The _Connecticut_ had joined the rest of the squadron in target practice off Cape Cod last week and all of the eight-inch guns were being worked. The firing was fast, it being a part of the test that the guns should be fired as rapidly and as accurately as possible, and in order to outdo the sailors on the other ships that were engaged in the practice, the _Connecticut’s_ men were working hard to load, train and fire the four big tubes in the starboard and port turrets. The eight men working under command of Lieutenant Cronan in the aft starboard turret were swinging to their task like pieces of mechanism in a single machine. Two men worked the powder hoist from the magazines below, two swabbed out the gun after each shot, two lifted the bags of powder into the breech after the heavy shell had been placed, and one man swung back and locked the breech for the firing. It was bang! and in an instant the breech was open and the men were sucking in the powder fumes while they swabbed and hoisted and charged the big gun for another shot. The gun got so hot that it was difficult to place a hand on the breech without blistering it. The men with the water swabs kept the temperature down to the safety point inside the chamber, but even at that it was almost hot enough to flash powder and a little friction would have been enough to set off any spare grains. Nov. 1. Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas H. Wallace, a member of the American-Irish Historical Society, died this evening. He was rector of St. Patrick’s Church, Lewiston, Me. Nov. 5. Hon. James H. Higgins is re-elected governor of Rhode Island. Hon. Patrick J. McCarthy is re-elected mayor of Providence, R. I. Nov. 9. Capt. Dennis E. Nolan, Thirtieth U. S. Infantry, has been ordered to the Philippines as inspector of constabulary.