The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-10 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, OUT. 10, 1864.

How to expend the greatest amount of public
money with the least possible result is the problem
which our Board of Admiralty appears to have set
itself to solve. They have often succeeded in coming
very near a result, but their last achievement really
outdoes themselves. The public hare grown so
accustomed to their meleadministration and extra-
vagance that they have almost ceased to wonder and
exclaim, but the case in question is so flagrant that
it has aroused the attention even of those who look
on all Admiralty proceedings with qu:et despair.
Great interest has been excited by the trial of
Ciptain COLES'S much-talked-of system of turret
ships, and it was a source of general satisfaction
when it was first decided at headquarters that his
method should be submitted to the fair test of prate
tical experiment, It was many a long year before
this concession was made, but the decision when
come to was generally applauded, for without in
any way committing ourselves to unconditional
ap2roval of the system, we must say that Captain
COLES'S perseverance and ability, the skill with
which he supported his views before competent
examiners, and the favour with which they have
been received in scientific and professicnal circles,
alike entitle his model turret ship to a fair trial.
This point, however, was gained, and the Admiralty,
following their favourite plan of cutting down and
altering whenever it is possible to find an excuse
for doing so, directed that Captain COLES should
convert the Royal Sovereign, a costly wooden three-
decker, into a turret-ship on his system, And
now, what is the end of the story ? The ship is
completed, equipped, manned, and put under the
command of a very able officer, Captain OSBORNE,
and all who are interested in such matters are
watching with anxiety the results of her winter
campaign. The tri...l trips have been as yet satis-
factory, and her commander has expressed himself
well pleased with what he has seen of her. All is
ready for the promised fair trial, when the public
is startled by the intelligence that the ship is paid
out of commission and placed in the steam reserve
—when and in what form to be allowed to re-
appear, may be asked. Such a proceeding is .outs
rageous alike to common sense and justice. It is
undoubtedly due to Captain COLES and his sup-
porters that the ship should be sent fairly to sea and
allowed to prove her sea-going capacities. That is
the very point on which he especially claims prece-
dence for his system over the famous American
Monitors, which, however formidable at close quar-
ters, have been proved to have the serious draws
back of being generally unseaworthy. A ship may
be in the mysterious list of the steam reserve for
fifty years without anyone knowing how she would
behave in rough weather at sea ; and thus Captain
COLES'S invention is pronounced to have failed,
quietly huddled oat of sight with the hope, per-
haps, that it will drop out of public remembrance.
But the public feel that they have been ill-used no
less than Captain COLES. Why, if the experiment
was not worth tryicg fully and fairly, was a
vessel that cost a hundred thousand pounds to be
sacrificed to it, and the public money wasted in an
experiment which was never intended to be carried
cat? 'Why, if there really were grounds, as there
undoubtedly were, in the present transition state of
naval architecture, fur testing how much Captain
Coees's plan was worth, should the work stop half
way Why should men and officers who have
learned
hew to work this plrtienlar ship be paid
off, and their knowledge turned to no account
Why are we to go on building iron plated ships on
the ordinary plan, when all the time the turret
ship, for what we know, may prove far superior
as vessels of war ? 'Yo cannot see that the Admi-
ralty excuses for the proceeding are at all satisfac-
tory. It is gravely asserted that the Royal Seve-
vign teas never intended for a sea-going, ship
at all,
but merely as a ft)atiog battery for harbour defence,
capable of being sent to any part of the Channel,
but not adapted to cruise with a squadron--that

