New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4887, 20 November 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20.

We have no wish to be considered alarmists, and therefore in calling attention to certain circumstances Avhich have come under our notice, our intention is merely to present those circumstances, with’ the hope that no unfortunate conclusion can be drawn from them, and that they are merely ordinary incidents, and should not cause any apprehension. But at the same time we confess that to us the circumstances seem, if not out of the ordinary, at least to demand some explanation. They are as follow:—Last night there was lying alongside the Queen’s wharf the collier barque Duke of Edinburgh. She had discharged a cargo of coal, and was in consequence pretty high out of the Avater, pumping (which may .only have been what was necessary, and not caused by any unseaworthiness) was going on, and from two apertures on the side next the wharf bright and copious streams of water were running out.' The appearance of the vessel, or more properly what Mr. Mantilini would call her outline, was something curious. The line of her bulwarks had a suggestion of what is technically known as “ hoggedbackedness,” that seemed to suggest anything but the line of beauty, and to give instead an idea of wrenching and straining. The Duke of Edinburgh is, we believe, an old French gunboat, and has suffered once if not oftener from the perils of the sea. As she appeared last night she seemed to the unprofessional eye the reverse of what one , would - consider the safest vessel to trust one’s life in, but 1 in , saying this we merely write from an,;unprofessional point of view, and are quite (prepared and will be happy to learn that competent authorities pronounce her safe, sound, and in every respect seaworthy. Indeed it is not with the idea that she is anything else that we now write; but simply because the sight of her has suggested to us that there possibly are not a few vessels trading on the Australian and New Zealand coasts, and between the ports of this colony and Australia, that would not be so trading were there a Plimsoll amongst ns. A recent law case in Dunedin disclosed some curious things about the Gzarewich, a vessel recently beached oh the West Coast of the Middle Island to save the lives of her captain and crew, which, ivere endangered by ' her giving unmistakeable symptoms of foundering at sea.; ; During the .hearing of the case mentioned above, it came out that portions,’ at least, of the Czarewich were very far from sound, and that in her construction what are known as “ devil’sbolts” had been in many‘instanced used. Previously to this time the matters in connection with the Don Juan occurred in Port Chalmers, when, by the energy of the shipping reporter of the Otago Daily Times, a perfectly unseaworthy craft was prevented from putting to sea. Now we wish to be distinctly understood as not asserting for a moment that the condition of the Duke of Edinburgh is bad. The fact is simply that her appearance has somehow or another suggested to us that, in all probability, there are vessels in these colonies which should not be permitted to go to sea, and that some united action on the part of the different Governments should be taken to have such regulations in force as to shipping as prevail at home, as a partial result of the exertions of Mr. Plimsoll.