2 SEPTEMBER 1876, Page 3

The Admiralty has come to a decision which seems to

be a sensible one, and ought to be recorded to their credit. They have ordered six steel corvettes to be built, each of 2,300 tons, to serve as cruisers in the Pacific and in Chinese waters. They are to be as swift as anything afloat, to be impene- trable by ordinary shot or shell, and to be armed with fourteen guns of varying calibres. No vessels could be more useful for the protection of trade or the destruction of pirates, and as against anything but first-class ironclads they will be efficient war-ships. The Navy has other things to do besides fighting pitched battles, and this fact has been of late years a little overlooked.