THE ART OF NAVAL PLATITUDE. MR. PUNCH,--Dear Sir,--As an able-bodied seaman and expert on the marine serpent and other such questions of the hour, I have been very properly asked for my opinion on the late collisions in the far East. Lest my utterances should be misrepresented by journals unaccustomed to deal with refinements of maritime phraseology, I send you a correct report of my interview. [Illustration] "What deduction," began the reporter from the recesses of a deck-chair that had figured at Trafalgar, "do you make with regard to the future of naval warfare from the engagements of which we have lately read such distracting accounts?" "My leading deduction," I replied, "is that it is difficult beforehand to conjecture which side is going to win, and impossible afterwards to discover which has actually won. History, however, and a long course of technical experience, alike convince me that, given equal courage and skill on both sides, vessels equally well equipped and armoured and of precisely similar shape, tonnage, and fighting power, victory may be expected, in many cases out of a few more, to fall to the party that is _numerically the stronger of the two_. You are, perhaps, with me on this point?" "I confess," he replied, "that you throw for me a new and lurid light on a question always difficult for the lay mind to grapple with. But tell me of the torpedo and its mission." "The deadliness," I said, "of this modern weapon of naval warfare is to be fully appreciated by such alone as have been its unhappy victims. In the incredibly short space of time between the moment of impact and the decease of those who are, as an immediate result, blown to indistinguishable atoms, no reliable evidence has, in the nature of things, been taken down from the lips of the people best qualified to submit it. "Disconnected fragments of speech, chiefly of a profane character, constitute the sole testimony upon which we have to base our conclusions. But we may safely affirm that one of the most, if not _the_ most, important detail in the manipulation of this projectile is the aim. Wrongly directed it is comparatively innocuous. In the unavoidable hurry and confusion of the moment, when the attention of the operator is diverted by the reiterated play of missiles upon his person, possibly a prey at the very time to insufferable nausea, it is almost impossible to guarantee the missile from aberration. You will pardon my technicalities?" "I thank you," he replied, "and I follow you. But in what way do you account for the success of the Japanese with these submarine weapons?" "Peruse the reports," I answered, "and draw your own deductions. '_On the morning of the 18th_' (the morrow of the battle) '_the Japanese flotilla of torpedo-boats returned to the Yalu and leisurely destroyed with torpedoes several stranded Chinese vessels_.'