The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 29, 1896, Page 1

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VOLUME LXXIX.—NO. 120. PRICE FIVE CENTS. | SLIDES SAFELY INTO THE RIVER, Successful Launching of the Big Battle-Ship Iowa. CHRISTENED WITH WINE Governor Drake’s Daughter Breaks the Bottle and Names the Sea Monster. MIGHTY DIN ON THE DELAWARE Distinguished Persons Join the Screeching of Whistles With a Chorus of Cheers. PHILADELPHIA, Pa., March 28.—The battle-ship lowa slipped from cradle into the waters of the Delaware afternoon,to the cers from thousands escribable din of The launching was pect, and Miss Mary a’s Gov- 1e new monster *'Iowa.” 2 was witnessed by a dis- ntation from the Hawk- d by Governor Drake and ert of the navy, Iowa's ion, the members of sentatives Naval Com- ers of the Senate the principal heads big f the hundreds of whistle: a success in every Lord Drs ernor, ch Congress the House of mittee, seve Naval Committee a: of the different navy Besides the party gathered upon the tening stand the yard was opened to pub nd thousands of people wit- nessed the event from various points of vantage. T warm and bright. The Iowa representativesarrived here yes- | terday afternoon. The party consisted of Governor F. M. Drake, Secretary of State W. M. McF te Auditor C. G. Mec- Carthy, State Treasurer John Herriott, 1 Joseph McGarraugh, Colonel B. 7, Cotonel J. R. Numing, Colonel Colonel George Bogart, Colonel McCarty, Colonel L. M. Martin, C. Colonel C. G. Saunders, Colonel H. O. Weaver, Colonel W. A. McArthur, Colonel F. ¥. E. Drake, son of the Governor, and Coleopel W. H. Huitig, composing the Gov- ernor’s staff. With the party were the following ladies: Miss Drake, Mrs. M. D. Shoauts, Mrs. E. D. Grace, Mrs. J. R. ne, Miss Mary Car- penter, Mrs. McFarland, Mrs. Robert Rae, John A. Drake, Mrs. F. E. Drake, Clarisse McCarthy., Besides the fore- going, the party was completed by the fol- lowing invited guests: Hon.L. A. Ellis, Hon. E. G. Penrose, Cyrenu¢ Cole, Hon. W. R. Boyer, Colonel Robert Rae, Captain J. F. Merry, Captain John F. Drake, Colonel T. B. Shouts, J. A. Millsand L. Shearman. The Iowans were driven from their hotel to the shipyard and were early on hand. There they were met by Messrs. Charles H. Cramp and Henry W. Cramp, respect- ively president and treasurer of the com- . The Governor and Miss Drake and Miss Carpenter were escorted to a small inclosed space directly beneath the bows of the ship. The towering sides of the red and white painted hull rose many feet her | weather was delightfully | 1n the air above their heads and the mass | of dead weight of iron and steel would be- come in time a floating fortress bearing ery. After escorting the lowans to the plat- | form Charles Cramp returned to the railroad siding running along the yard | and in a few moments a special train hav- ing on board the party from Washington steamed up. In all about 300 people came | from the capita! to the launch. After | Secretary Herbert and the party had dis- embarked they were taken to the christen- ing platform and the Secretary and mem- bers of the two naval Congressional com- mitiees were given good positions close to | Miss Drake. When Miss Drake had arrived at the yards Henry Cramp had presented her with a bunch of beautiful roses, but up to this time he bad borne beneath hisarm a pasteboard box. To all the old launch- goers present the pasteboard box wasan evidence that something more sparkling than Towa water would baptize the vessel. Presently Mr. Cramp opened the box and brought forth a pint bottle of champagne and presented it to Miss Drake. The bot- tle was encased in a gold netting and from the neck depended a long streamer of rib- bon, on which was pawnted in gold «Cramps’ Shipyard, March 28, 1896.” On the other side of the ribbon, in similar letters, was painted “Launch of United ship Iowa.” On the side of the bottle w: silk label, on which was a beautifully painted picture of the Iowa as sne will appear when completed. It was with this bottle of champagne that Miss Drake christeped the vessel, and she subsequently bore away its shattered frag- ments as-a souvenir. A few minutes before 1 o’clock the con- fusion of sounds that had been arising irom beneath the keel of the vessel ceased. Then a period of comparative silence and anticipation ensued. Henry Cramp, he has done on many otker similar oc- casions, recited his last admonitions to Miss Drake as to the best means of shat- tering the bottle upon the ship. Then the veculiar hissing sound made by a saw cut- ting through wood came up from near the sround, and in a brief space the shoe- ce was cut through and the big hull .rted down toward the river. As it be- 1 to move at 1:14 o'clock Miss Drake the bottle by the streamers, and as s crashed against the keel and the «mpagne spattered the side she ex- d: “f christen thee Towa!” The huil slipped smoothly and gently i | the lunch was served was so great that the intothe river, and as it floated out with even keel the hig siren whistle of the Massachusetts was turned loose and made & scene that was exceedingly effective. M \ il | But still