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-MILFORD DOCKS.

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MILFORD DOCKS. "A special correspondent of The Daily Telegraph' says: Brunei's unpopular saying "Liverpool made I mistake in not going to Milford Raven," will force itsel upon the minds of many people at the present time, wht i works -ire in progress for the construction of docks when Nature has already dug the foundation. It needs not the ghost of Nelson to rise and tell us that Milford Haven i. one of the finest harbours of the world, nor shall we wani the entire wisdom of a Chamber of Commerce to demon- strate that, owing to the geographical position of this magnificent estuary, it is admirably adapted to the requirements of an extensive commerce both as regards exports and imports, while it is equally cer ain that, being just opposite Queenstown, it saves the navigation of St George's Channel in a passage to America, and gains time for a class of passengers with whom time is money. The first attempt at forming this noble natural harbour into a haven of really practical importance was made in 1790 when the Hon. C. F Greville one of the largest landed proprietors in the neighbourhood, obtained an Act of i arl ament giving him full powers to erect quays and execute o her works, establish market;, build doJis, and, in short, convert a small fishing port into a station for the mail packets to the South of Ireland. In the early days of the present century Milford i laven also had the honour of building ships of war, but this dignity was short lived. and se early as 1814 the Royal Dockyard was removed to Pater, now called Pembroke Dock. four miles higher up the harbour. The Irish Packet Company still remained faithful for many years afl er the withdrawal of the Royal patronage; but even this old friend eventually deserted Milford for the more favoured Pater, or Paterchuroh, as the town was orig nally called for many years After the loss of the Irish Packet -ervice, the town of Milford languished, until, in 1857, Colonel Greville. a descendant of the founder of the town. again instilled new life into its torpid existence by the construction of gas and water works, and a jetty 850ft. in length, a portion of which, however, was unfortunately earned away in a gile a few years since. The new energy thus imparted bore fruit in the construction of dry docks, warehouses for bonding all descriptions of foreig products, a Custom House shipbuilding yards, cordage, anchor, and other works connected with shipping. They have, however, given but little.vitality to the town, and it is to the future rather than to the present or the past we must look for the history of Milford. The scheme of the docks embraces an entrance lock. 559ft long by 75ft wide, with 34ft of water over the sill at ordinary high water spring tides This lock will be fitted at each end with wrought iron slidi g caissons, and will open into a wet dock having a water ar, a of about sixteen acres. By the side of the entrance lock, and parallel with it, is a gravino- dock 740ft long and 96ft wide. This dock has 36ft of water over the sill at ordinary high water or spring tides. The entrances to both the outer and the inner dock will be closed by means of wrought iron caissons. Beyond this large graving dock is a small one, which will be used for docking ships of small tonnage up to 250ft in length. -,&. -0 --r "0 On Tuesday an inspection of the works, which were renewed in 1874, has been made by a party of gentlemen interested in the new project The corn; any included Rear-Admiral Sir William llewett, V.C., K.C.B.; Mr. G. Cavendish Taylor, of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway; Lieutenant Cdonel F. D. Grey, president of the Great Western Railway of Canada MrG. W. Johns, Mr. J. P. Arrmtage, .Mr..j. It. Jolly, Mr. J. A. Worth, VC1"' ri Mr. C. C. Hood, secretary of the Milford Docks Company; Mr. J. M. Toler, constructor of the pier and Mr. Lake, the designer of the novel working arrangements by which the operations are being carried out. Broadly speaking, the dock schemes may be described as the reclamation of Hubberston Pill, one of the side creeks debouching into Milford Haven, through the centre of which runs an insignificant stream of fresh water, the feeble representative of the powerful torrent which, in some long past geological epoch, must have cut out of the red sandstone the deep, precipitous gully now covered by beds of clay, mud. and silt, which in some places exceed 70ft m depth. These peculiar conditions combined with the fact that the old red sandstone beds were much fissured and highly pervious to water, rendered the adoption of the ordinary system of dock construction namely, the throwing of a cofferdam, whether of timber or earth, across the entrance of the site, quite inadmissible The more costly and difficult mode of constructing by tide work was therefore of necessity resorted to in order to expedite the rate of progress, and at the same time secure thoroughly substantial foundations for the wal s. The contractors have introduced and applied some interesting engineering devices. I may here remark that the whole of the dock and lock walls are built of Portland cement concrete, made