The Express.
London, England, 1860-11-14 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 14.

A APICTATOR of that gorgeous pageant which
attends the succession of some citizen of credit and
renown to the immortal throne of wealth and re-
sp,ttability in this famous London town could
hanUy fail to notite, at least, two odd incongruities
which are nut reconcileable with the great his-
torical traditions of the show—in fact, that there
was some nustate about the Watermen and the
Warriors. The jolly young fresh-watermen looked
as if they were the boys that could fight, while the
Warriors in their complete steel, mounted on Mr.
Mniavitzs's piebald hippogriffa, looked wonder-
fully mild and toylike. They lurched and rolled
in the saddle, and laboured heavily under their
top hamper ; they seemed to be perpetually
striving to mount over imaginary seas, of which
they had evidently shipped a great many, till it
was only a question of whether they would go down
by the bead or the stern ; but that they must
come to grid somehow before they got through
the chops of Temple-bar on the bouieward voyage,
no one could doubt who witnessed the behaviour
of these dummy warriors.

So much for this Museum type of an impregnable
city. The prowess of these men of war may be
great, and certainly their panoply is • perfect
miracle of metal work ; bet without the least de-
sire to pry into the unknowable, it was impossible
to shut out the speculation as to what would be
the effect of • charge by those rgile centaurs of
the 16th Lancers who pranced alongside these
ponderous iron sided champions. Would not the
encounter be like one so admirably described by
our great novelist, between the Knight of the Leo-
pard on his iron-clad heavy charger, and 8 ALLDIN
on his Beet Arab! Or, to Mender the problem to
another arena, would it not resemble the match
that all the world are speculating upon just now,
but which we should be very sorry to see come off,
between the fast frigates and the modern (noires
and Black Princes!

As far as we can see at present, even supposing
that the ninths:raid., and indestructible qualities
were attained, which we imagine the most sanguine
advocates of the iron system would not assert to
be the ease, the prospect is more favourable to ad-
vance on the side of gunnery than on that of
armour. At any rate, with regard to iron ship*
and their armour, as we have already endeavoured
to show, thu best model on which to built them
has sot yet been discovered. The Admiralty and
their naval architect, if rumour be correct, have
come to this conclusion also, for they have sus-
pended the commencement of the three iron-
plated ships decided upon, and have not entered
into the contracts offered by private builders to
construct two of these vessels. In the meantime
we shall Imps to be doing some service in following
up the subject and offering some further points for
consideration before the new system is implicitly
adoP6l4-

13uttinq snid.• the questions of speed and sea-
wort/tine's, hew would these iron ships fare in
real serve.* 1 We have been all along led to believe
that the sides of these vessels were entirely pro-
tected froui shot and shell—partially at least from
shot, and wholly from ai•ell. Now this is not the
fact. The Warrior is about 400 feet long, but
out of this only 214 feet in length of her sides are
protected by the armour, the rest being only shell
proof. It is true that the armour covers, always
remembering to except the ports, the whole of the
fighting deck ; the whole of the waist of the .hip being
protected by the heavy armour, while the bows and a
considerable part of her quarter and stern are
vulnerable. This arrangement is admitted to be
indispenkable to the seagoing properties of the
ship. If a ship carried the weighty armour plates
at her bows and quarter de would be in the
condition of a horse laden on his head and
his tr.il, and her movements would precisely
resemble the action of the famous Rockingham
breed. Here then we have to sacrifice impregnability
to seaworthiness. But we shall be told that
these parts of the ship are formed in iron waterl
tight compartments ; and not only so, but sepa-
rated from the main deck and the rest of the ship
by iron bulkheads of strong plate iron. Granted
all this, we must suggest what would be the effect
of a concentrated broadside of round shot followed
by a few shells upon the quarter and bows of the
Warrior. We can Nee nothing to prevent the ship
being completely crippled in this way. Her
tremendously heavy 'tempest, weighing 42 tons,
would te.tr itself away in consequence of the
weakening of its attachments, the screw which
works through it would be hampered, and if the
Tinsel did not go down, we should expect she
would be effectually waterlogged, especially if
similar leeitile attentions had been bestowed upon
her 1,0%4. lu this condition what signifies the
armour 1 The poor Warrior would be in no better
plight than the Lord Mayor's champion at the
mercy of a Lancer. With all his motor power
gone, there he 'night stand and hurl his terrible
1114C0 after his unable antagonist, but he would be
altogether put out of the fight.

" Whatever you do, keep out the ■hells," say
the old sailors ; but the uew system will not do
this. One shot out of every right goes into a
ship in action, through the porta ; this inconve-
-11/00C0 it is not proposed to someday, but we can-
not suppose it is intended to mumbler the iron
drips protected from 'hells falling oil their unit.
deck. The decks of the Warrior are formed of
plates tbice-eightlis Umiak, upon which the planks
are laid, th.• whole resting on iron beams. In
tiriug, of course, few shells would
eoAie flu ough, but decks of this construction would
nut he ! .f against the heavy shot and shell cer-
tain to b • nat.l in the next sea fight, especially
wh.•n sv. hLS V. n•.w the• r.ceuracy attr.iiied that
skilful suuuele would find small difficulty iu