Uniform with this Volume, THE BOOK OF MILITARY ANECDOTES. PEACE-PASTIME-WAR. Price One Shilling. LONDON: BRADBURY, Agnew, & co., pRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. THE BOOK OF NAVAL ANECDOTES. certain THE SAILOR KING. ON William the Fourth being consulted as to which of his three horses, as connected with Goodwood Races, should be made the winner of the cup, or, to use the phraseology of the turf, pressed, his Majesty quickly an THE POETICAL SAILOR. THE captain of a British frigate, a man of undaunted bravery, had a natural antipathy to a cat. A sailor, who for some misconduct had been ordered a flogging, saved his back by presenting to his captain the following petition:-swered, "Let them all do their "By your honour's command An example to all the ship's crew; In abhorrence you hold; Makes your stout heart to fail, GOOD ADVICE. ADMIRAL DUNCAN'S address to the officers of his fleet, when they came on board his ship for his final instructions, previous to the memorable engagement with Admiral De Winter, was couched in the following laconic and humorous manner : "Gentlemen of my Fleet, you see a very severe WINTER fast approaching; and I have only to advise you to keep up a good fire." best-I'll have no reefed topsails." A SAILOR'S OPINION OF KING SOLOMON. Two sailors were one day disputing on board his Majesty's ship Abundance, off Woolwich, respecting the wisdom of King Solomon; and after having made some original and very singular remarks on this mighty monarch, one of them closed his argument as follows: "Why, Jack, you may talk till the tongue drops out of your wooden head; but I'll tell you what perhaps neither you nor King Solomon ever knew; that is, that, shiver my timbers, but the times are so altered, that if he was now alive, he would not know a jib-boom from a poop lantern." SAILOR ON SHORE. the bowsprit, catch hold of the sky-scraper, which he used so freely on the kelson, that he rubbed off the shoe of the anchor, which was caught by the cat harpings, who commenced to spanker with the boom, till she burst through the stays, cutting the topsail ties, grappled the monkey's tail, which knocked the Jew's eye out of the Turk's head, caught the ship round the waist with one hand, boxed the compass with the other, till the cook cried, and the captain applied the leaches of the foresail to the inflamed eye of the astonished needle. SOON after the conclusion of the war in 1815, a sailor, who had lately been paid off, and who had been riding in a coach about the streets with a fiddler playing, strolled into Covent Garden Market, when he was asked by one of the basketwomen, if he wanted anything carried for him? He replied, that he wished to be carried himself to a place where he could get some breakfast. The woman, who wanted to go home to her lodging in St. Giles's, agreed to take him in her basket to a coffee-shop at the corner of High Street; the sailor, after getting his pipe lighted, took his seat in the woman's basket, which was set upon her head by others of her own fraternity, and off she went, followed by a great concourse of spectators of every description. Without once rest-tains of the fleet, desiring them to ing, the poor creature took her load to its destination, when the sailor rewarded her with a pint of rum and a £1 note. A FRENCHMAN'S PRONUN- "STIMULATING" A SHIP'S CREW. AFTER one of Sir Edward Hughes's drawn battles with M. Suffrein, in the East Indies, the British admiral sent to the cap stimulate their respective crews previous to the next day's expected encounter. As his commander was desperately wounded, it fell to the lot of the late Captain C. H. Lane, then a lieutenant, to carry this into effect: A FRENCHMAN cannot pro-and he did it irresistibly. nounce "ship." The word sounds "sheep" in his mouth. Seeing an ironclad he said to a boy, "Ish dish a war-sheep?""No," answered the boy, "it's a ram." A NAUTICAL INCIDENT. A NOISE was heard on deck, the dog-watch sprang from his caboose, seized the gig-whip and laying it over the dead eyes of the buoy, made him shin up All hands were immediately piped on deck; when Mr. Lane, holding in his hand Sir Edward's order, in hoc modo loquitur-"My brave fellows, I have received the admiral's commands to stimulate you. I do not clearly understand his meaning; but if it is that I am to tell you to beat those parley-vous to-morrow, I am sure he might have saved himself the trouble; but, my lads, I am ordered to stimulate you, and you must | They, without hesitation, contherefore consider yourself stimulated accordingly." Roars of hearty laughter, and three tremendous cheers attested that the lads enjoyed the humour of the address, though they had fought severely, and passed the day dinnerless; and we must give them full credit for their cheerfulness. A SAILOR ASHORE. A SAILOR on board one of her Majesty's ships, who had been for several years on a foreign station, and had hardly ever been on shore, asked leave to have a trip by land, and accordingly proceeded to Alverstoke, where, for the first time in his life, he witnessed a funeral. He was evidently very much surprised at the ceremonial, and when he returned on board at night could talk of nothing but what he had seen in the churchyard. "Why, what d'ye think they does with the dead corpses ashore!" said he to a shipmate. "How should I know?" said the other. "Why, then, Bill, may I never stir," replied Jack, "but they put 'em up in boxes and directs 'em." SUPERSTITION. CAPTAIN STUART, when cruising off the Italian Coast, had passed several days without seeing a ship. The men ascribed this inauspicious circumstance to the captain's having taken a black cat on board from the last port they touched at. He imme- | diately called the men aft, and asked them if it really were so? 66 firmed the report. "Overboard with the black_cat."—" That," exclaimed an old seaman, worse still-she must be landed." "Then lower away the jollyboat," said the captain. The cat was safely landed, with much formality, on an island in sight; and that same night they took the best prize which they had captured in the Mediterranean. JACK'S PARISH. 'As you do not belong to our parish," said a gentleman to a begging sailor, with a wooden leg, "I cannot think of relieving you." "Sir," replied the tar, with an air of heroism, I lost my leg fighting for all parishes." A SAILOR IN DIFFICULTIES. THE following anecdote is related of a tar who once had a narrow escape from imminent peril. He was in a ship frozen in, in the Arctic Regions, and, like young Nelson, had strayed on the ice, heedless of danger. He was far from the vessel when he saw, coming round a block of ice, a huge polar bear making directly towards him. Totally unprovided with any defensive weapon but his knife, he bethought himself of an old-world weapon for extreme cases-Prayer. But how? And what? There was no time to deliberate, the monster was near, and delay would be fatal to the poor fellow. So he opened his knife and grasped it firmly— hurriedly uttered a few wordshow earnestly can hardly be |