Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/441

430 Street, returning slowly to his flat above his shop — as all London tradesmen, yea, and many mer- chants, dwelt in his generation — still haunted between times by the green shady Mercers’ Gar- dens, and youthful, sweet, quick Patience Chis- well, first beseeching him to save herself, and then to rescue another. It must have made an enor- mous difference to the self-collected young Whig to be so sued; for he could not deny the subse- quent fact — though it disconcerted him greatly to admit it, even to himself, and he endeavoured strenuously to cheat his conscience and blink the new sensation — that the image of the carver and i gilder’s frank, transparent, light-hearted little I daughter, grown all of a sudden distressed and pitiful, would make his calm, serious heart beat.

regard to the external form of the hull of a vessel, it must vary according to the purposes for which it is dessigned. If required to carry much cargo, it must be deep and square and wall- sided. If a sailing vessel, it must perforce have a broader beam than a steamer, to compensate for the leverage of the wind tending to overturn a very narrow vessel. If a steamer intended for war- purposes, there must be space for lodging the crew and for working the guns, unless in- tended chiefly for speed, in which case the longer the vessel in proportion to width, the faster she may be profiled through the water with a given power. And inasmuch as water naturally runs in rounded sections, the hollow section for the vessel’s bottom is the form of least friction against the water. Eight breadths to a length, with hollow lines like those of a bayonet, would give good cleavage of the water; but unless it be very smooth water, the midship section must change to a flat or rounded bottom, or the vessel would be apt to capsize. The question of size is very important, as great size — other things being equal — gives increased speed and greater space for men and machinery, both for working and fighting.

There has existed a notion that wooden ships could not hold out against stone walls. One reason for this was, that the stonewalls carried the heaviest batteries; yet Nelson at Copenhagen did not hesi- tate to pit his ships against them, and came off vic- torious. There is one undoubted advantage the ships possess. They can discharge their projectiles and move away, preventing the fortress-gunner, from getting their range. But latterly the size of ships’ guns has been doubled, and fort guns also;