such as offend a man's own shipmates as well as
the laws of discipline—he is set to run the
gauntlet even now. But nautical punishments
have always been savage. "Tarring and
feathering" and "keel hauling" are as old as
Cœur de Lion's times; though at that epoch
the British fleet was commanded by no less a
personage than an archbishop.

Such are a few of the differences between the
two great navies of Europe. Each may learn
something from the other; and there is an
honourable rivalry between them at present,
untinged by malignity and accompanied by a
mutual respect. An English naval man meets
hospitality and courtesy—even without letters
of introduction—at Cherbourg, from his rivals;
and he will only laugh, like a man of esprit,
if he is asked (with a merry twinkle of the
eye), by a French capitaine of the older
school, whether, when he was in the African
squadron, he ever picked up, by mistake
for a slaver, a Portuguese merchant craft?
Apropos of this bit of professional humour, the
French navy has been growling lately at the
emperor's too gallant resolution to return the
Austrian traders captured during the late war.
What, ask our friends, are war and prize-money
meant for? They feel it the more, because they
are, as a body, poor men; and that, even in
comparison with our navy, which is a poor
profession enough, pecuniarily, Heaven knows.

Let us take leave of Cherbourg with a few
observations on its general significance and importance
to us; made in no bellicose spirit, however.

Here we have a new French dockyard and
port, opposite to us; protected by almost
unrivalled defences; capable of sheltering,
refitting, and repairing a fleet; connected with
Paris by telegraph and by a railway, the
business trains on which do the journey in ten
hours. Such a place is a new arm added to
France for purposes of attack or defence; a
distinct addition of strength since the last great
war, when there was no French port between
Brest and Dunkirk—the latter not suitable to
vessels of the larger class. It is clearly a place
constructed with military objects. Commerce
did not require it, and can never support it;
nor are there any internal needs which it meets.
In stands on the rocky and rainy coast of a
remote Norman peninsula, interesting solely to
Frenchmen, as projecting (like a threatening
arm) towards England.

Strong as it is now, its efficiency is increasing.
Fresh guns appear on its Digue, fresh batteries
among its rocks and heights, and new buildings
rise in its arsenal. A submarine telegraph line
is, even now, connecting it with the whole coast;
and, before long, there will be branch railway
communication, directer than at present,
between it and the upper parts of Normandy. In
these steam days, it is eight hours' distance
by sea from Havre, and less than thirty hours'
distance from Brest.

Cherbourg presents, in fact, one more place of
first-rate importance for our squadrons to watch,
in case of a war, and one situated so as to be available
for offence, while all but impregnable in itself.
Blockading, however, is confessedly a more difficult
task than formerly, because steam makes
the imprisoned squadron independent of the
wind, and enables it to run for new quarters, or
join another squadron, with a facility unknown
before. Then, supposing such French squadron
worsted, its chances of escape are greater with
steam, and there is this new port of Cherbourg
to run for and refit in. Especially, however, will
it be valuable as a support to an invading force.
And, while this fact will always compel us to
keep a large fleet in the Channel; so it will
leave us, of course, fewer vessels to protect our
distant commerce. Hence the mischief of
allowing the French to get ahead of us in the
number of any class of vessels, especially frigates,
which they were said by several authorities to
be superior to us in, at the beginning of this
year. Hence the more than mischief of
allowing them to be absolutely superior in the
number of building slips in their dockyards,
which, also, is unfortunately the present case.

Cherbourg must be considered as one more
element of danger to the peace of Europe,
inasmuch as the consciousness of strength is a
provocation to use it, especially where its existence
is a contrast to the memories and traditions
of past times. The emperor may be thoroughly
pacific, the French people may be disposed to
acquiesce in peace; but, neither of these facts,
though they may save us for a time from an act
of merely aggressive war, can be expected to
hinder the European politics of France from
being influenced by her new scale of naval
strength. It is not enough that we should be
safe from invasion; we must not be outstripped
in political importance, we must not be liable to
be pushed aside from our first-class position, in
any part of the world where our flag flies or our
language is known. We are apt to forget how
much our national importance depends on our
downright strength, and that if we are strong
by dint of being rich, we are rich, and originally
became so, by being strong. Losing our naval
power we should lose our colonies; then, by
degrees, our trade; and of a certainty, sooner or
later, our safety at home. It is not a question
that will bear trifling with, and he who
pooh-poohs our naval preparations is really
contributing to our ultimate weakness in every
other department.

OUR EYE-WITNESS AND THE
PERFORMING BULL.

"SHE'S coming out," screamed the smallest
boy, with the whitest face, the most beetrooty
nose, the thinnest blouse, and the most precocious
intellect ever seen or heard of.

He was perched upon the spikes of the
railings which separate No.—say, one thousand,
Castle-street, from the back entrance, or stage
door, of the Alhambra Circus. From this place
of security he spake, in the words just quoted,
to a young friend in a red comforter, stationed