that there was no British naval uniform for anyone below the rank of officer till after 1860.  Now, at every inspection, much time is taken up in ascertaining if the narrow tape embroidery on a frock collar is of the regulation width, and if the rows of tape are the proper distance apart.  The diameter of a cloth cap is officially defined; and any departure from the regulation number of inches (and fractions of an inch) is as sure of involving punishment as insubordination.

It is the same in greater things.  Till 1853—­in which year the change came into force—­there was no permanent British naval service except the commissioned and warrant officers.  Not till several years later did the new ‘continuous service’ men equal half of the bluejacket aggregate.  Now, every bluejacket proper serves continuously, and has been in the navy since boyhood.  The training of the boys is made uniform.  No member of the ship’s company—­except a domestic—­is now allowed to set foot on board a sea-going ship till he has been put through a training course which is exactly like that through which every other member of his class passes.  Even during the comparatively brief period in which young officers entered the navy by joining the college at Portsmouth, it was only the minority who received the special academic training.  Till the establishment of the Illustrious training school in 1855, the great majority of officers joined their first ship as individuals from a variety of different and quite independent quarters.  Now, every one of them has, as a preliminary condition, to spend a certain time—­the same for all—­in a school.  Till a much later period, every engineer entered separately.  Now, passing through a training establishment is obligatory for engineers also.

Within the service there has been repeated formation of distinct branches or ‘schools,’ such as the further specialised specialist gunnery and torpedo sections.  It was not till 1860 that uniform watch bills, quarter bills, and station bills were introduced, and not till later that their general adoption was made compulsory.  Up to that time the internal organisation and discipline of a ship depended on her own officers, it being supposed that capacity to command a ship implied, at least, capacity to distribute and train her crew.  The result was a larger scope than is now thought permissible for individual capability.  However short-lived some particular drill or exercise may be, however soon it is superseded by another, as long as it lasts the strictest conformity to it is rigorously enforced.  Even the number of times that an exercise has to be performed, difference in class of ship or in the nature of the service on which she is employed notwithstanding, is authoritatively laid down.  Still more noteworthy, though much less often spoken of than the change in materiel, has been the progress of the navy towards centralisation.  Naval duties are now formulated at a desk on shore, and the mode of carrying them out notified to the service in print.  All this would have been quite as astonishing to the contemporaries of Nelson or of Exmouth and Codrington as the aspect of a battleship or of a 12-inch breech-loading gun.