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14 MARINE REVIEW. [December 29, MARINE REVIEW Devoted to the Merchant Marine, the Navy, Ship Building, and Kindred Interests. Published every Thursday at No. 418-19 Perry-Payne building, Cleveland, Ohio, é - by John M. Mulrooney. SUBSCRIPTION---$2.00 per year in advance. Single copies 10 cents each. Con- venient binders sent, post paid, $1.00. Advertising rates on application. Entered at Cleveland Post Office as Second-class Mail Matter. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the statement that the officials of the navy department are-deeply chagrined over the silly and disgusting performances recently attributed to Naval Constructor Richard P. Hobson. That the newspaper reports of the actions of this young man on his trip across the country, en route to embark for Manilla, have been exaggerated, it is impossible to doubt, for the simple reason that it 1s in- conceivable that an officer of the United States navy should be capable of such serious digressions from all the tenets of good breeding, but that the stories are undoubtedly founded upon a considerable basis of fact must be equally apparent to any impartial observer. The feature of the whole cir- cumstance to be most regretted is the fact that it will tend to throw dis- credit upon the men engaged in a noble profession, which for the first time within the remembrance of the present generation has of late been accorded something of the distinction and honor which are its due. It may be noted, too, that Hobson's brother officers stood by him as long as they could do so with any degree of consistency. When Mr. Frank Morris, the navy auditor of the United States treasury department, in an interview in the: Marine Review some time ago stated his belief that Hobson was actuated in his desire to raise the Colon by the hope of se- curing prize money, service journals hastened to resent the aspersion, and in evidence of his highmindedness pointed to Hobson's reported re- jection of an offer of $50,000 for a lecture tour. Now the naval construc- tor has launched himself in a career of magazine writing and lecturing, to say nothing of less dignified methods of securing notoriety, thereby thoroughly disconcerting some of his erstwhile most enthusiastic defenders. Viewed from another standpoint the prominence of Hobson offers a striking illustration of how little discrimination is displayed by the great American public in its hero worship. Technically considered, in no sense was Hobson's scheme for the sinking of the Merrimac in the slightest degree a success, if judged with reference to its strategic utility, and had it not been that the Merrimac was at best a worthless hulk, the loss on that vessel would be an item on the wrong side of the ledger. In carrying out this project Hobson did only what 4,000 other men in the United States navy volunteered to do, and his display of personal bravery is not for an instant worthy of comparison with the indomitable courage of the engineer and firemen who remained at their posts in the hold facing danger and uncertainty far greater than that braved by the men on deck. Inevitable in connection with the rumor that the ordering of Hobson to Manilla was actuated by a desire on the part of the department heads to place a quietus on his impracticable schemes for raising the Colon, is the comparison of the accomplishments of this young man since the close ef the war with those quietly achieved by Naval Constructor Capps. Aided by the judgment and co-operation of Admiral Dewey, Constructor Capps has, with very little ado and at a slight expense, added three ser- viceable gunboats to the United States navy. His work was done quickly, scientifically and well, but there is no fear of the public witnessing the spectacle of this capable officer seeking to divide public acclaim with pugilists and jockeys. In the course of an article relative to the negotiations opened by Messrs. Vickers, Sons & Maxim, for the purchase of an interest in the Newport News ship yard, Industries and Iron of London says: 'Messrs. Vickers are anxious to place themselves in a position to supply Vickers' & Maxim guns for the United States navy, and probably also to supply armour, if called upon to do so. In fact, their policy in America is to be the same as that governing them in Great Britain--they desire to be in a position to build and equip a warship in its entirety. Whilst Messrs. Vickers are obtaining a foothold in the United States, the steel makers ot that country are making serious assaults on the plate rollers of England. There is but litle doubt that if the steel makers of the United States make up their minds to export ship building materials to Great Britain, the natural advantages afforded them by their independence of other than home sources for the supply of raw materials, will allow them to compete on favorable terms with the less happily situated home manufacturers. It will only be possible to meet this competition by the exercising of rigid economy on the part of the British pig iron manufacturers, and a lower- ing in the cost of ore. Any process leading to economy in manufacture must therefore be closely watched, and if satisfactory, instantly adopted." The building of the large five-masted schooner, which H. M. Bean is constructing for Capt. J. G. Crowley of Taunton, Mass., as recently de- scribed in the Review, and the circumstances of the transfer of a numbe1 of lake barges to the coast, have served to engender a discussion as to whether schooners or barges will be most extensively employed in the coal carrying trade along the Atlantic seaboard in the future. The usual tow from Philadelphia or Newport News to New England ports consists of four barges, with an average of 1,600 tons to the barge or 6,400 tons in the tow. Crews on the four barges and the tug would number thirty men, while were the coal transported by two schooners only twenty-two men would be required. The average time taken by the tow, however is only 72 hours as against 120 hours for the schooners, enabling the tow to make three round trips in the time required by the schooner for two. Officials of the Maryland Steel Co. of Sparrows Point, Md., are dis- playing considerable activity in their ship building operations. The ways are almost completed for the steamer to be built for the New York & New Haven Steamboat Co., and the work of