The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-16
sPE'EplNG THE DEsTRoYER.

| w low barrier of hills, the shining harbor reaches smooth as glass in the morn ing sun: and under the hills lie the checkered black and white hulls of the old wooden war ships, the reverend memorials of many great fights whose noise has long since died upon the sea. There. in the quiet haven, lie the vete- rams, their warfare accomplished; now, they are come to be the nurseries of the mariners who serve the fleets of the new navy.
 And here, moored beside the wharf, is fine new war ship of the queen; long, low vessel belching smoke from her three corpulent tunnels, her whole eager fabric throbbing with pent, ir- resistible energy. She is blacg from stem to stern, save for scarlet streak showing above the water-line; tunnels, single mast, cowled ventilators great and little, boats slung to davits-all are black. Piled upon the vibrating decks are bags of glistening, hand picked coal and canisters of oil; some thirty men-stokers, engine-room ar tificers, and blue -jackets-smoking and talking, await the order ITO quarters" while the roar of steam rushing through the safety valves drowns the multitudinous chatter of the dickyard. For the new torpedo boat destroyer is going upon her mai den speed trial.
 A couple of men paddle around the ship in a dingy, sweeping her water line clean from the last particle of harbor scum; at an order the men on deck vanish below; the lieutenant, mounting his little conning-to tower in hthe bows, stands beside the cox swain, and bells ring in the engine room. The destroyer moves astern, swings slowly about, and glides across the tranquil harbor, past the busy wharves, the huge open sheds, the tangle of masts, ropes and tunnels, and the square brick offices of the dock-yard and on, with long, easy motion, past the piled congeries of old, red houses, the -guardship, the round forts-out upon the green water.
 Again the bells ring in the engine room, where the needle of the tele- graphdial points to Full speed ahead" and in an intense, rattling vii bration seizes and shakes the long ship like an ague long, foam-lipped wave curls slantwise from her bows; astern, a fountain of foam leaps above the gunwale and streams away in fam shaped father, swiftly subsiding to a white path seething on the waters. ~I. IL. brown smoke that trails away to lee ward in vast and rolling cloud, east ing shadow on the dancing sea. The men passing to and fro on deck must struggle against the wind of her go- ing; while on the distant, sliding shore languid pillars of smoke are rising here and there into the stilly air. But not yet does the official test of speed . begin; for the engines must race for half an hour or more in order to touch their full momentum.
 By that time the pouring smoke is laced with red flame; the stern sucks down until the hooded black ventila- tors which crowd the flush deck a white reflection shining upon each seem running up hill to the bows
 The stinging spray is flying like a shower of pebbles, and the masthead quivers like a whip with the tremen- dous vibration. Down in the engine room there reigns a shattering, cata- clysmic uproar; the indicating needles are all a-quiver upon the brass trimmed dials; the artifcers, grease from head to foot, sluice oil and water poun the bearings until the frantic en- zines race and hammer in blinding , mist. And down in the stokehold into < which the air is driven by whirline fans, the stokers sweat in storm o1 , | coal dust. With trained fury of en- ergy the grmy men in goggles never
 cease from heaving coal into the l white-hot furnaces, raking and goad. ' l ing, with long iron slices, the intolera. . ble fires.
 The first white buoy that marks the
 measured mile is reached; the two
 corresponding poles set up ashore y twinkle one behind another, and arc f left far astern in an instant--the sec s ond buoy is passed, the second pair ot ] | poles merge into one for moment
 and Thirty point four-eight-four, : says the contractors engineer, stop , | WdLCu III ndHu, CO1lpldCSnLly. f1t 3 means that the destroyer is travelling a fraction under thirty and one-hal e knots, or about thirty-five miles in tht ] hour.
 And therefore for three hours tn, . swift and mighty little monster of de
 struction is tearing through the wate f at top speed until the thrilling. throb
 ping jar Is fit to shake her to pieces T. the tunnels are pillar of sea salt, ant n continually out of the heart of tha ? crashing turmoil there clangs a bodinl note of imminent disaster.
 At last the hour strikes-the trial i = done-the tunnels cease to vomi 7 smoke, and the racked and strainin,
 vessel, released from that demonia d compulsion, swims suddenly in a bles
 sed peace. So the destroyer glide e homeward easily as a swallow, an, ;. fetches up at the quay as the chil
 spring twilight is falling, and tn
 dock-yard mateys are all troopini
 home.
 Equipped with the insidious torpedo T. armed with six qick-firing guns, ant outstripping any craft afioat the de : stroyer holds place in the vanguard o :. the armies of the sea.
 z Stand upon her leaping decks ant /, behold, beyond the smoke and flame o