Evening star., 1898-07-25

"a lic TINT (f TGuCU gray
having been abandoned. The vessels to be
painted white are those either serving or
commissioned for service at the home
ports, In the East Indies, China, southeast
coast OF America. west coast of Africa
Cope OF Good Hope, east coast of Africa
| and the Red sea. All other vessels in COM
mission will be painted black" This is
merely an adhesion to the good old rule of
the service, which has established black at
home and white abroad as the orthodox
and regular livery Of her majestys navy.
torpedo boats have sometimes a tint of
| nvid gray, or slate color rendering them
even more ugly than is their hdeous wont,
and hulks and receiving ships laid uD in
creeks or tarbors, will often be tinted with
that lEgubrious color which we see the
Tsneraire wearing in Turner'S noble paint
| ing, when the gallant old vessel passes un-
| der the scarlet sunset to her last berth,
| mournfully arrayed "in sad suit Of dock
yard drab."
European and AsIatic CoIors.
In Nelson's time, and ever since, black
has been the prevalent coloring of British
| men-o'-war, which are distinguished now
also on all the temperature stations by
| their majestic ebon hulls free of all embel
lishment in gliding or color, except the
| blazon on the stem and the name ribbon
ON the stern, and with buff-painted top
sides and upper works and tunnels, char
acteristic if not lovely. The French are
! fond of kind of dove-colored or leaden-
| tinted coating for their warships, which
| makes many an uncouth Galic monster Of
| their sea line ill-favored to the last degree
| The Spaniards stick mainly to black. The
| Italians, Japanese, Chileans and Chinese
| paint their vessels either white or light
blue when they go abroad. These matters
rest good deal with a commanders taste
| and inclination when he is not sailing in
| squadron. In days of filibustering, piracy
| privateering and the like, all sorts of tricks
| could be played. and were played, with the
| paint pot by captains more ingenious than
| honest. With the leisure of dry and
| quiet day, the strategical skipper could
| convert his most wicked-looking, jet-black
craft into an innocent trader, with a blue
| stripe around her bends, in token of mouI n
| ing for her owner, and gun ports blocked
! out with yellow scroll work and angels in
| Dutch metal. The notorious Alabama more
| than once entirely altered her color scheme
| to cheat the Yankee cruisers who were
chasing her. or to deceive the Yankee mer-
Chantmen, no less than seventy-nne of
| which she destroyed. And more than once
| in own naval history clever captain
has effected fine stroke of luck by piping
| 'all hands to the paint pots" when expect
! ing a meeting with some needless enemy.
| Under the circumstances of modern war
| fare, however, 1t no longer greatly matters
| what hue warship wears. Beyond ques-
| ton white paint will keep vessel cooler in
| tropical seaS.
There is a sensible difference due to radia-
| ton in the temperature of a craft thus
!
which seems to suck in the fiery beams of
| the sun. III point of escaping observation
/ there is not much to be said in favor of one
color over another Cats are all alike gray
| in the dark" and one big ship is as plain as
| another If her hull can be seen at all after
| sunset. Long before that part of her ap-
| pears above the horizon q good lookout man
| will have concluded by her rig, if she car
res canvas, and by her pole masts or fight
| ing tops if she is an ironclad, what lies be-
low. On board the Alabama, already al
| luded to, the Confederate Semmes had a
Signalman who could detect any American
| rigged ship by the least portion of her gear,
| SO he never once made a mistake, and to
! follow his hail was generally to add another
| chronometer to the nefariouS captains col
lection, or to send another Boston or New
| York trader and cargo to the bottom of the
| ocean. White paint for a man-of-war, as
also for a cruising pleasure schooner or
! steam yacht, is certainly comely and shape
| ful, bringing out fine lines as no dark COL
| ors will, but it soon grows rusty with the
weeping from the channel irons and soiied
| with the buffets of the waves so that the
dark hues will stand better for long voy-
| ages But whoever has observed distant
| craft at sea, from their first appearance on
the far verge until you can read their name
| plate and see the cut of the skipper's beard,
| will agree that tint makes little difference
| The hull may roll snow white or light black
| or green, or blue, or yellow. like Chinese
junkS, to the sunlight but whatever you
see first is that sunlight cleaning on her
| wet bends and the shine of the copper.
| Even light ship painted blood red loses its
| differentiation in any wet or thick weather
| and looms gray as the billows it rolls upon.
Torpedo Boat Colors.
| 1t is no doubt another question alto
| gether with torpedo boat and torpedo de-
| stroyers, the business of which devilish
craft is to steal unobserved into proxim-
| ity with their victims. so as to deal the
fatal blow with some chance of safety and
| n erir to
made abroad and at home in this regard,
initiating or trying to initiate nature, which
! has SO many wonderful devices of mimicry
and evasive coloring. One sees at the
| South Kensington natural history museum
| many a marvellous example of this art
| which, could 1t be emulated by man upon
| the deep. would make the lives of the fin
est battle ships a very precarious invest
ment, men, one sefS tns, snow.pure ptarmigan
| from it; the grouse egg on the mottled
| rock, exactly resembling the stone itself:
the weasels rats and birds and reptiles
| cunningly dyed and speckled and striped
SO to be exactly Ike the tones and tints
| of their habitat, invisible to their enemies
and undiscerned by their prey. Naval ar
chitects have sought to rival this by giving
torpedo craft. as far as was possible with
| white and gray and slate color and black.
| the general ASPECT and hue of the sea it.
! SELF But it comes to little of practical ad-
| vantageS.
If it be dark and the assailing craft show
| no token of approach, one color is the same
| as another, and If 1t be light the search
lamp or a good watch perceives anything
| of the sea, with their powerful furnaces
| and engines, generally carry such flag of
flame at the end Of their tunnels that they
proclaim their own dread advent. The SUBJ
| marine torpedo boat, with its silent and
| fiameless machinery. would be a very dif-
ferent enemy to cope with; but these,
thanks be to Neptune! are not yet per-
! fected. 1t really does not seem therefore