The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 16, 1866.

Central Criminal Court—This Day.

OLD COURT.
(Before Mr. Justice Keating.)
The lad 'Watson, aged 17, who was yesterday convicted
of a heinous offence against Martha Hunt, aged 16, was
brought up this morning for judgment.
The learned Judge said, taking into consideration the
recommendation of the jury, he sentenced the prisoner to
five years' penal servitude.

NEW COURT.
(Before the Recorder.)
ROBBERY BY A SOLDIER.
James Berry, a private in the Scots Fusilier Guards, was
ndicted for stealing a watch.

The prosecutor, a young man named Mathews, said he
was at Lisson-grove, Paddington, on the 12th of this
month, and there being in a public-house he met the pri-
soner and some other persons. lie paid for some beer for
the party, and then left the house with the intention of
going home. Oa his road he was pushed about by the
men, and ultimately prisoner made a snatch at his watch,
which he tore away and then ran off. He was followed
by a witness named Castle, who never lost sight of him
until he was captured by the former, and just as ho was
being arrested he threw the watch away, which was after-
wards picked up and. identified by the prosecutor as his
property.
The evidence left no doubt about the matter, yet the
prisoner strongly denied that he ever took the watch.
The jury immediately returned a verdict of guilty.
A former conviction was proved against the soldier.
The Recorder sentenced him to 18 months' imprison-
ment.

THIRD COURT.
(Before the Common Sergeant.)

James Leary and James Gulliver surrendered to an in-
dictment charging them with stealing a quantity of seed
from St. Katherine's Dock.

The jury found both prisoners guilty.
The Common Sergeant sentenced Leary to 12 months'
and Gulliverlto 9 months' imprisonment with hard labour.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.—This Day.

MANSION-HOUSE.

DARING ATTEMPT AT ROBBERY.—A young man named
William Poole, a shoemaker, was charged before Sir R.
Carden, with attempting to rob Emily Bastin of two
leather bags, her property.
_

From the evidence of the prosecutrix, a young unmarried
lady, it appeared that yesterday evening about 9 o'clock she
was going up Queen-street, City, and had the two bags in
question in her hand, when the prisoner snatched at them,
but she succeeded in retaining them. He then ran away,
and about five minutes afterwards she saw him is the cus-
tody of a police officer.
Sir R. Carden—Did he pull the bags very violently ?
Prosecutor—Yes, and the chain of one of the bags was
broken, and the handle of the other was torn off.
A Police-constable of the City force said that last even-
ing, while he was on duty in Watling-street and Cannon-
street, he saw the prisoner running towards him and
stopped him. The prosecutor immediately afterwards
came up and gave him in charge. The prisoner said to
him that he saw some others running and that he ran too,
and he denied being the party who made the attempt to
rob the lad. He stated further that he had been staying
at a house in Church-street, Shoreditch, but could not give
the number, and that he had come up from Nottingham.
One of the officers of the court said he thought the pri-
soner had been in custody before, but he did not recollect,
under what circumstances or whether ho had been con-
victed.

The prisoner denied this, and repeated iu substance the
statement he had previously made to the policeman ; and
upon examining his hands it appeared that he had been
lately at hard work.
The prisoner was remanded until to-morrow, in order
that some inquiries might be made respecting him.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.—This Day.

COURT OF BANKRUPTCY.
THE LONG VACATION.

The long vacation has just commenced here, but one
Commissioner remains in town to take ordinary applica-
tions, the principal business of the court standing over until
November, when it is expected to be unusually heavy. At
present it is purely formal.

The American Navy.

A visit to the navy-yards at Washington and
New York will afford a convincing proof of the de-
termination of the Americans to profit by every
lesson which they learnt during their recent war.
During the last three years of that great struggle
the ingenuity of the people was turned solely to the
improvement of warlike appliances, and conse-
quently the lists in the Patent-office include compa-
ratively few inventions intended for manufacturing
or domestic purposes. All the skill of a sharp-witted
race was bent upon a particular subject, and the
number and variety of new arms or plans for con.
strutting iron ships which were laid before the Go-
vernment are past calculation. The necessities of the
weaker side led to the first and greatest invention
of the war—the ironclad. The Merrimac was cut
down and covered with old railway iron, at the sug-
gestion of a Confederate naval officer, and, although
the regular navy will not concede that the idea ori-
ginated with the " rebels," yet there can be no doubt
that when the Merrimac began it 3 terrible work, the
North had no veztsel fit to match her, but they soon
produced an imitation of her which was far better
than the original. From that time to the present
the improvement of ironclads has been' the constant
aim of the Navy Department. It has tried every
suggestion that seemed to have a reasonable prospect
of success, and it is the simple truth to affirm that
every Monitor which is launched is stronger and
more complete in all its details than the one which
preceded it. With our present knowledge, at least,
it is difficult to point out any part of these formid-
able vessels into which an improvement can be in-
troduced.

