The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-25 00:00:00

Portsmouth Dockyard.

Our chief naval establishment at Portsmouth at
the present time contains afloat on the magnificent
water space of its harbour, alongside the jetties of
its dockyard, in its two basins, and its few avail-
able docks, vessels that stand on the active list of the
Admiralty official Navy List, and therefore exclusive
of hulks or other vessels for harbour duty only,
having an aggregate tonnage of some 122,000, and
possessing a nominal engine power of upwards of
35,000 horse. Neither are there included in this
immense force the screw wooden gunboats in com-
mission in the port or those in reserve—the latter
consisting of six of 60-horse power in the First Di-
vision of the Steam Reserve, seven of 20-horse power
in the Third Division, and two of 60-horse power in
the Fourth Division, the latter being two of the im-
proved class of gunboats. In the presence of this large
amount of tonnage and engine power, Portsmouth
dockyard, with its two basins, its ten docks, five build-
ing slips, vast smithery, foundries and workshops, its
charges in the Navy Estimates for nearly £173,000
for officers' salaries and allowances, wages to arti-
ficers, gas, contingencies, &c., might be expected
just now to be one of the busiest centres of naval life
in the world, and that its basins and docks must be
full of ships and its building sheds resounding with
the clang of the workmen's tools creating new ves-
sels to suit future wants. No idea could well be more
fallacious than such a one. Not a piece of iron or
timber for the construction of vessels lies under the
capacious sheds of its building slips, which are thus
giving no return for the capital expended on their
construction ; nor are its docks or the waters of its
two basins occupied to their full extent. The empti-
ness of the slipways may be set down to the super-
ession of wood by iron in the building of fleets for

he future ; and the partial occupation of the docks

and basins to their entire incapacity, for want of
length, breadth, and depth to meet present require-
ments. and the consequent necessary alterations which
they are now undergoing, so far as their design and
position will admit of its being done. A brief walk
round Portsmouth dockyard will best describe the
work in hand, so fas as relates to the shipping and
the accommodation afforded to the ships by the
basins, docks, and jetties. The steam basin itself,

completed in 1848, and having a wharfage of 950 ft.,
560 ft., 597 ft., and 450 ft. respectively on its four
inner faces, has been but a short time again avail-
able, having been dried out for nearly three months
to deepen the water over its floor, and will shortly
have to be dried out again to admit of some required
alterations being made to the aprons and entrances,
&c., of its communicating docks. At present only the
wooden frigate Mersey, 3,733 tons and 1,000-horse
power, lies within the ample space of this basin. She
is undergoing very extensive repairs preparatory to

joining the First-class Reserve for commission. In
the second basin—the old ship-fitting basin—lies the
Calcutta sailing line-of-battle ship, fitting as a prac-
tice tender to the Excellent gunnery ship, in heir
of the old Illustrious, now rotten and shaken to
pieces by the firing of the ordnance on her decks.
The Calcutta is a fine, sound, teak-built ship, and
is being fitted for her future service with every care
for her efficiency as a gunnery ship, and also for
the personal comfort of the officers and men who
may be on board of her. Besides the Calcutta are
the Thunderer, target ship, the Minstrel, gunboat,
and the Laurel, hulk. The Thunderer has been
cut down to her lower deck ports and fitted amid-
ships with an iron-sided and floored rooflless room,
25ft. in length and the width of the ship, in which
all arm Our-plates tested at the port will in future be
tested, the muzzles of the guns being 25ft. from the
faces of the plates under trial when fired. The Laurel
hulk is placed here for the use of the crews of the
ships in -the adjacent docks as a washhouse.
No. 1 dock, 228 ft. in length, contains the Advice,
a small paddle steamer of 197 tons, placed there
yesterday to clean and repair her bottom. No. 2
dock, 221 ft. in length, containing the Furious—the
last of the paddle war ships in Portsmouth harbour
—a vessel of 1,287 tons and 400-horse power, un-
dergoing survey for repair. In No. 3 dock, 251 ft.
in length, is the Royal Alfred, now converting a
second time to an iron-cased ship, and intended to
carry ten 300-pounder rifled 12-ton guns, if they
are ever made for her. The ship is all to pieces in-
board at present, but the work is being pushed on
as rapidly as shipwrights can be expected to do where
they have more iron than wood to deal with. Ten
large port-holes, about 9ft. by Bft., are being pre-
pared for each of her ports. These will be hammered
into one piece, with the port in their centre, will be
of great weight, and, resting on the outer skin of
the wooden hull (let in on the planking), will afford
great support to the armour-plating round the
ports. In No. 4 dock, which is 206 ft. in length, is
the iron screw troop ship Simoom, receiving a
thorough overhaul in hull and machinery, and other-
wise preparing for commission by Capt. Lethbridge,
an officer who, as commander of her Majesty's
screw troopship Adtenture, was held in high esteem
by the military authorities of the south-west and
other military districts. The Simoom is a fine
capacious ship of 1,989 tons and 400-horse power
engines. In No. 5 dock, of 204 ft. length, is the
Pearl, screw wooden corvette of 1,469 tons and 400
horse power, just completing in one of those exten-
sive repairs lately referred to by Mr. Seely in the
House of Commons as exceeding in total cost the
original purchase. The Pearl will be a very useful
class of vessel, but she has no speed. In No. 6 dock,
190 ft. in length, is the new gunboat Cherub, ordered
to undock on the 22d inst. No. 7 dock, which is a
continuance of No. 10 (forming together the south
entrance to the steam basin from the harbour) is
now undergoing a deepening of its floor of sft, and
is, therefore, non-available. No. 8 is in temporary
use by the Orontes screw troopship, Capt. H. Hire,
which has been recoated below the water-line with
pigment non-fouling, &c., compositions, and is or-
dered to be undocked on the 24th inst. It is some-
what curious that these new iron screw troopships
should require so often docking. The new troop
galley constructed on the dockyard plan and fitted
on board the Orontes during thepastsummer is con-
sidered out of repair. This is said to be owing-to:the
large fires which are requisite to give the requisite
heat for cooking with it; in boiling and baking the
consumption of fuel averaging nearly 15cwt. per day,
and fires have to be lighted by 2 a.m. each day to
get the men's breakfasts ready by regulation time. ,

