The San Francisco call., 1898-02-21
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BY A MODEST CRITIC.
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 The calamity in Havana harbor has awakened somewhat dormant public opinion touching Cuba. With it have no sympathy. If there were no cause for interference in Cuban affairs before the bewailable disaster to the Maine there IS none now. It is to-day quite impossible to say, and the probabilities are that we shall never accurately know, just what caused the loss to the nation of warship and hundreds of valuable lives. At the same time the opportunity to express opinion" has naturally been grasped by the various stuffed admirals, vice-admirals, cap tains and commanders that decorate newspaper offices. Happily this paper has no such clown. Such a volume of unintelligence on any one subject has surely never got so great publicity in so short a time. The piece de resistance possibly has been supplied by the Bull letin, whose anility is daily more con- spicuous-no matter what is on the tapis. This is it's opening editorial sen- tence: "The fact that the battleship Maine was blown up in the harbor of Havana will cause many people to sur mise. if not believe, if there was not some design in what may have been a disaster" The loss of the Maine was a very distinct disaster; one that makes a mark, and mark which may (though it is hoped not) be dyed an indelible red
 It Is improbable that the ship was damaged either by what is commonly (but somewhat erroneously) termed an anchored torpedo, or a submarine mine From many considerations this state ment is made. To begin with, ships are not anchored where torpedoes (to use that term and save confusion) are laid, for two very good reasons. The first Is that the dropping of the anchor might explode single mine and possibly rem der useless many others; the second Cor far greater importance to the safety of the harbor) is that in weighing anchor the probability of fouling the initial moorings of a whole field of torpedoes is too great to be risked. I cannot be- lieye that the Maine was moored at a buoy; Captain Sigsbee is far too ex- berienced to accept anything but his own anchor in a foreign port, and it seems incredible that he should have been assigned to an anchorage over an elaborate submarine defense which the Maine's anchor might easily-and inad- vertently-have rendered useless. How ever, admitting that the ship was pur- posely placed over a field of mines, she was in ten or twelve fathoms of water, and was probably riding to fifty or sixty fathoms of cable. This would give | fLo nf of 1aoS 6ua dred feet, and the firing of a single anchored torpedo for her destruction would be the merest kind of guesswork. Evidently no field was fired. While she may have been torpedoed from the shore, the talk of a bomb placed near the forward magazines has no weight absolutely none-when the probabilities are calmly considered. That, any one conversant with the structure and the care of magazines would know.
 One of the most important points for determination is Was the Maine in anchorage that was commonly used?" If she was there were no anchored tor pedoes there; if not, the possibilities are there were. It may be noted in passing that this matter Is very care fully watched by foreign powers in all harbors. Where anchorage Is regular ly forbidden or inpracticable the ma rine warfarer says Look out for mines here.' The rule is not accurate but 1t is ever worth bearing in mind that ground used regularly for anchorage is practically never used as a torpedo field.
 The disaster to the Maine, coincident with the we'll expressed ill feeling Of the Spanish people toward this nation, seems to have eliminated from some minds the little reasoning power they had Spontaneous combustion in the bunkers or either of the magazines is, of course possible explanation of im- mediate cause, and the crossing of electric wires through wearing of insu- lation another Yet Captain Zalinski, who owes the United States much, opes his mouth to observe that we have done away with" spontaneous com- bustion. Possibly we have, but when we accomplished this feat we, too, did away with all the properties of all chemicals.
 Weeks to come, when what remains of the Maine Is raised, we may know more about the matter than we do now, but even that is dubitable. High ex- plosives seem to delight in gnarling and twisting things with which they come in contact into fantastic shapes, and with so little apparent method that ex- perts often despair of controlling with any degree of certainty any of the &C., tions of these death-dealers.
 'Mongst the crowd of seers who know all about this terrible tragedy comes MT. Julian Hawthorne, who sees fit to tell us what was the active agent in the destruction of the Maine. MT. Hawthorne's opinion is entitled to no consideration in the world. He Is not an authority on that point-or any other that I wot of. Not only has he no knowledge of explosives, but he IS an individual who sees nothing even when he Is paid to observe. He should be confined in a corner with insistence until he Is 'heard to cease. This, however, does not detract from his fit- ness to represent the yellow journal to
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