more trying on the eardrums of | weight is 11.410 tons, 3110 of which is wisely | ritles, can be discharged upon its decks the heaviest of guns and | €Very one in the vicinity, tugs screeched | distributed in the shape of armor protec- | pounds each, capable of penetrating eight thousands of tons of armor and machin- |and whistled and people cheered, and | tion, varying in thickness from 14 inches | those on the christening stand congratu- lated each other on the success of the | launch. The men aboard the Iowa let go two bow anchors when the momentum she had received in the passage down tbe ways died away and brought her up head down the stream. After the launch a luncheon was servad in the mold-loft. There was no speech- making, as the crowd in the room where formalities had to be abandoned. After the luncheon the Washington party re- turned to the capital in their special train. s R GREATEST The Fourth Battleship to Be Owned by the United States. The lowa, the keel of which waslaid twoand a half years ago, is the fourth battleship to be owned by the United States. She has been constructed for sea pur- poses, the first three built—the Indiana, Massachuaetts and Oregon—being roast battleships. The Tows is of 1000 tons greater displacement than her sister ships, and several feet longer and broader. " The hull is of steel, with a double bottom and close water-tight subdivision to ten feet above the water line. Her battery is to consist of four 12-inch, eight 8-inch and six 4-inch breech-loading rifles, 26 pounders, four 1 pounders, four Gatlings and one field gun. Compared with the Indiana the Iowa has greater length, greater breadth, in- creased length of outer line belt and greater coal endurance and speed, to- gether with theability to work the forward twelve-inck guns in almost any condition of sea. The magnificent electric lighting plant, weighing forty-five tons, will afford means to discover the enemy or guard against the attack of torpedo-boats. She will require a complement of nearly 500 men, or greater than that of any preceding warship of the new navy. The Towa is constructed under the act of July 19, 1892, which made provision for one seagoing battle-ship of about 9000 tons displacement, to cost, exclusive of arma- ment and speed premium, not more than $4,000,000. The details of the construction have been in the hands of Chief Con- structor Wilson and Engineering Chief Melville, the famous Arctic explorer. Excepting her armor, the Iowa is a cun- ning structural evolution of steel plates and angles, in all the delusive lightness of IN THE NAVY. along the water line and sides, 5} and 17 around the guns, 23 and 3 over the vitals— as the engines, boilers and magazines are called—to 10 about the fighting position or conning tower, just above and abait the forward large turret. The Iowa carries but eighteen guns; but such guns! Four of them, in the two large turrets, peering out through 15-inch walls of hardened steel, proof against the sharp- est drills, are 12-inch breach-loading rifies, firing a combined mass of 3400 pounds of tempered steel. From the four smaller turrets, each of which houses two 8-inch shells of 250 | nches of steel two miles ‘away, | with a possible range of one mile forevery | |inch of caliber. From any one of the | | Iowa’s five tubes a torpedo can be dis- | charged bearing 120 pounds of guncotton [and speeding on its errand of demolition | at the rate of thirty miles an hour. No| ship, past or present, could withstand that | | blow if fairly struck. Away beneath the water, the protective deck of steel and many feet of coal, thirty- two roaring furnaces will develop in those five ponderous boilers a constant pressure of 160 pounds to the square inch. Two separate triple-expansion engines, one on each shaft, will constitute the motive mechanisms of the ship, while auxiliary engines for a hundred purposes will reduce the tax upon the crew and add to the effi- clency of the craft by lifting and lowering the boats and the stores, raising the anchors, loading the coal, discharging the ashes, pumping and draining the various compartments, bringing the shot, shell and powder from the storerooms and magazines to the gun stations and turning the turrets; and, but for the guiding hand, manual labor is practically needless. The captain no longer stands the inspir- ing center of his officers and an animating example for his crew, but is housed within the shelter of his conning tower of ten- white paint. She is 360 feet longand 72 feet wide, drawing 24 feet of water. Her Philadelphia. The Iowa, Greatest of America’s Battle-Ships, Successfully Launched at the Cramps’ Shipyards at inch steel. Step within this citadel and there upon its curved walls are speaking tubes, mechanical telegraphs, electric but- tons and a steering gear, all leading below | through an armored tube on their several missions of communication and control. A pressure on one of these tiny buttons will start a mass of steel and powder from those mighty guns, or, perhaps, let loose a destructive torpedo on a silent errand of death; or, again, at a signal, the massive machinery will begin to turn