direction. The thing would seem incredible, were it not vouched for by any number of German officers who witnessed it. Nothing done by the Japanese could compare with this. Capua, and its share in the ultimate ruin of Hannibal and his army, has already been referred to.
Capua spelt ease, comfort, and relaxation—all things to negative fitness to win. The danger lies there to-day as much as ever it did. Modern warships tend to become floating hotels chiefly by the advent of very rich men into the officer class. As officers at one and the same time efficient and very wealthy are to be found, the matter is somewhat complicated; but as a general principle the outlook of any navy depends much upon how few rich officers it may have.
Moreover the existence of rich yet efficient officers, in the British Navy at any rate, is to be explained by certain facts that recently came to light, when a midshipman whose father was sufficiently foolish to allow him six hundred a year or so pocket money, was submitted to a process of basting till he should come to realise that wealth did not make him different from his poorer messmates. In this particular case the midshipman sought vengeance with a revolver. An Admiralty, presumably ignorant of the existence of such a thing as fitness to win, weakly gave in to an hysterical public agitation, allowed the wealthy midshipman to retire unpunished for his attempted murder and punished those who, however brutal their methods,
