Show I SHIPS OLD AND NEW I I I RearAdmiral Ilichborn Chief of Construction of the navy recently read a paper before tho Society of Naval I Architects and Marine Engineers the two main points of which were a com parlson of the armaments oC American and foreign battleships and showing that the batteries carried by the ships recently completed for the American navy are vastly heavier than on any foreign ships and also he showed how much the crews of ships had been reduced re-duced In modern times The Indiana In-diana Massachusetts and Oregon carry each 495 officers and men The Iowa has 510 The Kentucky and Kearsarge carry 553 each the new Alabama 493 The new vessels about to be built will have complements of 703 officers and men each In the old days Nelsons Victory of 2161 tons carried a crew of 100 at Trafalgar and her predecessor of the same name wrecked In 1741 had i when she went down a crew of 1100 officers find men on board If officers and men were packed as tightly aboard a modern man of war as they were In the brave days of old the Oregon would carry 2500 men Instead of 500 The difference Is of course that In Nelsons time there had to be I a great crew to handle the sails as there was no other way of propelling a ship Then there were not only the men at the guns but all the ammunition ammuni-tion had to be passed up by hand Now a modern warship has eightyfive engines on board The ship is lighted by touching a button The ammunition ammuni-tion is passed by touching another There is no dressing of sails and everything from propelling the ship to handling the guns is as nearly automatic as machinery can be made to produce that effect The ship is steered by machinery In the old days in a great storm It often required four I or five men at the wheel of a two thousand ton ship to hold it up into a gale Now one man does it easily by simply touching a lever It would be practically Impossible to load one oC the turret guns of a battleship without machinery as a charge weighs several hundred pounds Now it is carried to its place by an electric crane that Is operate simply by touching a button But the men behind be-hind the guns In the old days were Just as good as they are now Before us Is a story of how Paul Jones fought his ship and what a deplorable condition con-dition It was in when the British commander hailed him and asked him If he had surrondered and the reply went back Why I have not begun to fight yet and with the ship almost sinking he made the Britisher surrender sur-render |