THE LOSS OF THE CAPTAIN.

Southland Times, Issue 1348, 16 December 1870, Page 3

THE LOSS OF THE CAPTAIN.

(From Engineering, Sept. 16.) The past week has been marked by the occurrence of a calamity which is without a parallel in the annals of our navy. Early on the morning of the 7th inst. H.M.S. Captain foundered off Cape Finisterre, with almost all her hands on board, but eighteen having been saved out of her crew of upwards of five hundred men. Our readers have already been made so familiar with the details of the sad story by the accounts which have appeared in the daily press, that it is quite unnecessary that we should repeat those details here. "With the lesson which is Jo be derived from the terrible calamity, however, we hare more to do, and it is this of which we propose to speak. The loss of the Captain, however disastrous, must not be viewed as an altogether unexpected event. Mr Eeed, the late Chief Constructor of the Wavy' read a paper two years ago before the Institution of N"aval Architects upon the stability of low freeboard ships under canvas, and showed by a scientific investigation that, after inclining over to a certain angle, their stability— qrjfctoJ*-, L" SSSS'&nK; atfung a total not at all unusual with ships iurching-hcnrriij-at sea, the stability ceased to exist at all, and such ships would inevitably capsizer~~At that- time the Captain was to have had a freeboard of Bft., which might have been sufficient to have preserved her from this critical con- J i dition even in the worst weather — I although we are not prepared to say that it would necessarily have done so ; but with the increased immersion which the Captain is known to have possessed, the danger in question was enormously aggravated, and was publicly pointed out by Mr Eeed in his letters to the Times about the period of her sailing on her last and fatal voyage. In these letters it was plainly stated thafc the blunder was alarming, and that the stability of the Captain had become compromised — an expression which, however softened down for obvious reasons, speaks plainly enough of the dangerous condition of the ship. When the news of the catastrophe was first received, it was not absolutely certain that the ship had been lost by capsizing, although that was by far the most probable form of the fatality. She might, however, have "been sacrificed by the waves simply sweeping away the light hatchway and funnel casings, which alone protected the huge engine and boiler hatches from the inroads of the sea. In this respect, as in that already considered, this ship was unlike any other, and was built in. opposition to all scientific principles, and in deference to a newspaper outcry, of which the loudest notes were uttered in the Times. The evidence of the survivors, however, has set at rest any doubts which might have arisen as to the exact manner in which the sad catastrophe occurred, and it has proved th^the4oss J x)£-the_£es.sel is to be attri--tJufed purely to that. wn S fc irr fi£_jjtfcT>Tri?i.tiTS.. ■ r-wttctriSCrTfeed- long ago pointed out to ije^a characteristic of her class. It is pretty well known in certain circles that Mr Reed offered even a more strenuous opposition to the rigging of low freeboard ships within the Admiralty than he did publicly, and it is no secret that the first steps which he took towards the resignation of his office arose from undue pressure on Mr Childers's part to build more ships like the Captain, and to put Captain Coles in a position of influence at the Admiralty. Mr Childers yielded on that occasion, but very soon after appointed his own son to the ill-fated ship as a mark of his confidence in her, and has, in the melancholy event, lost him in consequence. The simple truth is that neither Mr Childers, nor Captain Coles, nor the Times newspaper, nor any of those gentlemen who have been such strenuous advocates of low freeboard sea-going ships, knew whether they were safe or not ; they took that for granted, and could only see in Mr i Seed's warnings and protests evidence of prejudice and antagonism. A terrible ( penalty has been paid for their obstinacy, J and a great public lesson taught at the ] expense of the lives of many gallant men, and at an enormous cost to the nation. It is only fair to ourselves that our readers should remember that we have j neverheldbut one language on this turretship question, and we are therefore entitled to speak-pkaal^-iiow-. — We_ha.Ya_ "1 maintained the extreme importance of not <. [ inflicting upon the turret system, as a k system of fighting guns, the disadvantages which must result from associating turrets with unsound principles of ship.buildmg. We have Tint joined in the chorus of -Btraiation wifbwhich .the Captain herself -, several very questionable features ol naVill™^ architecture ; and although we hoped that her strength of deck structure and her vant of stability would be discovered in lime to avert a catastrophe, we have not doubted her unfitnes3 to serve as a model for the future ships of our navy. • It is out of mere bravado that some of , the newspapers are calling out for another ) Captain to be forthwith built. No other such ship will be built in this country ; ; no other such sacriflce as her loss involves i will ever be offered by ignorance and pre- ' sumption at the shrine of science. Is it ] too much to hope that even our professional contemporary turned pale at the disastrous issue of a course of amateur war-shipbuilding which it has done its utmost to encourage?

The following story as to hovr a smuggler was "up to the gauger " is told in Brisbane :— Some time ago an officer of the Customs caught sight of a suspicious looking character leaving a steamer which had just arrived, and stopped him. On being searched some jewellery was found in ms pockets, and he was taken before the magistrates and fined £10. Little did i any of the guardians of the revenue think • that after all the defendant had got the i best of them, but such was the case. The j fact was that he carried about £550 • worth of jewellery in his hat.