Lord Clarence Paget last Friday took the occasion of the
elec- tion of a new mayor for Deal to make a speech to his constituents. He spoke, of course, of his own department, and said that in a few years all the sailors would be educated men, the boys with whom the Navy is filling being all able to read and write. The Naval Reserve was increasing fast, and now included 18,000 very excellent men, and 150 officers, "the cream of the merchant ser- vice ;" while as to ironclads the Admiralty thought it right, amidst a hail of suggestions, to decide on their own responsibility. He defended the destruction of Kagosima upon grounds which we have criticized elsewhere, but which, we regret to perceive, were received with applause by those assembled. They obviously thought that the Japanese ought to have smoothed the waves for the fleet, and so have averted the "accident" by which Kagosima was destroyed.
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