The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-12

Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph
THE LOSS OF THE CAPTAIN.

The sinking of the iron-clad Captain off
the Spanish coast on Thursday morning last,
with all on board, is q calamity such as has
not befallen the British navy since the Royal
George, with Kempenfeldt and twice five
hundred men, went down at her anchors at
Spithead. At night the vessel rode the waves
the finest war ship perhaps that ever sailed
the sea- At dawn her consort swept the
horizon in vain for the least trace of her.
Only later in the day some stray spars and
small boats that the great deep had given up
attested her dismal fate. In the face of so
terrible disaster as this-a disaster which
not only swallows up the most superb speci
men of naval architecture ever known, but
carries down with it five hundred gallant Eng
lish sailors-it may seem harsh to dwell on
mere points of technical precision; and yet
in the interests of humanity it is proper that
the build of the Captain should be touched
on, that the revelation of its now lamentably
well-proven defects may help to avert such
dreadful casualties in the future.
In its build, it's plan, its armament, the
Captain was, up to the hour it foundered, to
all human insight simply perfection. 1t was
Q huge ship of 1912 tons burden, armed with
q battery of six guns-300- Founders, if we
are not mistaken-which had in their trials
penetrated every obstacles and, in order that
its defensive armament might equal its
offensive, the ship was clad in a mail of eight
inch wrought iron. Moved at great speed
by engines of 900-horse power, manned with
picked crew of 500 men, and steaming out
under the banner of st. George for trial
trip on the French coast, no wonder the pride
of England was stirred by so magnificent a
witness that she still was Captain" of the
glory of the sea. By any adversary of
human contrivance the great ship would pro-
badly have been irresistible but the wind
rose, and in storm that many a wooden
uboIa had ot fha irop
leviathan went down. Under the stress
of sudden squall the staunchest iron-clad
ever put in commission sinks as swiftly as
one of her own shot, and by SO sinking de-
monstrates that the limit of naval armoring
has been fatally reached Like the Admiral
Earl of Sandwich, she was carried down by
her armor of proof. Ranging from s inches
in the most exposed portion of her hull, to Z
4, and inches as the exposure lessened, the
weight of her protection became her destruc-
tion; and in contemplating that destruction
it would be we'll for the British Admiralty,
and for that matter naval constructors every
where, to take instant pause. With s inch
armor the Captain succumbed to squall, and
yet there are now in the English dockyards
the Invincible, Iron Duke, Swiftsure,
Triumph, and Vanguard, all to have
a like maximum plating, with 6 inch
armor as minimum m, double the Cap
tain's minimum; the Hercules and Sultan
to have 9-inch armor; the Hotspur to have
11-inch; and the Glutton to have the mon
strous thickness of one foot. With the evil
dence afforded by the terrible fate of the
vessel which has just feundered that the
armor limit is overstepped for safety at eight
inches, no matter what the calculations may
say about sufficient buoyancy under that or
greater thicknesses, it would surely be crimi-
nal for the naval authorities of Christendom
not to arrest the further construction of ves-
sells so heavily plated as to be but mere man.
traps in reality, however imposing or efficient
to the fancy or the eye. The sea will not
sustain fabrics that with the offensive also
possess the defensive strength of forts, and
the sooner the effort to realize that impossi-
bility is abandoned the better for life and art.
Naval architecture must recognize the facts
of nature; and such disasters as that of the
Captain-a disaster originating obviously
from a system, and not like the loss of the
Royal George, in an abnormal circumstance
of carelessness cease to appal huma-
nifty.
Five hundred men dragged downtown in
an instant of time, in an iron box-is ter
rife commentary on over-armoring. 1t is
simply awful to reflect on what must have
been the circumstances of this ,frightful casu-
atty. One lurch, and all must have been
over. Perhaps but a single wave was shipped,
and under that weight of water the ship,
already Durdened TO WltMn nalr 8 BREADTH
of her resisting power, went down like
lead. No rocket was shot, no gun fred, not
so much as one boat was cleared. When we
consider how brief time is required on a
man-of- war for either of these operations, we
can dimly realize the heart-rending sudden
ness with which the finest vessel in the
world disappeared forever At night, says
Admiral Mines simply pathetic despatch,
the Captain lay ''near us. At dawn ''she was
missing.