Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1878-08-10 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

IRONCLADS IN COMMISSION.  There are at thie moment the unprecedented number of thirty-three ironclad, in commission, beside, many unarmoured frigates and corvettes of recent construction. Of the ironclad, in commission, fourteen are in the Mediterranean with Admirals Hornby and Lord John Hay, fifteen are in the Particular Service Squadron and Filet Reserve, under the orders of Sir Maley Cooper Key, and the remainder are upon the China and Pacific stations. The most formidable of all are the Thunderer and Devastation turret - ship, csrrying 34-ton guns and fourteen-inch armour, the first being the stronger of the two, since it bears four weapons of this heavy calibre, while the Devantation'sarmament consists of a pair of thirty-fives in one turret and of twenty-fives in the other. The Decantation is in. the Mediterranean, being the moot powerfully armed man-of-war, British or foreign, in those waters. The finest masted ironclad, in commission just now are the Terneraire, Alexandra, Monarch, Belleiele, and Hercules. Of these the four first carry 25-ton guns, the heaviest metal borne by broadside battle-ships, the Alexandra being the flagship of the comnander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. The Temeraire, which carries two of it, heavy guns in barbette towers, fore and aft, and other two in a battery amidships, in the only vessel in the navy armed in this fashion ; while the Monarch, again, is also without a sister, being a masted turret-ship. The fourth battle-ship carrying 25-ton guns, the Belleisle, is one of the ironclads bought from the Turkish Government, and is the first of the purchased squadron! to be commissioned. The Belleisle, which is designated by the Admiralty as an armour-plated ram, is the only one of the four first class masted ironclads not in the Mediterranean. In fact, although the Particular Service Squadron at home has one more ironclad attached than the Mediterranean command, the ships of the latter are for the most part vastly superior. Six vessel, in the home fleet are old-fashioned turretships, the Glatton, Gorgon, Hydra, Hecate, Cyclops, and Prince Albert, none of which can be trusted far away from the coast; while others again, like the Warrior and Resistance. are broadside ironclad, of the earliest type. In the Mediterranean, too, there is a strong force just now of corvettes and gun. vessels, together with a fine unarmoured frigate, the Raleigh.  The trial, which lasted three days, terminated on , Wednesday. Barre and Lebies were condemned to death and the woman Lapin to three year.' imprisonment. The trial ha, caused much excitement , in Paris. The fact that the murderer, were men of good education and that one of them, Lebies, had been held, by persons in a position to toot his capacities, to be a man of talent and acquiremeets above the average of men even of his own class we, already enough to arouse curioeity. But when it was discovered that with the money he had derived from his share in the brutal assassination of a poor old milkwoman he had entered into partnership with a journalist for the foundation of a , newspaper, the story, which already seemed no longer like reality, but rather as if it were some horrible work of fiction devised for the reader. of "penny dreadfula," began to be followed with feverish interest, which haa lasted till the close of the trial. Never was a murder committed in a more deliberate manner for a more paltry object and by men who must havebeenfully alive from their education to the consequence.' of their deed. Here education seems only to have enabled the murderers to devise more elaborate means of concealment. But what strikes every cue is that, despite the unquestionable cleverness with which the body was got rid of, there could not have been a cue in which the evidence was more complete. So curious an oversight was committed by the murderers an to leave the initials on the shirt in which parts of the body were wrapped; but, though oversights seem inevitable when men aro in the strained state of mind which knowledge of the terrible consequences of such a deed must engender, it is stranger that Barre and Lebies should have thought they could escape detection.