of the est quality Portland cement and local gravel mixed with local limestone and san istone; the walls are faced, wherever requisite, with a super or quality of mountain limestone, and will be coped with the same material Two principal methods of construction have been employed in building the walls wherever the rock is to be found at a moderate depth below the o'd surface, and also in cases wnere special strength and stability are requisite; as for instance for the foundations of the quoins at the dock e trances the walls have been carried down and founded on the rock throughout .their length. Secondly, in places where the rock was only to be found at a very great depth, and where the walls will not be subjected to any special or extra strain, they have been built upon a series of concrete tubes of great size and solidity. This is an adaptation of the oJd Indian well system The tubes are sunk through soft strata by the simple process of excavating the mud from the exterior, and -o compelling them to descend hy their ow weight. When a firm foundation is reached the rock is levelled so as to form an even base, and the interior of the cylinder is filled up with concrete, thus f, rming a solid 1 pier on which to rest the walls. The surface alluvium of 1 the pile, although nearly approaching clay in character, ] is, when once disturbed and subiected to the tidal action, very unstable and shifty and much difficulty was J experienced in efficiently timbering the foundation. To t obviate this the c. 'ntractors Messrs Lake and Taylor- ( devis d and introduced the r iron caissons, which are set i on the site of the wall one in front and one at back. c The ends are connected by cross planking which are t bolted to the caiss ns and the joints properly caulked, t thus forming a rigid water tight box These caissons are f usually carried down about ten feet below the surface. J When the wall is complete the caissons are easily lifted T by being slung to a barge on the rising tide. As may J easilv be iniazined the nurndinff arra gementsin connection n with this form an important Yea, ure- of the works. he pulsometer pumps, which throw each from 800 to 1,000 gallons a minute, have exclusively been used, and their efficiency was no less a matter of remark to-day than their curious construction, which may have suggested to an anatomist the form and action of a pair of lungs. H aving inspected all the various pumps, steam cranes, rockdrills, and engines, together with the works of the British Electric Light Company, whose system of illuminating was fully tested on uesday night, the party entered a railway car and were conveyed along the short line which runs to the end of the pier, and wh i ch was for 111 ally opened on Thursday. Alongoide the pier was brought a steam tender used ordinarily as a carrier to meet the trawlers and bring in the fish. This peculiar vessel, so high in the bows that her deck forward is a steep little hi 1, carried us down as far as St Ann's head in glorious weaiher so that the mouth of the haven was seen to I he best possible effect. Lying off this little port of Milford is the Great Eastern steamship, which, by-the-bye h is been docked, go that the accommodation for whaafing and cleaning big ships is a sufficiently proven fact. The run was continued out to the waters of the Atlantic, when the steamer turned back to iVHitord Pive beautiful bays, each a commodious anchorage, .were seen with admiration in the bright, cr sp air; there aie also ten creeks and thirteen roadsteads, where the argest ships have lain tranquilly uuder the shelter of e ills when the great south westerly gales that blow so fiercely upon the Pembrokeshire coast have been ragmg; fortifications appear on the heights along the shore, and on the rocky islands in mid-channel, toward the approaches of this unrivalled haven. xT^alingJdnteatUofdtha SUn' visited Castle Hall, the old seat ol the Grevilles passing the ruined tower which is apocryphally associated with the name of Lady Hamilton, and were driven r>ack to the Nelson Hotel, through the company snewlr-acquired estijte lane^ bright with the 5 ellow gorse, which in this wonderful January is all ablaze in the spring like hedges. This little expedition will be long remembered if the busv projects at :vi ilford come to aught that is good The spo; whether visited or not by prosperity, will always be a centre of interest. Not five miles hence is Picton Cast Ie one of the very few Norman strongholds now remaining in the kingdom that has never been forfeited, desested nor burnt. It has been inhabited since the time of William Rufus. It stood a sharp siege during the civil wars when Sir Richard Phillips gat risoued it for the King The same fami y holds it n-w. "f the posiioll which the town of milford occupies on the north shore of the Haven, it is impossible to speak too admiring y. Hare if anywhere, the b rr. nness and desolation of the treeless coast softens to a smiling and fertile aspect, the gra^s on the slopes is green and the cattle that dot the fields have a look of English comfort; but isnot Pembrokeshire itself more English than Welsh ? Ihe language of the Principality is not heard till we get as far north as 11 averfordwest This was probably the centre of that colony of Flemings who driven from their native country by fearful inundations in the b. ginning of the twelfth century, were settled i .South W ales by Henry 1., together with our .Norman conquerors of the country. Without much doubt the descendants of those same colonists, reinforced by the Flemish m: rcenaries who had served under Stephen and were banished by the second H cnry into Wales, are still the occupants of the South Pembrokeshire soil. You see it in remnants of old habits and customs; the very form of the cottage chimneys is Flemish, of the Middle Age type and character.