The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-29 00:00:00

TAUNTON.

The candidates who will contest this borough at
the next election are Mr. Mills and Mr. E. W. Cox
(Conservatives), and Lord Hay and Mr. Barclay
(Liberals). The contest is expected to be severe.
Mr. Cox is a native of Taunton. He is most san-
guine as to the result of the contest, for in answer to
an elector, inquiring whether there was any truth in
in a rumour circulated that it was not his intention
to offer himself, he says :
I hasten to answer your question. I have no intention
whatever to retire. On the contrary, I intend positively to
go to the poll, and to poll to the last man ; and, more, I
shall win by a large majority. I shall be obliged by your so
informing your friends. You may on my authority give the
most decided and unequivocal contradiction to the report
of which you so kindly notify me.

Launch of the Ironclad Frigate Lord

Warden,

On Saturday last another important, addition was
made to our fleet of iron-clad vessels of war by the
launch from Chatham dockyard of the fine wooden
armour-plated frigate Lord Warden. The ceremony
attracted an unusually large concourse of spectators.
Minute descriptions of the Lord Warden and the
improved plans on which she has been built by her
designer, Mr. E. J. Reed, the Chief Constructor of
the Navy, have so frequently appeared in The Sun,
that only be necessary on. the present occa-
sion. to recapitulatethe leading pakticulaiS Connected
with her, and- the improvements which have been
introdUced during the 'vessel's progress • under her
builders' hands. Glancing at the Lord Warden, as
her hull towered above' the thousands of spectators
who crowded on each. side of : her, Ilk first thing
which.struck the visitor was her general appearance
which 'differs from that of any other vessel yet in-
troduced into the navy, with, perhaps, the single
exception of her sister ship, the Lord Clyde, recently
launched at Pembroke, and the Bellerophon just
compleied at Chatham. The midship section of the
Lord Warden, 'for example, is utterly unlike any
seen in the British navy since the time of Sir
William Symonds, the designer of all those " crack"
frigates which may now be seen rotting at Chatham
and our other ports. Until recently the Admiralty
have maintained, with the utmost pertinacity, the
sharp section and rising floor in the face of an
unanimous condemnation of the.. principle on the
part of all our naval architects, and long after it
was discarded by other nations. Even when iron
armour was introduced for the protection of ships
of war, and naval constructors seemed driven to the
adoption of flat floors, the old principle was adhered
to, and the Warrior's bottom,- if not one of the
sharpest in the navy, is certainly de-sioid of every-
thing like an approach to flatness. In the Lord
Warden, however, all this is reversed, and the navy
has now obtained, what has long been sought—
namely, a very broad, flat floor, well calculated to
sustain the ponderous armour encasing the sides of
the ship, and one which can hardly fail—if the naval
view of the subject is correct—
to keep her upright
and steady even in a beam sea, when vessels of the
old type would be rolling violently. This important
change in the vertical sections of the Lord Warden,
which may be described as being constructed on the
U, in contradistinction to the V shaped principle—
' renders it obvious that in a plunging sea the vessel
will be greatly obstructed by the water in its descent,
while vessels formed with V sections will cleave it
like a hatchet. But perhaps the chief novelty
noticeable in the Lord Warden, as she lay on her
cradle, was her long bow, thrust out far in advance
of the stem of the frigate. But for the recent un-
toward accident in the dockyard this feature would
have been more striking, as the bow would have
exhibited the enormous metal cleaver with which it
is to be covered. This protecting prow, hidden as
it will be under the water, will take fatal effect
on any ship with which the Lord Warden may be
brought into contact should she ever be used as aram
for running-down purposes, for which her enormous
size, weight, and strength eminently fit her. This
projecting prow, while adapted for offensive pur-
poses, also plays the double part of giving strength
and buoyancy to the heavy bow above the water, on
which is placed a battery, which again. is a new fea-
ture introduced into this vessel. Hitherto it has
been the practice to give greal bluffness to the bows
of our ships of war above the water, for the purpose
of affording the necessary space there for guns cap-
able of firing ahead, while the shin's lines were fined
away almost to nothing belowthe water immediately
beneath the heavy bow, in order to obtain a fine en-
trance for speed. The consequence of this has no-
toriously been a great disposition to plunge in all our
war ships, and in none more so than in most of our
iron-plated frigates, especially those of the Prince
Consort and Hector class, in which the full bow
above, unlike that of the Warrior, for instance, is
burdened with armour. In the Lord Warden, how-
ever, all this has been corrected by the introduction
of the long under-water bow. It possesses such
buoyancy that although the armour is to be carried
all round the bow aloft, and over two decks, so that
no less than four 110-pounder guns firing right
ahead are protected, yet the entire fore part of the
ship is probably more satisfactorily " water-borne"
than the bows even of those frigates which carry no
armour at all. Unlike most of the iron-clad frigates
hitherto constructed, the Lord Warden was launched
on Saturday with a considerable portion of her
armour-plating already bolted to her sides. The
remainder will be placed in the frigate as soon as she
is docked. The whole of it, supplied by the firm of
Messrs. John Brown and Co., of the Atlas Works,
Sheffield, is of the best description of rolled iron
yet sent out by that firm. It is the heaviest hitherto
applied to a wooden sea-going vessel of war.
Hitherto the difficulty of supporting the armour of
our iron-plated frigates, by giving the requisite
displacement to the ship, while retaining other es-
sential qualities, has been so great that the de-
signers have been glad to reduce the quantity of
it in every possible manner. Hence it has been car-
ried but little below the water, the ports have been
kept as low as possible, and the armour has been
saved in every other practicable way. In the Lord
Warden, however, provision is made for plating the
hull well down under water, the port sills being