“Oh, These Magicians and Necromancers, They Are Ruining Us” – The Clash of Sailors and Engineers

That the Navy is ‘going to the dogs’ has been a favourite thesis from the days of Drake and Frobisher; and this canine goal never seemed nearer of attainment than when steam and iron came to stay in the fleet, and wrested from the old seadogs what they had come to regard as their own particular heritage.1