Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1898-07-21
EXPERTS IN A PANIC.
Work Of Our Army and Navy Puts tho
Foreign Critics to Dire Confusion.

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in the war, not oven tho heroic sink
ing of the Merrimac, Interested and
delighted tho great bulk Of the Eng
lish people so much as Lieutenant
Commander Wainwright's extraordi-
nary performance with the Glouces-
ter. English naval history is onor-
nous in bulk and thickly studded
with remarkable achievements, but it
contains nothing ut all resembling
this. People talk about it endlossly
with mingled amusement and won
der. Doubtless they enjoy it the
more because it completes and en-
phasizos tho discontinue of tho ma
val experts who made such goats of
themselves in the London press at
tho beginning of tho war. Practi.
cally everything these wise folks
said has been falsiiicd by events, but
in nothing else wore they so con-
spicuously wrong as about the Span
ish torpedo boat destroycrs. Ac-
cording to these so-called experts
these terrible destroyers quite made
up for Spain's infcriority in battle
ships. Some were content to say
that they equalized tho naval forces
of the two combatants. Others in
sisted that they put America at a
disadvantage. This being country
whore everything naval is of intense
popular interest, the general public
not only read, but remembered, these
predictions, and there were evon
founded upon them public COM
plants that the British Admiralty
did not hasten to build more of these
marvellous dcstroyers. Then comes
the grotesque anti-climax of q con-
vcrtcd yacht, taken by surprise, en-
gaginy two of them single handed,
dismantling and chasing them in
half sinking helplessness upon the
rocks. John Bull could not have
smiled more richly if Wainwright
bore the queens commission. I'm
happily readers over here arc being
furnished with vast deal more stuff
about Skaters grievances against
Sampson, Sampson's injustice to
Schley and dozen other similarly
obscure and veXatious stories Of per-
sonal friction and jealousy than is
good for either them or us.
Many important subjects thrown
to the top by tho events of tho past
week are being anxiously discussed
by the British naval officers. 1t is
hardcly too much to say that Santiago
has frightened them. They realized
that American gun practice must be
infinitely superior to British. Lord
Charles Bercsford is going around
declaiming in the lobbies that he
warned the admiralty and parlia-
ment of this years ago, striving to
incite a parliamentary mutiny against
tho ad:niralty's stupid neglect of gun
merry. 1t is suspected, moreover,
that American snip ordnance and
ammunition are superior to the Brit
ish, and it is known that their ar
moring is; and this is going to be
talked about bitterly. But most
striking of all is the sudden pcrccp
tion here among naval officers that
our Annapolis mon are scientifically
their betters. While England has
four military colleges, her immcas-
ureably moro important naval needs
are supposed to be served by q sim
gle educational institution at Green
wich, the scope of which can be
Judged by the fact that it has eight
professors and eighteen tutors, seve-
raj of the latter attending about once
or twice n week. This state of affairs
is really 80 preposterous that it can
only require some such sharp awake
ming rs Santiago has furnished to
alter it. There have been no British
naval manIuvres for years in which
more collisions, accidents and mis-
understandings have not occurred in
q week than the whole American
campaign in Cuban waters has oxh-
bitcd. When British officers them
selves say that this is because they
are not educated Ike tic Ai,iuricuns,
as thoy arc saying all over the coun-
try, it il probable that there will be
q change. 1t is not an inappropriate
place to add that English men of
affairs confess to me their surprise
at not hearing of steps being taken
by tho United States swiftly to train
n young civil service staff for tho
specific duties of colonial administra-
ton. 70 send out mskillcd admin
istrators, ignorant of the habits and
ideas of country, and dependent
on native interpreters and rebel poll
ticaI advisers, is, they say, to walk
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