The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1906-02-03
Inspected war vessels.

Lying ahead Of the Terror was II. N.
s. Hiehfyer. We were allowed To 20
on board and guide sent around with
It's, describing everything on board, and
showed Us how the large guns were
worked. loaded. sighted and fired. 1t
Is wonderful, the ingenuity Of man, and
was quite revelation to las. There
were two small guns on deck that fired
365 shots 4 minute i boarding crew
would have very little chance Of getting
a footing on deck. Flash lights were ex-
planned TO as, showing how they were
operated. The tackles were at work
barefootsd, temperature "a degrees. Ev-
erythiHg on board ship was as clean
as new pin, guns oil ready for action,
all discharged by electricity, and every
thing in readiness for the destruction Of
human life In reading OF the fight Of
the Sea of Japan ! was surprised to
see how easily those fighting monsters
were put out Of action, but | understand
it better now. Before forget about the
guns, there Is a small piece Of mechau-
ism which gives the distance of the
enemy's ship, the sailing speed Of the
enemy. also the speed oil the vessel you
may be on, So there is no guess work,
and one can tell as exactly as ii the
distance was measured. 1t is wonderful.
A few shells bursting on deck Of one
Of those men .of-war would clean the
deck Of everything, gums and ALL |
think great improvements can DO made
on those lighting monsters yet. Let
two nations come together equally
matched with ships, men and guns, and
what q destruction there would bel In
few hours they would be like the
Kilkenny cats-not a yestige Of them
would be seen.
Today. the 22nd, they are celebrating
the anniversary Of the ascension to the
throne Of King Edward VII. The Ter
ror. Hiehhyer, and the cruiser Royal
Arthur, which had Just come from the
West Indies. were declSed from stem
to stern with bunting. We tried 70
count the flags on one Of them, but
could not. Il was a pretty sight. Oracle,
on looking them over, did not see the
Stars and Stripes and said Where
II our naggH She seemed very much
hurt because it was not there, and said
that we On the United States) would
lei them fly their flag. We had %
explain matters to her, and then she felt
better. How il that for young Americas
we left the ship, highly pleased with
what we had seen and the way we we're
treated. No one can say the British
'starsv do not respect the american peo-
pie. One thing we noticed was the
size Of the jacIties. They run from FIVE
feet four 10 five feet six inches ii height.
very few over it, stout, well built fel-
lows, as active as squirrels, The Brit
ish government keeps man-of-war
here all tile time for training the young
cadets. On our way ont 6f the navy
yard, one Of our party III cigar. One
81 the officer spicd him and Il had 70
10, as no smoking IS allowed on the
works. They did not allow O. into
the dry dock. but me could sec into it
from Tho wharf One of The cruisers
was III 1T, being repaired
IN one oi the excavations they were
making wa noticed strata of red
soil about twelve feet from The surface;
Oh top 81 this was the solid coral rock,
showing plainly that there had been
vegetation there 1T some former period
N tho eaFth'A history When digging
tbc basin for The new dry dock, twenty