LITTLE MEN AT A PREMIUM.
It is curious to think (says the Broad Arrow) how gradna lly in the naval service we may be gro wing to put a value on little men. Except in the stoke-holes, muscular power is falling to a discount; power is growing to be the product of steam, or rather of heat, and what is in demand is the intelligence to control and apply the power. Not only so, but as according to modern ideas most of the fighting on board s hip is conducted in holes or burrows not easy of access by big men, the intelligence asked for is a maximum, combined with a manimum of body attached to it. Either the guns are worked by hydraulic power generated by heat, and requiring' no human muscle but that a child may apply, or else the mountings are balaufied. aud equipoised as to rtquirc the gentlest aud not the roughest handling. Even the big mai ino has a look of incongruousness about him when writhing in and out of the ca.'s and lovers composing the interior of a modern warship which did not encompass hira in old days when we saw him furling the boom mainsail of a brig. And even in the stoke-holes they cannot all be big men, else what should we say to the fer-ret-like duties of wriggling into the boilers, through man holes, anil amidst the ramifications of the double bottom ? The long-rauge rifle and gun is killing the necessity for a big man even on shore, and probably the cavalry horse which oarry the lightest men will last the longest.
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Waikato Times, Volume 2620, Issue XXXII, 27 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
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271LITTLE MEN AT A PREMIUM. Waikato Times, Volume 2620, Issue XXXII, 27 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)
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