After The Next Sea Fight

When one battleship captures another in midocean in the next naval war, what is she to do with her prize, asks the Philadelphia Times. In the old days of wooden walls there was no dificulty in the practice. If the captured ship could float a prize crew was put aboard and all practicable sail was made for the nearest friendly port, while the victor continued on her cruise; or if both ships were badly injured, both put into harbor. But nowadays the position of a prize crew would be far from commanding. The captured vessel could not be managed by her captors - she would havn t.n vomair. m charge of her own engineers and her own firemen. and the victors, instead of sailiug the ship, while the prisoners remained under hatches, would be reduced to the status of a pólice. And thus would the opportunity for a recapture be greatly increased. For, while in the old days the entire captured crew were disarmed and imprisoned, the noncombatants of a captured battle-ship would have to te given their liberty, practically seaking, and much might be accomplished by a couole oí second engineers with their wits about them. For instance, would it be bo difficult to superinduce a slight explosión in the port entine and under cover of the confusión to libérate the prisoners? Again, the armament of a modern battle-ship would complícate affairs. Relatively to tho power of a machine gun the prize crew would be greatly disproportionate in strength, since the chances for the prisoners to obtain control of one of these entines would be increased by the freedom of their noncombatants. Altogether the number of men required for pólice duty on a captive battleship would be very large, and a victorious ship would have to reduce the efficiency of her own gun crews to an unpleasant extent It would probably ba found necessary in almost every case for the captor to stand by and accompany her prize home across the Atlantic or the Pacific, as the case might be. Andthis would be a doublé incentive to the conquered to effect a swift and noiseless recapture of their own ship, for if thoy did so one unexpected torpedo or discharge of a 12-inch gun, careiully aimed, might very easily turn the fortune of war entirely in their favor. In other words, and not to denne too closely upon ohe possibilities of the case, the capture of a battle ship in an ocean duel in the noxt naval war wül by no means oase me mina of the successful commander. He will have a leviathan on his hands that it will tax all his energy and cleverness tobring safely into port, and there may be motnents when he will be tempted to lock up every mother's son of her ynjñneers and firemen in the military tops and run her home under jury sails.