Show THE FAILURE THE secretary of the navy and we presume the other officers ot that dopart department part ment of the government took a personal interest in the matter of having a navy which would compete at lea least st with those these of some south american states even if it did not come alongside the monster craft and armaments of england and russia in order to have the navy originate with be constructed construe ted during and concluded by the present administration he has crowded matters too much and herein perhaps we have an exemplification oi 0 the old adage the more haste the less speed the secretary Secra tary has doubtless circumscribed contractors to such an extent tn ta the matter of time that faultiness fault ineas could but be the result this is reasonable enough a war vessel is dissimilar to a merchantman as to structure strength and equipment a dozen of the latter that would give perfect satisfaction could be floated while the naval craft was getting well under way provided ded every everything A bing was done as it ought to he be anu nothing slight slighted pd notwithstanding the fact that appliances and materials are better cheaper and more accessible now than thirty or forty years ago the building buil diug dlug of a first class war vessel is a matter of more deliberation and expense now than then for fer the simple reason that science and competition have forced such work away beyond what was then thought to be the limit of progress the first ironclad had a comparatively ively thin plating but it was triumphantly antly paraded as the culmination of marine architecture and thought to be invincible but science is too re restless st a quantity to stop with resistance to propulsive force in that way and while such a degree had been reached so far as the artillery of the day was concerned the next move was to improve the cannon this was done and the iron hide of the war dog was penetrated as easily as though it had been bee Q only sheet tin then tile the plating was thickened and toughened the guns were re rifled and strengthened so that greater blasts of powder could be used and the vessels were again perforated between wind and water today to day we have upon the waters of the north and south atlantic ocean men of war whose armor is eighteen and twe twenty nty inch in chegin i a thickness of chilled steel and va bu 1 the heels of this cumbersome consummation a gun has been devised that will send a ball through it with neatness and dispatch the tae question is what next our naval Secre ambition is laudable but no one can wonder that his hastily constructed atlanta with her powerful powers ul but also hastily con str acted guns proved a failure when the first target practice occurred on wednesday last he not only wanted the defensive quality fully developed but the offensive one also and this as we said before is a labor involving time if thoroughness is to be secured the first snot shot fired from one of the vessels guns did more damage in the rear than in front it derailed the carriage tore up the tracks and knocked splinters out of things generally making the handling of such weapons a very difficult not to say daug dangerous erous operation of course the atlanta is not armored to the extent that the proposed line of battle ships which are contracted lor for will have to be as speed in connection with durability and strength is a great desideratum and but little speed could be developed in a ship carrying thousands atlas of tons of metal outside its hull but it was war as heavily equipped equit equipped ped as a due allowance for both the t e requirements mentioned would permit and it was hoped it would prove a model cruiser so far as racing and resistance are concerned this may be the case even yet but ut there Is not much to be gained by a vessel whose only capacity in a scrimmage is to run away without getting hurt it must be able to take the offensive as well and the experiments made with reference to that object have shown that a great deal of remodeling must be done before it can even be attempted again secretary whitney never held this or any similar position before and a great deal of allowance must be made he has shown himself an efficient officer zealous and aad persistent it Is scarcely saying too much to predict that he be will profit by his first disappointment and when he takes his second thought upon it will be glad it happened just when it did it illustrates where the weakness lies at the outset and leaves him time enough to correct it |