up the river, when the wind is against them, anchoring when the tide is coming down, and drifting up when it is favourable. It took ten days to get up to Ichang from Shanghai; and on the way we passed the big towns of Chinkiang and Hankow, and many smaller ones, saw quantities of small game and the little yellow deer with long tushes, and encountered huge fleets of Chinese junks, which do most of the trade of the country, bringing down tea, rice, maize, raw cotton, silk, and reeds for firing, and taking up, on their return, loads of salt, opium, and cotton goods. I saw also some little grass huts perched on the top of some 30 to 60 feet scaffolding, with one man in each, who spent his time in plaiting long strips of bamboo into ropes, which he let hang down to the ground. These ropes, I was informed, are extremely strong, and with them the ships are towed up the rapids, which begin above Ichang; and the men who drag the ships up, sometimes 100 to 150 on to a rope, often have to climb round the precipices on such tiny paths that they

occasionally fall off into the river.

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I had one little excitement on the way, at a town called Kiukiang, where we were stopping for a couple of hours. I had taken my two dogs on shore to give them a run, and after walking through the city I came to a village, and as there were some rushes and rough ground, I encouraged the dogs to hunt, by way of giving them a little exercise. Presently I heard a terrific squealing in the rushes about two hundred yards off, and running up, I found my pointer shaking a tiny pig, like a rat, in a most ferocious manner. collared hold of him, when he let the pig go, and by the help of a strap I did my best to persuade him that little tame pigs were not fair game. Meanwhile the Chinamen of the village came running up from all directions, so I asked for the owner of the pig, whom I at once feed with one dollar: he was quite satisfied, and so the matter ended. For, if a Chinaman once takes money offered, it is always recognised that he is satisfied, and he will never claim more. In the same way, if once a Chinaman engages to do a thing, it is quite certain that he will do it, and no signature is necessary. It is rather humiliating to think that a Chinaman's word is as good as an Englishman's oath or signature, but it is true nevertheless. For I heard a foreman say that if a Chinese coolie said he had done a certain job which he had been engaged to do, it was safe to

pay him at once; but if an Englishman said he had done his job, the foreman always went to look for himself before he parted with his money.

The land on each side of the Yangtse up to within thirty miles of Ichang is dead flat, and covered with high reeds, which in the winter are dry, and are cut and stacked for firing; they grow 10 to 12 feet high, and are hollow. In the summer, when the river overflows its banks, there are miles of flooded ground each side of the river, and sometimes the ships run ashore, and are left high and dry a long way from the river when the water subsides in the autumn.

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The ring-necked or, as we commonly call them, "Chinese pheasants breed on high ground, and as the river goes down in the autumn they wander down into the reeds to feed on the seeds, and go for hundreds of miles, which easily explains the wandering habits of our ringnecked pheasants at home; but the birds without rings, which breed in the hills, stay in the hills, where they are bred, all the winter.

At Ichang I was the guest of the Commissioner of Customs, a most delightful and keen sportsman, and he introduced me to several other Englishmen, also in the I.M. Customs, who helped me to collect my stores, coolies, &c., and also a boy who could talk English and cook. I had five coolies to carry my kit, and four to carry a chair, which

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the commander of the gunboat sent me, and which I was told I must take by way of impressing the natives with my importance, as all mandarins travel with a chair. got my Chinese visiting-cards, which are far grander and more imposing-looking than ours, being made of bright red paper cut into an oblong shape about nine inches long and four wide, on which my name was stamped in black, in Chinese characters; and I also got 50,000 cash, which cost 70 dollars Mexican,1 and ten shillings worth is one coolie's load. Chinese "cash" or copper coins are about the size of a halfpenny, with square holes in the middle, and are threaded on strings of 1000 cash to each string, looking not unlike strings of ten sausages, with 100 cash in each sausage. The boy got 400 cash, each chair coolie 350, and the load coolies 250 per day.

I crossed the river above Ichang, the two very kind Englishmen who had helped me with my outfit escorting me, and walking for a few miles just to see that everything was right, and when they left me and returned to Ichang, I went on alone with my little party of Chinamen. It was far too cold to sit in the chair for more than a few minutes, and it soon began to snow. passed several high conglomerate cliffs, and the scenery improved all the way till I got to the stopping-place, 50 li (or 17 miles) from the river, and put

1 English money, £7, 10s.

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