Stodge! Stodgers!! Stodged!!! In the magnificent and capacious shop kept by Cadet Corporal Baker, amongst a large and miscellaneous assortment of sweets, the following will be found delicious:—
Yellow and pink snakes, warranted to last the most experienced sucker half an hour, and to give him an awful stomach-ache, all of which enjoyment can be obtained for the ridiculously small sum of one halfpenny!
Manila cigars.—These will be found extremely mild, and there is not the slightest danger of the most utter novice in the noble art of smoking being turned up; and there is also the subtle delight of greening the cadet corporals that you are smoking. The cost is one-eighth of a penny, but they are retailed at a halfpenny.
The grammar of the last “par” cannot be commended; the writer is weak in the matter of conjunctions. But one must not be hypercritical over advertisements.
In May, 1884, the Wave, a small barque-rigged vessel of about 300 tons, and 250 horse-power, arrived to take the place of the ancient Dapper, before alluded to. She was not much larger than her predecessor, but had considerably more steaming power, and was of finer dimensions. She was afterwards relegated to steam instruction only, but when first instituted was designed for instruction in working yards, masts, and sails, tacking and wearing ship, steering, use of log and lead, etc.
“The poor old Dapper,” says the Britannia Magazine of this date, “looks very sad in winter garb alongside her new sister, who has taken all the life from her, and we suppose her funeral is not far off.”
There is another paragraph concerning the arrival of the Wave, which hints, in the most delicate and refined manner, at certain possibilities:—
“The Wave has really started at last, and now we shall all have to order basins, or else have her commander foul of us when we are at sea, and the ship’s side is nicely polished.”
This foreshadowing was, as we shall see, only too literally fulfilled.
The magazine was frequently made the publishing medium of verses, the authorship of which is usually religiously veiled; youthful poets are proverbially shy, and prefer to blush unseen. The following is the pioneer poem:—
Ye Middle Watche Reliefe.
Rouse him out at dead of night,
Take away his bedclothes,
Shove his head from left to right,
Hit him on his red nose.