These are serious defects, and yet the Admiralty or-
dered one of these galleys to be placed on board the
Edgar prior to her sailing for Lisbon. As a contrast
to this it is but fair to notice the galley placed by
the Admiralty orders on board the Duke of Welling-
ton training ship on the planpatented by Mr. Grant,
superintending storekeeper of the Royal Clarence
Victualling-yard, Gosport. This galley has proved
a perfect success, both in point of time ocmpied in
cooking and in consumption of fuel. Since it has
been placed on board upwards of 40,000 rations of
soft bread have been baked by it for the use of the
crew. Its average daily consumption of fuel is less
than scwt. With these facts it is almost inexpli-
cable why the Admiralty do not generally adopt
it in her Majesty's ships. To return more im-
mediately to the docks : No. 9, 250 feet in length,
is used as a breaking-up dock, and now contains
the Alfred, late a target and experimental firing
ship for the gunnery ship Excellent. The Alfred was
the first vessel made use of in England as a target-
ship for testing guns and armour-plates, and during
the time she has been breaking up in No. 9 not only
have pieces of iron and steel of all forms and sizes
been removed from her frame, but several live shells
have been found embedded in her frame, and have
necessarily been removed with every care and re-
turned to the gunnery ship Excellent. No. 10 dock
contains the new paddle despatch vessel Helicon,
preparing for her trial and commission. No. 11 is
a dock still in the hands of the contractors and
' about four-fifths completed, and, therefore, will be
for some time to come yet unavailable for service.
The building slipways of the yard, as we have already
observed, are vacant, the last vessel launched from
them being the Helicon, now fitting for commission
in No. 10 dock. Alongside the jetties of the yard
are lashed the Minotaur, Valiant, Warrior, Salamis,
Osborne, Lightning, and America target-ship.
The Minotaur is our latest iron frigate from the
Thames, and handsome as she undoubtedly is in her
hull, she is certainly unsurpassed for ugliness in her
spars and rigging aloft, where her five masts, 12
crossedyards, and compound tracery of rigging seem
to have been designed for the special purpose of
affording a certain mark to an enemy's shot in action
and an equal certainty of fouling the screw of the
ship when knocked away and overboard. It is un-
derstood that the Admiralty have decided already on
substituting single for her double topsail yards, with
fidded topgallantmasts to her topmasts. The ship I
has been sparred and rigged on theoretical, but most
certainly not on practical principles. But two out
the four blades are yet fitted to the Minotaur's
screw, and therefore, for this as well as other reasons,
the ship will have to be placed in dock before she can
make any trial of her speed. She may equal the
Warrior in point of speed, but it is not expected she
can excel her. Three of the 12k ton smooth-bore
150-pounder guns for the Minotaur have been landed
at the dockyard by one of the Ordnance steam
transports from Woolwich. The Valiant iron frigate,
a sister vessel to the Hector, is completing alongside
the jetty north of the Minotaur for trial and com-
mission, and ahead of the Valiant lies the renowned
and as yet unsurpassed Warrior, cleared out and
dismasted, and waiting to be taken in hand by the
dockyard authorities for repairs and refit. For this
purpose she will be floated into the steam basin, if
practicable, on the 25th inst. The shipshould have
been in the steam basin months since, but the
deepening of the basin's floor rendered the delay
which has thus occurred unavoidable.