her want of masts and the lowness of her decks
disqualify her for a seasgoing ship, and to try her
with the ships of the Channel, would be of no
practical use. She was sent to Portland, we are
told to try her turrets and guns; and that since an
accident necessitated her going into a dockyard,
Captain OSBORNE sent up a list of alterations that
were requisite, when it was thought no advantage
would be gained by keeping the ship in commission
during the winter, so in one of our Admiralty's
periodical fits of economy officers and men were for
the most part paid off, and the grand new experi-
ment, the Royal Sovereign, transformed into a
tender to the Excellent. There are several points
in this explanation which require explanation them-
selves. The Thyal Sovereign, we are told, was
never in her new form intended for a sea-going
ship. But Tsho certainly was intended for a
sea • going ship when first built at an
outlay of a hundred thousand pounds, and if
Captain COLES was to do no more than build a
floating battery he might, one would think, have
been allowed to construct it for himself without
spoiling a ship of the calibre of the Royal Sovereign.
But it was generally understood that the Royal
Sovereign was to be a seagoing ship, and unless
Captain COLES has been very much misrepresented
that is certainly the impression he intended to con-
vey. There is no great miracle in constructing an
effective floating battery " capable of being sent to
any port in the Channel, but not adapted
to cruise with a squadron." A good many
professional men could, no doubt, design such
a one without devoting ten years to perfecting
and publishing it. The very merit of Captain
COLES'S scheme is its professed superiority to the
American method, which makes the ships unsea-
worthy; and if his real endeavour is to be no more
than a floating battery, it is decidedly inferior to
monitors, which have contrived to go to sea. As
for the assertion that the absence of masts and the
low decks of the Royal Sovereign disqualify her
for sea-going purposes, that is virtually deciding
against all turret ships, for the low decks are one of
their distinctive features. To say that it would be
useless to grant the ship a trial is to pre-judge the
Case. It would have been fairer to the inventor
and to the public to say it was useless to make the
experiment at all. 'When the affair first begun,
it was certainly given out that the Royal Sovereign
was to be a fair test of Captain COLES'S method,
and as such the public accepted it. The " floating
battery" is only, we believe, a convenient excuse,
for nobody doubted that Captain COLES could con-
struct a floating battery. 'We should like to hear
what he has to say on the subject ? We should
imagine he feels considerable indignation as well as
disappointment at the issue of this much talked of
trial, which has really been no trial at all. There
is one thing certain. 'When Parliament meets we
shall hear something more about this "floating
battery," and we shall hope that one practical result
of the affair will be the application of the Admi-
ralty's favourite principle of conversion and al.
teration to their own Board, which needs a
thorough remodelling before it fulfils the require■
ments of the public service.

News received from New York up to the Ist of
0 Aober, still leaves the actual condition of affairs
uncertain. But all that we gather from the vague
and hesitating details of the grand encounter
between SHERIDAN and EARLY, seems to confirm
our original impression that the Federal success
had been greatly exaggerated in the first instance.
'The Americans claim to make war on a new scale,
and certainly not only in the gigantic extent of
their undertakings, but in the eccentricity of their
results they have reversed the whole system of old
world military tactics. We, of the old school,
should not think very much of a triumph where
the victor cannot keep his communications
with hia own Government open and from
which the vanquished retreats in safety with the
whole of his trains and stores. Yet such appears to
have been the case at Winchester, and it is very
certain that the discrepancy between the losses on
the two sides cannot have been fairly stated, since
SHERIDAN has not thought fit to push on his ad-
vantage. When the Confederates state their losses
at 2,500 killed, wounded, and missing, and the
North will not calculate theirs, the case looks bad
for the Federals, and the capture of SHERIDAN'S
couriers by Confederate cavalry in his rear makes
the matter worse. It is true that the Federal
Government may find it just now very convenient
to receive no despatches direct from the seat of war,
but the people cannot be deceived for long. Mean-
while in Missouri and Alabama the Confederate star
is again the ascendant. General PRICE has entered
Missouri with his whole army; he is within 60 miles
of the capital of St, Louis, where business is sus-
pended, and the citizens are arming themselves,
in answer to an appeal from the Federal com.
mander, General ROSENCRANS. The real sympa-
thies of the West are mainly with the South, and
if the Confederates hold St. Louis it will be an
important step gained. In Alabama, again, General
FORREST has advanced successfully; and it was
anticipated he would cut off SHERMAN'S communi-
cations with Nashville. These two simultaneous
movements in the West are full of importance, but
the PRESIDENT and his associates will take care
that as little as possible is known until the great
political contest is concluded. It is a stormy pic-
ture, at best, and the real lovers of their country,
whether North or South, may well look with a
heavy heart on the wideespread and continuous
devastation.

