15 MAY 1875, Page 3

England is a reservoir of capacities, but the death of

Admiral Sherard Osborn at the early age of fifty-three is still a national loss. He was one of the best specimens of a very fine class, the educated Naval officer who knows his profession thorough, but knows business too, and understands politics on the great scale. In Arctic expeditions, in the Black Sea, in China, Admiral Osborn had displayed qualities which pointed him out as a reserve force, a man who might head the fighting fleet in a great war, or even administer the entire Navy. Had he been a wealthy man, he would have risen high, for he had Parliamentary facul- ties; but being poor and unconnected, he died only a and a man whom his department intended to utilise whenever there was serious danger ahead.