acknowledged. The health of Dr. Diugenan;
the health of Dr. E. Diugenan, responded
to in suitable terms; the legal profession,
responded to by Mr. O'Rorke, attorney-
at-law; the commercial prosperity of Rextown,
responded to by Mr. Drimmie, deputy
manager of the Royal Commercial Bank;
the Rextown New Market, responded to by
Mr. Fisher; the wives and mothers of Rextown,
responded to by Dr. E. Diugenan, in
a happy strain of humour, convulsing the
audience, when he alluded to all that he
had done for the wives and mothers of
Rextown.

Sometimes a ship of war comes into
Rextown, or a great transport vessel, like
the Himalaya, moors along the jetty to take
on board the gallant—th (Troubadours),
bound for Gibraltar. Then the scene of
animation becomes wonderful . Whole
battalions of our Rextown young belles invade
the ship, blooming, full of spirits, and
irresistible. Sentries are indeed posted with
orders to let no one on board who has no
business there; but these handsome, defiant
creatures all have business; they know Captain
Dobbs, or Major Spring, and talk over
the honest Cerberus, who believes in their
amiable fictions. Thus Norah and Kathleen
and little George, leaving mamma on shore
(mamma is nervous), swarm over the decks,
delighted with everything, and captivating
the naval officers by their open delight and
surprise. They must see every corner, and
stumble on the private cabins and berths,
saying, " they were so curious." On their
dashing figures are all the laces and silks
of the Mantalini of Rextown, who flourishes
exceedingly, employing regiments of
young ladies, and boasting of her trips to
Paris.

Such is an impartial view of Rextown,
an exceedingly pleasant, refreshing little
watering-place, where the best and most
abundant sea air is to be had cheaply. A
word, too, may be said for the bathing,
which is of an honest, primitive sort. The
shore is all rocks and crags, so bathing-
machines would be about as useful there as
a mail-phaeton and a pair of steppers; but
instead there are bathing-boxes among the
rocks, and planks and rails projecting far
out, over which the boisterous waves come
tumbling and dashing, into which our
Rextown girls plunge riotously, and dash
and splash about like mermaids. While
for the men there is a sequestered spot on
the flank of the east pier, where innumerable
old Adams and young continually fly
along vertical spring-boards, turn
summersaults in the air, and are swallowed up
in the breakers after a hideous splash and
plunge.

HOW THE "CAPTAIN" WAS LOST.

SINCE the Royal George, with her crew
of six hundred men, went down suddenly
off Spithead, there has been no catastrophe
on the ocean (we are not here speaking
of wrecks properly so called) so instantaneous
and so terrible as the loss of the
Captain, with five hundred and forty officers
and sailors, a few weeks since, off Cape
Finisterre. The evidence taken at the inquiry
seems to show that the unfortunate
vessel, always crank, dangerous, and far
too low in the water, as denounced by Mr.
Reed and the best authorities, was carrying
too much sail at the moment that, in a
moderate gale, she suddenly capsized, and
sank like a huge coffin, only eighteen of
the crew escaping with their lives.

The pamphlet published by the late
Captain Coles, the inventor of turret
ships, who himself perished in his ill-fated
vessel, as well as the rival work on Ironclad
Ships, published last year by Mr. E.
J. Reed, the late Chief Constructor of the
Navy, and the Vice-President of the Institute
of Naval Architects, enable us to gain
a clear view of the merits and demerits of
these as yet unproved vessels.

Our first iron-clad ships were mere floating
batteries, not meant for sea service,
but built during the Crimean war to attack
land batteries. In 1855, Commander
Cowper Coles, of the Stromboli, finding that
even the lightest English vessel drew too
much water for the Russian shallows,
put together in one night, in the Sea of
Azof, a raft made of barrels, spars, and
boards, so light as to float like a ship,
so low that it presented no mark to the
enemy's guns, so buoyant that it supported
with ease heavy artillery, and so
strong that it did not suffer from the
recoil, and was towed a hundred miles
through a rough sea without injury. With
this raft, named by the delighted sailors,
proud of their handiwork, the Lady Nancy,
the Russian stores at Taganrog were
destroyed. Stimulated, we suppose, by this
success, and by a generous leader in the
Times, Captain Coles devised a ship with a
double bottom, sharp at both ends, and
with a hemispherical tower, to attack the
Russian forts in the Baltic and Black Sea.