The labours of the Navy Department have doubt-
less been greatly facilitated by the fact that the ad-
ministration has not been subject to constant and
sudden changes, such as take place in our Board of
Admiralty with every change of Ministry. One set
of men, understanding their business thoroughly,
and with a perfect recollection of all that has been
done in the. Department, have had the American
navy under their control for years past. There has,
therefore, been steady and continuous work ; in-
ventions have not been dropped because the first
officer has been. removed, nor has any inventor suf-
fered on account of the reluctance of a new staff of
officials to accept the responsibilities and engage-
ments of the old. The officer who has been sent
to Europe in charge of the Miantonomah has been
Assistant-Secretary of the American navy through-
out the war, and the chief bureaus remain as they
were in 1861. Most of the heads of these bureaus
received their appointments in reward for some im-
provements which they had discovered. The Depart-
ment is not embarrassed by party ties, nor have its
chiefs to study family interests, and thus it is left
free to do its work in its own way, and, as there is
no representative of the Government in Congress,
there is not even the check of "questions" or notices
of motion upon the action of Mr. Wellcs and his
colleagues. All that the people ask for is that their
fleet shall be made the most powerful in the world.
The Navy Department promises to give them that,
and if there is any question about its having ac-
complished its purpose to-day there will be none a
few years hence, if they advance_as swiftly, and we
and other European nations move as slow, as at
the present moment.
The whole principle of rifled ordnance, as is well
known, is being abandoned by tie Americans.
Their argument is that they care nothing for high
velocity so long as they can throw the heaviest
weight of metal possible from a vessel which can go
close to the object of attack, and be itself almost
impregnable to attack. Such a vessel they believe
they po2se3s in the Monitor. They do not want
high velocity. Their plan is to get to close quarters
with the enemy and destroy him by superior weight
of metal. The smooth-bore invented by Rear-
Admiral Dahlgren, and improved by Rodman, is
indisputably the most efficient application of this
particular principle. The Americans maintain that
their cast iron is very superior to ours, and it is cer-
tain that, although every Dahlgren gun has been
severely tested before being sent from the yard, very
few indeed have burst. It is the 15-inch gun of this
kind with which the latest Monitors are armed, but
it is soon to be superseded by a 20-inch, which the
naval officers at Washington believe will be the
most serviceable and destructive gun known to the
world. -