It is always to be regretted when those who at-
tempt to administer justice fail in some of its chief
requisites, for the harm that such mistakes occasions
is always incalculable. One of the most glaring
cases of undue severity that has been made public
for some time is recorded as taking place in Kent.
A poor boy of fourteen years of age was brought be-
fore General HITCIIENS, charged with the trifling
offence of having knocked down six walnuts from a
tree in a field. Surely, it was hardly worth while
to have brought up the youth on such a charge at
all, but the most that was awarded to him should
have been a reprimand or a fine, We are not told
that the boy had been seen before to ccmmit such
an offence, and his own version of the affair might
well have condoned his error in the sight of any one
less austere than his judge. He said that he had
been disappointed at his ill success when out nutting,
and that he was tempted by the appearance of these
walnuts in question. Ho therefore threw a stone
and took up six that fell. It seems almost ii.zredible
that, upon hearing such en account, General
HITCHENS should have passed such a sentence at
that which followed. The poor boy was condemned
to Maidstone prison, with hard labour, for six
months, The option of a fine was not allowed. Can
anything be more monstrous than such a sentence P
It is virtually ruining the boy for life, and taking
away his chance of earning an honest
because he has done as hundreds do every day, and
helped himself to a trifle. It is act as if he
had entered a house and taken a small portion of
property ; that would have been a very different
affair, and ought to have been dolt frith rigorousl
by way of prevention. The punishment of six
months' imprisonment with hard labour is dealt out
to many who Kaye committed assaults on others,

and half killed,them perhaps, and such an award
is deemed sufficient, yet this poor boy is to un.
dergo a like penalty because he has been charged
with a most trivial fault. Such things ought not
to occur in the administration of justice, and it is
to be hoped that some inquiry will be instituted
into the circumstances of the affair. The Home
Secretary should certainly turn his attention to
this affair, and ascertain the grounds upon which
such an extraordinary sentence could have been
passed. It is a scandal to the community that such
harshness should be tolerated, and it will prevent
the recurrence of the like inconsistency for the
future if notice is taken of this departure from j us.
tice which has taken place under the mask of the
law. There can be no greater mistake committed
than to send those convicted of trivial offences at
an early age to mix with felons, and it is a wrong
thing to strain the law so that a youth should bear
the stigma of imprisonment upon him at his en-
trance into life. Beyond these considerations it

seems that in this case a direct error has been com-
mitted by the Magistrate himself, and for the sake
of justice, which can never be too perfectly ad-
ministered, some decided steps should be taken to
prevent the chance of similar inconsistencies again
arising to shock our sense of propriety.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

[REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

THE FRANCO-ITALIAN CONVENTION,
PARIS, OCT. 10.

The Constittaionnel of this morning, in an article
signed by M. Limayrac, opposes the views of ex-
parties who see in this Convention the fall of the
temporal power and tha abandonment of Rome.
" This Convention," says M. Limayrac, " will be
executed in letter and spirit. Thinking otherwise,
the ultra-Italian press grievously inEult the King
of Italy, as do tho clerical press the Pope."

THE DUCHIES.

BERLIN, OCT. 10.

Letters received hore from Kiel say that Messrs•
Samwer and Francke, the present advisers of the
Duke of Augustenburg, have heard the rumour of
their approaching dismissal solely from the news-
papers by whom this report has been spread. M.
Samwer is on leave for several days, after which
he will resume his functions at Kiel. M. Francke
is still in that town performing the official duties of
his position, which he has not the slightest cause
to resign.