The San Francisco call., 1898-11-07
NEWS OF FOREIGN NAMES.

The torpedo boat destroyer Pawn. the seventh boat of that class built by Palmer's at Jarrow-on-Tyne, had her trial on October f. She developed horse power of 65S1 and a speed of 462 knots, notwithstanding a heavy sea and nigh wind. The contract called for 5000 horse power and thirty knots.
 Bulgaria is now in the list of naval powers. a torpedo gunboat named Nadie- ia, of T50 tons. has just been launched at Bordeaux, and two armored gunboats are building al Leghorn- The rest of the navy consists of eleven small steamers and the operations of the Bulgarian navy are al- most entirely confined to service on the Danube.
 The Armstrong Company at Elswick had on July last 1915 naval guns of vari- ous calibers under construction. The firm had during the year then ending fur nished the armament for thirteen war ships built at that yard, besides wholly or partly equipping with guns sixteen ves- ses built at other yards. Eight ships were completed and seven were launched ranging from 4500 to 12,500 tons.
 The Pedro dAragon, building at Sestri Ponente, Italy for the Spanish navy has never been paid for by Spain, and the ship has been sold by the builders to the
 
 cate of the ill-fated Cristobal Colon, run ashore and surrendered July last off Santiago to the American squadron. The Argentine republic has now three sister ships of this very desirable type of ar mored cruisers
 advertisements recently appeared in London and provincial papers in England. They ran thus: "Wanted-Flrst-class time expired gunners for service abroad " After diigent inquiry it was learned that it was China who desired the services of practical gunners and high wages were offered for the shipment of three years, together with free passage to and from China They were wanted for the cruis- CTS building in European yards. and the men who responded to the advertisements were told they would have sole charge of gunnery batteries and were expected to bring the natives up to a state of efli- ciency equal to that of European soldiers and sailors. When the British Admiralty learned of these tempting offers to it's marines and sailors the police were in- structed to prevent men leaving for China under such agreement with the Govern ment, and each man of the reserves. mili- tary and naval. received a note of warning against breaking their oath of allegiance to her Majesty the Queen.
 Some doubt of the practical utility of high speed torpedo boat destroyers is ex- pressed by the British journals. Atten- ton is called to the fact that the Griffon, when accepted, had averaged over thirty knots during three hours and developed coco horsepower. but when the boat was placed in commission and underwent the customary trial the horsepower reached only $500 and the speed only twenty-four knots. Later on the engineers managed to get up 597O horsepower and speed of twenty-six and half knots The ex- planation offered for the discrepancy be- tween thirty and twentysix and a half knots Is that the boat. when ready for sea, was drawing one foot of water more than when she passed through her ac- ceptance trial. The excuse offered is a very good one, but as all the thirty knot boats have been run on light displace- ment the same difficulty of increased draught and weight operates against them reaching the credited high speeds under service conditions, and the alleged thirty knot boat becomes a twenty-four or twenty five knot craft in actual prac-