THE DEFENCE OF LONDON.

Patea Mail, Volume II, Issue 108, 22 April 1876, Page 2

THE DEFENCE OF LONDON.

Quietly but steadily the work of fortifying the banks of the Thames has been going on, and the public lias’been somewhat taken by surprise by an unobtrusive paragraph, intimating that the powerful forts in course of erection between London and Shcerness have been completed, and are on the point of receiving their armaments.' These consist principally of 9in, nr 12-ton guns, with a few of 88 tons each. The patent carriages on which they are mounted enable them to be elevated or depressed with great facility. Another series of forts, intended to protect Chatham on the land side, is to he commenced immediately. The forts will lie constructed on the heights above Medway at Borstal, near Rochester, and will form a very extensive work. The convicts in the new convict establishment at Borstal will be employed upon it ; but doubtless free labor will also be called in, as the undertaking is one of great importance. When these various sets of fortifications „. r o completed and garrisoned, a hostile i!--> t will find it hard work to repeat the feat performed by the Dutch in the icign of Charles IT., of sailing up to Chatham and bombarding it. The most pressing want just now, however, seems to be artillerymen to fire the guns. The publication of the army mobilisation scheme has revealed the fact that the artillery is deficient of its proper strength by some thousands, there even being a deficiency of 100 in the list of commissioned officers. It is evident that some of the al lout ion bestowed by the military authorities upon guns will have to be devoted to the obtaining of the requisite complement of gunners.