MONSTER INDEED.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7928, 17 December 1887, Page 4

MONSTER INDEED .

the Spectator: — A very special ' j>'ittterest attaches to the launch of tho #limfal»ar, from the fact that she and ? 'fier? sister ship; -the Nile, are in all pro"i" stability the last of the huge floating ironit• 'ijjwijfortresses which will be built for the I' 'English Navy —at least, such is the a"- ipresent opinion of the naval experts, who '•'-■'- declare that the days of such ships are .v .Aer^and that small, very swift cruisers /-jEa'd, gunboats are the war- vessels of the Certainly, to spend £1,000,000- --»• ■which is the sum the Irafalgar will have >■? cost .before she is finished— on one ship, .i ' which a torpedo successfully aimed from '■-'-■ £ steam launch might possibly destroy or /; :- damage irretrievably in an instant, seems , * policy at least open to question. When = .; completed, the Trafalgar will be the • : largest and most powerful, though not the - niost heavily armed, ship in the British , Navy, and so in the world. Though her. :-■ guns are not of as enormons a size as \ those of the great Italian ironclads or of -'. the'Benhow, which carries guns of 111 •!:' tons) her armament is excessively strong. She will carry four 67-ton Runs, eight 5-in , -'- gHns,' eight six-pounders, eleven 4-pounder | S quick-firing guns, and twenty VVhitehead / torpedoes. Her.steel-faced armour, which .. is of extraordinary strength, reaches, in . gome of her more vulnerable points, •• <wenty inches, in. thickness; while, not- -, withstanding, her vast weight, her engines are : powerful ; enough to drive her through ' ' the/water at the rate of nineteen miles an .. Ifour. The 134 watertight compartments ." -which make her well-nigh unsink- ■ title, -and the means by which the labyrinth, of irdn , passages and rooms is . lighted andA-entilated, renderthe Trafal- ■ gar so complicated a machine that a • landsman-w onders how it is possible that she could stand— as undoubtedly she .-, could — ilie rough-and-tumble, of action. -. It is a subject of congratulation that it is v /not a year^aiia nine months since the - keel of the^Trafalgar was laid.