A better gun than the Dahlgren may still be
found, but an engine of war more perfect than the
vessels intended to carry them it is hard to con-
ceive. The Monitors were at first built with a single
turret, but almost all that are laid down now have
two turrets, and carry four guns instead of two.
The Tonawandah, which is now laying off the Navy
Yard at Wazthington, is one of the latest turned out,
and it is in all respects l ike the Miantonomah, at pre-
sent on a visit to Europe. The turrets are of iron, 11
inches thick, and the guns inside, by a clever piece
of mechanism, can be rased or depressed easily by
a slight movement of the hand. The turret itself
can be lowered in a few minutes, and a plate of iron
slid over the porthole, so that there is no weak point
left for the enemy to make a mark of. Down below
the vessel seems to be all machinery ; but she has
room for her crew of 160 men, all told ; and, al-
though the landsmen may not covet the quarter
where this crew are stowed, as a matter of
fact, American sailors prefer a Monitor to any
other description of vessel. This may, perhaps,
be owing to the fact that they have less work
to do in her, for there is no rigging to look after,
and the sea washes the deck of the Monitor when
she is out on a voyage, so that all deck labour is
taken off the hands of the crew. Moreover, after the
visitor to the Monitor has spent half-an-hour in her
he will have a better opinion of the quarters as-
signed to the men. There is room to stand upright in
them and they are safe against shot, for they are be-
low the water-line, and seven inches of oak and five
inches of iron are between them and the water.
Any danger must come from shells above or torpe-
does below, and in action, battened down, the crew
of a Monitor must die together if any mischance
occurred. But it would be remarkably good prac-
tice which enabled the enemy to pitch a shell on to
the flush deck of a Monitor, which only stands three
feet out of water, and would prove an uncertain
mark at the distance of half a mile. As to the torpedo,
some of our own naval officers have concurred with
the Americans in thinking that Monitors as they
are now being built have little or nothing to fear
from these instruments, and it is of course in har-
bours only where they could encounter them. The
officers' quarters are as comfortable as any true sailor
can desire, and they are now being fitted up with
some attention to elegance and finish. There are
bath-rooms and pantries, and the cabins are in every
respect more roomy than those in an ordinary pas-
senger steamer. The draught of a Monitor of the
size of the Tonawandah is only 13 or 14 feet, her
tonnage being 1,564. She carries four engines of
about 1,400-horse power, and is fitted with appa-
ratus for pumping down the air from the turrets
and for condensing steam, similar to that which the
Miantonomah carries, and which was recently de-
scribed in these columns. The Tonawandah is about
300 feet in length and 57 feet beam. Most of the
new vessels of her class are being built of exactly
the same dimensions.
A ram has long been under construction in New
York which most people now look upon as an eccen-
tric rather than a useful development of the ironclad
theory. It is called the Dunderberg, and is intended
to carry a heavy armament, broadside awl turret,
beside the formidable ram at her bows. This ram
may be detached without injury to the vessel, but
the Dunderberg is too unwieldly to please naval men.
Her tonnage is 5,090, and her plating thicker than
that of the Monitors. It must be this vessel which
Sir John Pakington alluded to in the House of
Commons as intended to combine " three distinct
means of attack—the broadside, the turret, and the
ram bow." There is no other of the class in any of
the navy yards.
It is not, however, to the construction of iron-
clads that the naval authorities in the United
States are confining themselves. They are build-
ing 20 " cruisers," intended to do the work which
made the Alabama and the Shenandoah famous,
only to do it much more effectually. They are the
most graceful and beautiful vessels in appearance
that were ever seen, and our own naval officers
who hay° boon to the New York yard a):0 tho fait

to declare that they are far superior to any vessels'
of the same kind in the British fleet. Their bows
are as symmetrical as the bows of a yacht ; they are
built to run 17 knots an hour, and may be depended
upon for 13 or 14. They carry from 18 to 20 guns,
and, without a doubt, four or five of them could
commit dreadful havoc upon the commerce of any
nation. They have four smoke stacks, or funnels,
and all their engines are of the most complete and
perfect construction ever known. The injuries
which the Alabama inflicted upon commerce
taught the. Americans the wisdom of furnishing
themselves with means of retaliation. They began
these cruisers during the war, and have not desisted
from building them because the war is over. They
will finish the whole number to be in readiness for
service at any future time. The Admiralty has had
its attention directed to these cruisers on several
occasions, but it is very doubtful whether we have
at present any vessels in the English fleet which
possess their powerful armaments and great speed.
Three or four of them are completed, and have been
tried with complete success.
Besides guncasting and shipbuilding in the Ame-
rican navy-yards, there is always some new tor-
pedo or shell under trial. There is an expanding
torpedo which throws out huge arms when it is fired,
and shells which would destroy a Monitor, if any
511311 could.' The authorities are also proud of a
little machine for making percussion caps at the
rate of 25,000 a day, invented by a workman
in the yard. Economy and efficiency are the two
ends sought for in everything by Mr. Welles and
his subordinates, and if they sometimes fail they
have undeniabbly given the United States a naval
force capable of holding its own against any that
the European Powers could bring against it. When
the vessels now under construction are completed
the American fleet will include 75 Monitors, 401
screw or paddle steamers, and 112 sailing vessels—
carrying in all 4,443 guns. In January, 1861, 68
vessels made up the whole Americon fleet. In the
difference between the fleet in 1861 and 1866 is to
be found the best illustration that could be given of
the vigour and energy of the American navy de-
partment.—Times.