The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-11
THE DESTROYER.

From the nuIIlllllllS uoShy VI eo eAAS low barrier of hills, the shining harbot
 reaches smooth as glass in the morn ing sun and under the hills lie the
 checkered black and white hulls of the old wooden warships, the reverend
 memorials of many great fights whose noise has long since died upon the sea- There, in the quiet haven, lie the vet erans, their warfare accomplished; now, they are come to be the nurser- ies of the mariners who serve the fleets of the new navy.
 And here, moored beside the wharf, is a fire-new warship of the Queen; a long, low vessel belching smoke from her three corpulent tunnels her whole eager fabric throbbing with pent, ir-
 resistible energy. She is black from stem to stern, save for scarlet streak showing above the water-line; tunnels, single mast, cowled ventilators great and little, boats slung to daVlts-all are black. Piled upon the vibrating decks are bags of glistening, hand picked coal, and canisters of oil; some thirty men-strokers, engine-room ar tificers, and blue ejackets-smoking and talking, await the order, ITO quar- ters"; while the roar of steam rushing through the safety valves drowns the multitudinous chatter of the backyard. For the new torpedo-boat destroyer AS going upon her maiden speed trial. A couple of men paddle around the ship in a dingy, sweeping her water line clean from the last particle of har- | bor scum; at an order the men on deck vanish below; the lieutenant, 1 mounting his little conning-toWer in | the bows, stand beside the coxswain, and bells ring in the engine-room. The destroyer moves astern, swings slowly | about, and glides across the tranquil l harbor, past the busy wharves, the | huge open sheds, the tangle of masts, ropes and tunnels, and the square brick l offices of the dockyard, and on with a | long easy motion, past the piled con- | geries of old, red houses, the port l guardship, the round forts-out upon | the green water.
 l Again the bells ring in the engine
 room, where the needle of the tele- | graph-dial points to Full speed | ahead" and an intense, rattling vibra- l tion seizes and shakes the long ship like an ague; long, foam-lipped wave | curls slantwise from her bows; astern, fountain of foam leaps above the | gunwale and streams away in fam
 shaped father, swiftly subsiding to a white path seething on the waters. The | three tunnels belch volumes of brown
 smoke that trails away to leeward in
 vast and rolling cloud, casting a
 shadow on the dancing sea. The men | passing to and fro on deck must strug- | gle against the wind of her going; I .l,;Ja fl,o Iie,fn n,,t ell e Arr
 languid pillars of smoke are rising here l and there into the stilly air. But, not | yet does the official test of speed begin; l for the engines must race for half an | hour or more in order to touch their l full momentum.
 | By that time the pouring smoke is laced with red flame; the stern sucks down until the hooded black ventilat- l ors which crowd the flush deck, a I white reflection shining upon each,
 seem running uphill to the bows. The
 stinging spray is flying like a shower of pebbles and the masthead quivers like whip with the tremendous vibration. I Down in the engine-room there reigns
 shattering, cataclysmic uproar; the indicating needles are all a-quiver; l upon the brass-rimmed dials; the arti- ficers, grease from head to foot, sluice | oil and water upon the bearings until | the frantic engines race and hammer in binding mist. And down in the
 stokehold, into which the air is driven I by whirling fans the stokers sweat in
 storm of coaldust. With trained
 fury of energy the grimy men in gog- gles never cease from heaving coal in
 to the white-hot furnaces, raking and l goading, with the long iron slices, the l intolerable fires.
 The first white buoy that marks the | measured mile is reached; the two cor responding poles set up ashore twinkle one behind another, and are left far
 astern in an instant--the second buoy | is passed, the second pair of poles | merge into one for a moment, and
 "Thirty point our-eight-four," says
 the contractors engineer, stop-watch
 in hand, complacently. He means that the destroyer is travelling fraction
 under thirty and one-half knots, or
 about thirty-five miles, in the hour.
 And thereafter for three hours, the
 swift and mighty little monster of de- 1 struction is tearing through the water at top speed; until the thrilling, throb- ping jar is fit to shake her in pieces;
 the tunnels are pillars of sea salt, and | continually out of the heart of that
 crashing turmoil there clangs a bod ing note-the trial is done-the tunnels cease to vomit smoke, and the racked | and straining vessel, released from
 that demoniac compulsion, swims sud-
 denly in a blessed peace. So the de-
 stroyer glides homeward easily as a
 swallow, and fetches up at the quay
 as the chill spring twilight is falling,
 and the dockyard mateys are all troop
 ing home.
 Equipped with the insidious torpedo,
 armed with six quick-firing guns, and
 outstripping any craft afioat, the de-
 stroyer holds pace in the vanguard of
 the armies of the sea.
 Stand upon her leaping decks and be-
 hold, beyond tine smoke the flame of
 her devouring breath, the quiet shore
 receding into the gray sky, and consid- | CT the millions of staid households
 dwelling there in imperturbable secur-
 ity, because the Queens ships keep the
 seas. The man of business goes to and
 fro, fattens, and prospers; the work
 man drinks his beer; the artist di- 1 verts himself, each after his kind; the
 politician packs his cards; while the pious bells ring every day, and the gen. | Ia cio ioh hoe , Io F.