A WHOLESOME CHANGE.

Grey River Argus, Volume VII, Issue 520, 18 May 1869, Page 4

A WHOLESOME CHANGE.

(From BlackwooiYe Magazine. ) There was a time, not so very long ago that it was a strain on the memory to recall it, when the advent of a British fleet, in all peacef ulness, to a foreign port, called up precautions not unlike those against a bombardment. Men alone were seen in the streets — women kept within doors — shops were closed and the shutters stoutly barricaded ; the police force was doubled ; patrols paraded the thoroughfares, and every detail that could insure safety to life and property was canvassed with care and skill, showing how the inhabitants regarded their blue-shirted visitors. From my window where I sit 1 can see a British squadron at anchor. Two of Enland's proudest ironclads are "sleeping on their shadows " in the first line, and beyond these lie frigates which combine the finest lines of the yacht with the grand proportions of the liner. The glorious flag that ever grows dearer to us as we grow older, is waving softly in the summer wind, and flashing many a crimson and blue tint in the tideless water below ; and as I look, I like to lapse into a dreamy reverie over all the glories England has won at sea ; how her great name first came, borne over the wide ocean, and what a humble and obscure part ours would have been amongst nations but for these " tall admirals" that visit every sea, and proclaim us in every tideway. But from these high musings I am diverted by a small, a very small slip of paper, which has just been laid before me, and tells me that though for eight days several hundred men — British sailors, mind you — have been on liberty through the town and its neighborhood, there have been no riots, no outrages, not even a passing rudeness has been committed. From the authorities of c.very kind there has been but one testimony to the peaceful behaviour of our blue jackets — their genuine good n umour, their cordial pleasantry, and

their racy enjoyment of shore life, never for a moment degenerating into orgy or excess, The Beer Gardens— that paradise of German life — have been filled with our people who have imbibed much good music and. a considerable quantity of very tolerable beer, testifying to the love of both heartily— noisily, too, but never offensively—- never once to shook the good feeling or invade the comfort of others less enthusiastically given than themselves. If their coarse cheer has"*made the oak leaves tremble, it has not been in anger ; and their hearty voices have been loudest when "Rule Britannia" has swelled up amidst the Ueder of the Vaterland. Are not these things to be proud of ? Was there ever any other quality of our service we had more to blush for before foreigners than the drunkenness of our men, and their consequent insubordination and recklessness? And if this exist no longer, or only to such an extent as may seem venial or half excusable, what may we not expect from our navy thus reformed 1