A school of torpedo-warfare has been established at Portsmouth; and there can be little doubt that foreign powers are doing the like. Alas for humanity and civilisation! It is contended, however, that all this _diablerie_ will lessen slaughter, by deterring armed ships from coming within torpedo-distance; but a great naval war can alone determine the matter. As to infernal machines, contrivances planned for some dastardly and nefarious purpose, an incident about four years ago gave us a little insight into them. A cargo of highly insured but worthless goods was shipped at a French port in a steamer, and in the midst of the cargo an infernal machine, intended to explode, destroy the ship and cargo, and earn the insurance money for the miscreant conspirators. The machine was a sort of chest, provided with explosive compound, an exploding apparatus, train of clockwork, primed cartridge, trigger or striking needle--the clockwork being timed to produce the explosion in a given number of days after leaving port. An occurrence at Bremerhaven a year or so ago afforded a further illustration of this application of scientific discovery and mechanical invention to purposes at once fraudulent and barbarous. Whether any case is on record of the _coal-torpedo_ having been really applied to its Satanic purpose, we do not know; but that such a thing exists is certain. It is a hollow shell of iron, carefully moulded from a lump of coal, and blacked to look like coal; an irregular cube of a few inches on each side, and filled with terrible combustibles of the dynamite kind. What does this mean? It means that a steamer laden with almost worthless goods insured at a very high value has a coal-torpedo purposely mixed with the coal in her bunkers, ready to explode whenever thrown into the furnace, or perhaps before! Another infamous contrivance, darkly hinted at, is the _rat_-torpedo, which, placed secretly in the hull of a ship, will after a time explode, and burst a hole in the ship's bottom. Specimens of these two kinds have come into the hands of European and American governments. The Easter Monday torpedo in a place of public amusement, whatever it may have meant, was only one (the reader will perceive) among many forms of cylindrical, cigar, cubic, and globular missiles, of the 'Infernal Machine' character. * * * * *