The ship's corporals are this worthy's deputies and ushers.

The marine sergeants are generally tall fellows with unyielding
spines and stiff upper lips, and very exclusive in their tastes
and predilections.

The ship's yeoman is a gentleman who has a sort of counting-room in
a tar-cellar down in the fore-hold. More will be said of him anon.

Except the officers above enumerated, there are none who mess
apart from the seamen. The "_petty officers_," so called; that
is, the Boatswain's, Gunner's, Carpenter's, and Sail-maker's
mates, the Captains of the Tops, of the Forecastle, and of the
After-Guard, and of the Fore and Main holds, and the Quarter-
Masters, all mess in common with the crew, and in the American
navy are only distinguished from the common seamen by their
slightly additional pay. But in the English navy they wear crowns
and anchors worked on the sleeves of their jackets, by way of
badges of office. In the French navy they are known by strips of
worsted worn in the same place, like those designating the
Sergeants and Corporals in the army.

Thus it will be seen, that the dinner-table is the criterion of
rank in our man-of-war world. The Commodore dines alone, because
he is the only man of his rank in the ship. So too with the
Captain; and the Ward-room officers, warrant officers, midshipmen,
the master-at-arms' mess, and the common seamen;--all of them,
respectively, dine together, because they are, respectively, on a
footing of equality.