mer, we are at once confronted with the fact
that the infliction of injury upon the boilers, the engine, or the
propellers of a hostile vessel is the great object aimed at by the
gunners. The evolution of the warship in the direction of ensuring
safety, therefore, will not stop at the duplication of the engines,
boilers and propellers. In fact it must sooner or later be apparent
that the interests of a great naval power demand the working out of a
type of warlike craft that shall be almost entirely destitute of
armour, but constructed on such a principle--both as to hull and
machinery--that she can be raked fore and aft, and shot through in all
directions without becoming either water-logged or deprived of her
motive power.

A torpedo-boat built on this system may consist essentially of a
series of steel tubes of large section grouped longitudinally, and
divided into compartments like those of a bamboo cane. Each of these
has its own small but powerful boilers and engines, and each its
separate propeller at the stern. Care also is taken to place the
machinery of each tube in such a position that no two are abreast. In
fact, the principle of construction is such as to render just as
remote as may be the possibility of any shot passing through the
vessel and disabling two at the same time.

If a boat of this description has each tube furnished not only with a
separate screw at the stern, but also with a torpedo at the bows, it
can offer a most serious menace to even the most powerful battle-ship
afloat, because its power of "getting home" with a missile depends not
upon its protective precautions, but upon an appeal to the law of
averages, which makes it practically impossible for any gunners,
however skilful, to disable all its independent sections during the
run from long range to torpedo-striking distance. The attacked
warship is like an animal exposed to the onslaught of one of those
fabled reptiles possessing a separate life and a separate sting in
each of its myriad sections; so that what would be a mortal injury to
a creature having its vital organs concentrated in one spot produces
only the most limited effect in diminishing its strength and powers of
offence.

Or this class of naval fighter may be regarded as a combined fleet of
small torpedo-boats, bound together for mutual purposes of offence and
defence. Singly, they would present defects of coal-carrying capacity,
sea-going qualities, and accommodation fo