WAR PREPARATIONS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 620, 29 April 1878, Page 2

WAR PREPARATIONS.

A large number of fresh hands have been taken on at Woolwich Arsenal, and the gun factories are as busy as other departments. Throughout tho Arsenal, night work and extended hours are general, and in the carriage department alone LI,OOO a week extra is being spout in wages. Three hundred general service waggons are being produced, and unusual activity is also visible in the construction of torpedoes, tho speed of which has been increased from twenty-seven to thirty miles an hour. Tho Alexandra, Temeraire, and Agincourt are provided with these Whitehead torpedoes, and it is calculated that, witli such speed as that attained, tho destruction of an enemy's ship at 500 yards would bo certain. The Admiralty has been informed that tht failure of two of these torpedoes in tho hands of tho Russians at Batoum was duo to defective management. Additional defences have been provided for the Thames. The already poworful armament of tho Garrison Point fort, 'Sheerness, has jußt been strengthened by four 38 ton guns, and everything connected with the fort has boon put in ordor ready for instant use by tho Royal Artilleaymen stationed in the casements. Orders have been received at Pembroke Dockyard to commence immediately building four gun boats, Tickler, Griper, Pincher, and Gadfly. Preparations are being made in the kingdom of Poland for a new levy of about 40,000 recruits next spring. It is stated that the losses sustained by the Russian army in the war are very much heavier than they have been officially represented to be, and that this was especially the case in the recent crossing of the Balkans, where the Russians lost three times tho amount stated in tho official reports.