Just ahead of the Warrior lies the Salamis, pre-
paring for foreign service—most probably in the Dar-
danelles, in attendance on the British Ambassador at

the Court of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan, but
with her boilers requiring some repairs ; and next
the Salamis lies the Royal paddle yacht Osborne,
Commander John D'Arcy, completing the renova-
tion of deck and cabins for the service of Royalty.
At the extremity of the yard lie the Lightning,
paddle steamer, and the American target ship—the
former waiting a chance to enter the steam basin and
the latter her turn of entrance to the breaking-up
dock, having finished her career as a target-ship.
Off in the harbour, mid-channel, the Royal
paddle-yacht Victoria and Albert is lying at her
moorings, preparing for a voyage to Dublin with
his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and wait-
ing for entrance to a dock, which she cannot obtain
before the 25th inst. The Octavia frigate, fitted
with experimental engines, lies lashed alongside a
hulk off the dockyard, rigged, armed, and stored in
readiness for commission. She is a Symondite-built

wooden frigate, of 3,161 tons, and 500-horse power
engines, and carries the bow with which she was
originally constructed. Rumour assigns as her
future captain, Captain M. Connolly, some time
since commanding the Sutlej, as flag captain to
Rear-Admiral J. Kingcombe. Besides the work thus
going on in the different vessels we have enumerated
in the basins, docks, and alongside the jetties of
Portsmouth dockyard, there is certainly other
going on in generally unnoticed places in the
nooks and by-ways of the Master-Shipwright's
department, in the foundries, the smithery, the
mast-sheds, the boat-houses, and a score of other
places ; but it is an indisputable fact that the pro-
gress made in this description of work since the in-
. _ .

troduction of iron in a greater extent in a ship's con-
struction has fallen in the proportionate ratio in
which iron has superseded wood. In the steam
factory department the organisation is more perfect
than in any other department of the yard, and the
results are necessarily the more satisfactory ; and
even the casual visitor walks through its long vista
of workshops, where he sees every inch of space oc-
cupied by labouring machinery and its attendants,

with far greater satisfaction than he does past the
basins, docks, and wharves or jetties, with their
forced inactivity and the evident languor of mind
and body they evidently impress upon all who ap-
proach them.

Portsmouth dockyard possesses a collection of
models of ships from a very early date, and a goodly
and most interesting collection of records ; but even
in these matters no care has been taken for the
future. Ships of ancient lineage are shown in side
models, but without name or date of build ; for no
record has been kept until late years of the doings of
past naval architects in the mould loft, nor has any
record been kept or books or documents of past
times. As with the docks and basins, so it has been
with all things, besides, in the yard, and the ancient
motto inscribed over its gate was doubtless " Best
and be thankful."

APPREHENSION OF A SUSPECTED MURDERER.—At
an early hour on Friday morning a telegram was re-
ceived in Glasgow from the chief constable of St. Helen's,
a town about 12 miles from Liverpool, which intimated
that a young man named James Dickenson, a bottlemaker,
aged about 22, had left Liverpool on Thursday by the
Liverpool and Glasgow steamer Princess Royal, and that
he was wanted on the charge of having caused the death
of a young man named Edward Rowson, by drowning. De-
tective Donnelly and Sergeant Muir were at once despatched
to await the arrival of the steamer. So soon as the Princess
Royal was moored alongside the quay, Donelly went
aboard, and among the crowd of passengers he speedily
espied his man, who was standing in'the centre of a group
in the forecastle of the ship. Upon going up to him and
asking if his name was " Campbell," the prisoner replied
that it was not, and stated that he came from St. Helen's
near Liverpool. Upon being informed of the nature of the
charge which was laid against him, he became greatly
agitated, but declared his innocence of the crime. He sub-
tequently stated, however, when being searched at the
police-station, that he was in company with the deceased
Edward Rowson on the night he was drowned, and that
they had both been drinking to excess. After three o'clock
in the morning, the prisoner and deceased were going home
together, when the prisoner left his companion for a few
minutes for a private purpose ; and that, upon his return
to the spot whore he had left Rowson, ho found that ho
was gone. Ho continued to shout his name for some time,
but receiving no answer, he went home. The prisoner is a
light-built young man,and has a frank, honest countenance.
A telegram was immediately despatched to inform the
authorities at St. Helen's of the capture. —North British

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