The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-07-18

l about the histric stones of that time worn structur that was a monument and an illustrtion of England's naval might. I pictred it about as long as the Atlantic 9ity boardwalk, and let out considerable hot air about the long lines of captuPd Spanish galleons that used to be jed up there" unloading mcldores and loubloons.
 There was man on board from Dayton, O., wo is the whole thing on the strongeh avy proposition, and is the headliner nd the rest of the pro- gramme as naval expert, and he chlpped in wen began to weaken, and said how in the Department Of Naval Construction England had pro- Sressed with tle times so that she had our navy and all the other navies of | the rest of theworld done to frazzle He allowed th.t of all the sights of the old world ther was nothing more cal culated to givs the thinking American pause than tn, staggering spectacle of the Ocean Quay at Plymouth. He said there was an electric crane there that made every other electric crane in the world lool like thirty cents He said it could ptk up the largest battle snip in the navy clean out of the water and set it down on the land for re- pairs as easy as a Kentucky senator could lift a mint julep. He Rlid it was national shame and disgrace and a DurniT1cr 1,aJa Nf bD rD ruption of Washington that we didn't nave something as good, if not better. lie promised Us, too, we should see something of the Channel Fleet, which, he said was always on guard at Ply mouth, like deg on the front stoop, and probably most of them, certainly all those in commission, would be found lined up along the Ocean Quay. The rest of the crowd stood for it all, and when we had got aboard the tender--1 won't stop to tell you what I thought of that--we were all rubbering for thewarships. soon got two of them located lying close together out from Shore, big, heavy-looking things, 1ull-bodied like a Dutch saloonkeeper, painted back and white checker-board pattern, and with tall, bare tapering masts. The naval expert from Dayton said these were the grim, silent watch dogs of Britain, ready at the word of command to let hell loose, We all tried to look as though our emotions were too big for words. For the mo- ment l saw the two ships of the Chan nel Fleet, knew for sure they were 1 timber and as old as dead Indian They had not got any sails even as far as l could see much less smokestacks and they were joined together by a sort of bridge, so that if ever they had to go to sea they would be obliged to sail tandem.
 T got busy then looking out fol Ocean Quay, and before we saw il coming we had nearly run it down ocean Quay, weather worn, historic stones--forget it. Ocean Quay was { little eight-by-ten chip of moth-eater
 staging with just room alongside [,
 accommodate a small-sized tug, whicl was what our well-appointed tende amounted to. aAtone end of 1t was thu
 original steam crane out of the ark.
 leaned dejectedly over the water as i
 1t was despairing of ever being stronl
 enough again to lift the cabin trunk l that 1t saw on the tenders deck. AnC | all its agonized hopelessness was ex lpressing itself in smoke. It was mak | ing so much smoke that the awful
 sight of the wooden Channel Squadron | lying out there in the bay was plotted Iout.
 I Through the choking smoke W
 groped our way down gangplank t,
 England and found 1t to consist, a
 much of It as was visible for smoke, o