and pres- ently, when the great engines have reached a maximum of 112 revolutions a minute and churn, with the two sixteen-foot screws, the water ait with an eaergy of 11,000-horsepower the great ship, a mass of 11,410 tons, will force herself and an equal bulk of water at the rate of sixteen knots an hour. To stand in her way and stop her then means to take a blow of 130,000 foot tons from her murderous ram, before which the toughest armor must bend like meadow grass in a summer storm. With her bunkers filled with 1800 tons of coal she could steam at a ten-knot rate for thirty-one days and cover a distance of 7000 miles, and at full speed would have a radius of action of 3000 knots in six days’ time. UNCLE SAM’S TREASURE MOVED. Men With Guns Guard the Money During the Transfer of Sixteen Million Dollars, CHICAGO, IuL., March 28.—This was the most important of the moving days for Uncle Sam at the crumbling pile known as the Government building, $16,- 500,000 in gold, silver and copper being safely transferred from the old sub-treas- ury vaults by an express company to the second floor of the Rand-McNally buiid- ing, where the sub-treasury will be located until the $4,000,000 Federal building is completed. The treasure weighed over 111 tons. Officials of the treasury counted and placed the coin in sacks and packages, which were passed along a line of men guarded with guns to the iron safes of the express company in the wagons at the street door. Four wagons were kept going back and forth all day. e In Greater New York. NEW YORK, N. Y., March 28.—Dr. Roger 8. Tracy, Registrar of Vital Sta- tistics, has made the following estimate of the population of Greater New York: Total population, 3,195,059; population of New York, 1,916,695; Brooklyn and Kings County, 1,105,000; Long Island City, 42,- i 578; Newtown, 24,557; Flushing, 22,496; Jamaica, 17,765; Richmond County, 57, 968; part of Hempstead, 8000. (NATIVE POLICE JOIN THE REVOLT, Many Murders of Whites of the Most Fiendish Character. MATABELES ALSO SLAIN. Encounter With British Troops in Which the Blacks Are Routed. LOBENGULA'S SON A LEADER, Meanwhile the Boer Government Is Secretly Preparing to Re- sist England. CAPE TOWN, Sovrm AFrrIcA, March 28.—A dispatch from Buluwayo under yese terday’s date presents the situation as be< ing of the gravest character. A thousand women and children burned a store forty miles out from Buluwayo on Thursday and performed a dance around the flames. Many murders of whites of the most fiendish character are reported. It is learned that the native police induced the Matabeles to revolt and joined them with 750 rifles and a large quantity of ammuni« tion. A force of British troops under command of Captain Spreckeys defeated a large body of Matabeles on Thursday, killing a large number of them. The British force los no men. LONDON, Exg., March 28.—Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of the Cape Colony, has telegraphed to the Colonial Office that the reports of the murder of the police in- spector, Jackson, and the desertion of the native police to the Matabeles is con- firmed. The native police took their Martini rifles with them. The dispatch states that Mabel, son of the late Matabele King, Lobengula, who was banished in 1895, has returned to Matabeleland, and that he incited the up; g. cER T KRUGER FORMS ALLIANCES. The English Will Not Con vaal With Eas LONDON, Exa., March 28.—The situae tion in South Africa is decidedly serious, though the Government has not yet abandoned hope of an amicable adjust- ment. President Kruger has notitied Chamberlain that he cannot visit London until the Volksraad meets in April, and then only if England will consent to recognize the independence of the Trans- vaal: In the meantime Kruger has formed alliances in South Africa, so that if war comes 1t will be war with England on one side and all the Dutch population on the other—a war that will need for its sup- pression more than the 20,000 that Enge land is reported to be ready to send there. It is not known accurately at the War Office what the strength of the Boer forces alone is that is now ready to take the field. The representative of The United Press learns from an official source that within three months 2500 Germans ars estimated to bave entered the Transvaal as immigrants, and these are known to ba obtaining Transvaal money. The force of Zulus, trained and commanded by Boer and German officers, is estimated to num- ber 60,000. Though their tribal fidelity to the Boers is doubtful, they can be trusted to fight against the British. Viewing the whole situation, including r the Transe NEW TO-DAY. DISFIGURING HUMOURS Prevented by S AN CUTICURA SOAP purifies and beautifies the skin, scalp, and hair by restoring to healthy activity the CLOGGED, INFLAMED, IRRITATED, SLUGGISH, or OVERWORKED PORES. Bold throughout the world. British depot: ¥. Nawa BERY & Rons, J, King Fdwsrd-st, London. “Porrss Dau & Crx. Coxr., Sole Props., Boston, U. 8. A. ' LEYISTRAUSS &€O's COPPER RIVETED OYERALLS SPRING BOTTOM PANTS. EVERY PAIR GUARANTEER:. - #OR SALE EVERYWHERE.

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