valuable function. I asked half a dozen times what her occupation
was before any one gave a satisfactory answer. Admiral Dewey told
the story in few words. She was a cold-storage ship, with beef and
mutton from Australia, compartments fixed for about forty degrees
below zero. Each day the meat for the American fleet's consumption was
taken out. There was a lot of it on the deck of the Olympia thawing
when I was a visitor; and the beef was "delicious." I am at pains
to give Dewey's word. While the Spaniards ashore were eating tough,
lean buffalo--the beasts of burden in the streets, the Americans
afloat rejoiced in "delicious" beef and mutton from Australia. It
was explained that the use of cold-storage meat depended upon giving
it time to thaw, for if it should be cooked in an icy state it would
be black and unpalatable, losing wholly its flavor and greatly its
nourishing quality. Australia is not many thousand miles from the
Philippines--and one must count miles by the thousands out there. The
Belgians have a smart Consul at Manila who is a friend of mankind.

One of the incidents in the battle of Manila--all are fresh in
the public memory--is that Admiral Dewey did not make use of the
conning-tower--a steel, bomb proof, for the security of the officer
in command of the ship--the Captain, of course, and the commander of
the fleet, if he will.

This retreat did not prove, in the battle of Yalu and the combats
between the Chileans and Peruvians, a place of safety; but as a rule
there is a considerable percentage of protection in its use. Admiral
Dewey preferred to remain on the bridge--and there were four fragments
of Spanish shells that passed close to him, striking within a radius
of fifteen feet. The Admiral, when told there had been some remark
because he had not occupied the conning-house in the action, walked