putting together the frames of the new torpedo boat destroyers for the United States navy will begin shortly. THE NEW BOOKS. Probably the handsomest pictorial presentation representative of the United States navy which has ever been made is embodied in a magnifi- cent volume entitled "Lest We Forget," just from the press of E. R. Herrick & Co. of New York, publishers of the series of volumes made up from selected art centres from Truth, in which publication most of the pictures included in "Lest We Forget" also appeared. The new volume is a large oblong folio 14 by 21 inches in size, and the plates, which are richly printed in colors on heavy paper, are in some Cases of such size as to occupy two full pages. The character of the volume may perhaps be best indicated by a resume of the table of contents, which includes striking views of the North Atlantic squadron, the battleship Indiana in action, night at Hampton Roads, Shafter, Miles and Wheeler returning from a conference, shelling of a harbor to clear out submarine mines, Capron's battery in action, the battle of Manilla, first attack by Admiral Sampson on San Juan, Porto Rico, a torpedo boat destroyer in action, and the destruction of Cervera's fleet, as well as a unmber of fetching representations of the lighter side of the war. _ The artists who have contributed include Thulstrup, H. Reuterdahl, W. Schaffner, Jay Hambidge, A. C. Redwood and others. If there be one distinguishing feature characteristic of the entire gallery of pictures it is the atmosphere of life and fire and action in which all the themes have been worked up and which adds so much to the tone of the pictures--in- deed without which they would be void of their most distinctive merit. At the same time there has been preserved most religiously an attention to detail which will appeal at once to navy and army officers and others sufficiently familiar with our war vessels to detect to a niceity any flaw in the pictured prototype. The pictures are bound between elaborate il- luminated covers, and indeed the entire work is a most sumptuous pro- duction, being encased in a box with a decorative design similar to the cover. Published by E. R. Herrick & Co., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, price $5.00. Lieut. W. S. Benson, U. S. N., seems to have accomplished the im- possible by an improvement of Luce's text book on seamanship in the revised edition which has just been issued. As an authority on the equip- ping and handling of vessels the work of Rear Admiral S. B. Luce, U. S. N., has no peer anywhere in the world and yet there is hardly one of the 579 pages on which there is not to be found evidence of the work of re- vising the late edition and preparing the present one for the press, under- taken by Lieut. W. S.vBenson, U. S..N., assistant instructor in the de- partment of seamanship, naval academy, Annapolis, under the general supervision of Commander Charles M. Thomas, U. S. N., the head of the department. The illustrations by Lieut. S. Seabury, U. S. N., are ex- cellent and far more numerous than in previous editions. Published by D. Van Nostrand Co., 23 Murray Street, New York City. FLOATING THE STEAMER JOHN J. HILL. There has: been much of the unusual in the wrecking operations on the former great lakes steamer John J. Hill, which went ashore on Wol- laston Beach, Mass., near the National Sailors' Home in the great storm of Nov. 27. The accident which befell the Hill was of itself one of the most peculiar in history. The steamer left New York in ballast Friday, Nov. 25, bound for Hillsboro, New Brunswick. When the captain saw the storm approaching he made for Boston: Harbor to ride out the weather. The vessel got in past Boston light without accident, but was tossed about in so alarming a manner that when President's roads was reached it was thought best to try to weather the gale there, and two heavy anchors were put out. As the wind increased in velocity the steamer began to drag her anchors, and the captain, who had meanwhile lashed himself to the bridge, ordered the fires increased and a full head of steam put on. The anchor cables parted when off Hangman's island, and a little later the ves- sel struck. The captain had no idea as to his whereabouts, but when day- light came he found that his vessel was high and dty on Wollaston Beach and that the tide reached him only at mean high water. It-looked at first like a hopeless task to attempt to float the Hill, but the Boston Wrecking Co. undertook it, and a large force of men and one of the company's large dredges was employed for ten days in making a channel through the sand and marsh from deep water to the stranded vessel. The Hill sustained no serious damage to either her hull or machinery. This is considered wonderful, in view of the numerous dangerous rocks in the path which she traversed. : The steamer Rescue, nearing completion to the order of the Merritt Wrecking Co. of New York City, is fitted with a powerful fire pump of Blake manufacture, said to be the largest of its kind on any vessel in New York harbor, aside from the city fire boats. The W. R. Trigg Co. of Richmond, Va., has decided to put an entire equipment of Blake vertical simplex pumps in the two destroyers and three torpedo boats, for which they have the contract from the United States government. This is the first contract for pumps yet placed by any of the contractors for the new torpedo boats and destroyers. The American Mail Steamship Co.'s new steamer Admiral Schley is credited with a most successful trial. She made a more satisfactory showing than any of her sister ships, the machinery working smoothly and without friction. It is said that in one of several spurts the vessel attained a speed of 20 knots. The Schley will be gotten ready immediately for the Jamaica trade, and the trial trip of the Admiral Farragut, the last of the four steamers for the American company, will be made in about two weeks. Cablegrams from London state that the anxiety of the Vickers, Sons & Maxim to acquire an interest in the plant of the Newport News Ship- Building & Dry Dock Co. is attributable in a considerable degree to the fact that they have just been awarded a large contract for torpedos and accessories by the United States government. The same dispatch adds that the contract would have been given to the Schwartzkopfs of Kiel but for the anti-German feeling in the United States.