^ At any rate, there is nothing strikingly Welsh about Milford and, I repeat, its situation on the right or north side of thi, land locked haven is splendid. Its three par illel streets, built step :1 bove step along the hillside, look down upon the harbour and hilly undulations that picturesquely enclose the wide watery expanse. Over the dulness of the desolate town a gleam of hope and promise, I think, is again cast. Everybody here seems to think so, and the very children were in evident earnest when they cheered the progress of the visitors on Tuesday. As for Milford rivalling Liverpool or any established port, that need not be talked about at present, but Liverpool had a beginning quite as insignificant as that from which Milford may date its career. As in the past Milford was extinguished by the removal of a Royal dockyard, it may revive in the establshment of a commercial emporium." I GREAT CONSERVATIVE MEETING IN NEWPORT. On Thursday evening a great Conservative meeting was held in the Victoria Hall, Newport under the presidency of Lord Tredegar. The spacious building was crammed with an enthusiastic audience. S r Hardinge Giffard, Q C., M.P., ex-Solicitor-General, was the principal speaker, and he put forward a heavy indictment agamst the Government. The following werle the local speakers:- The Eight Hon. Chairman, in opening the meeting, said that he had received letters of apology for non- attendance from Mr. Rolls, M.P., Mr Octavius Morgan, Mr Lister, and Mr. Gibbs, whose names were received with applause. Pr ceeding he said flint this was about the fourteenth anniversary of the Newport Conservative Association. At nearly the whole of these anniversaries, he was happv to 'say, he had been proud to preside. (Applause). But on no occasion did he think the Con servative principles required more to be expounded than they did that night. And on no one occasi n before did he think they would be more acceptable than they would be that night cheers) '1 hey had had a great many political orations during the last few months—big guns and little guns—and he thought he could safely say, as an outside observer, that in tho,e orations the enemy had been signally worsted (Applause). The Prime Minister w is a very clever speaker He could make the worse appear the better cause (Applause.) But his lieutenants were not so clever, and they were not ahle to do so, and in a great many of their speeches they found that they were obliged to resort t, abuse, when their arguments weie not good enough. The Home Secretan, a few days ago. was obliged to use a whole column of the limes to apologise for the defection of one Whig peer from the Liberal party. The Home Secretary tried to make out that that was a thing of no great importance. If it had been of no great importance he would not have taken so much trouble to have made an excus- for it. (Cheers ) They had als, had an oration from Sir Wilfred Lawson. ecause a few peers, several members of the Hous-i of Commons, and several other gentlemen, had put their names to a petition f,r releasi g those gentlemen who had been most har-hly and ruthlessly treated for bribery, Sir Wilfred Lawson remarked that the fact showed the rottenness of the upper classes Sir Wilfred Lawson was a baronet, and he imagined that all baronets btlonged to the upper classes. Therefore, Sir Wilfred Lawson had described himself. (Cheers.) It was Sir Wilfred Lawmen's term and not his (Laughter.) And he did not think they could find a better expression for Sir Wilfred Lawson's political programme than that it was a rotten political programme (Applause.) The hon. baronet was one of those, and he was sorry to say there were a good many in the House of Commons at the present day, who held a programme which was a pro gramme of Republicanism and abolition of everything that they held dear. And if that programme were carried out they would find that in ten years' time England would resolve itself into a small island Republic of no more value in the councils of Europe than the Republic of Peru. f Cheers^ Mr. L. A. Homfray moved:—"That this meeting has the highest satisfaction of recognising Mr Thomas Cordes as a candidate worthy of the principles of the Conservative party, and a fit representative of the especial interests of Newport, Monmouth and Usk and they trust the day is not far distant when they may have the opportunity of proving how highly they esteem him as a townsman and politician by electing him again as their representative in Parliament The motion having been seconded by Mr James Howells was carried with acclamation, and Mr T. Cordes, in response, said they knew full well that at the last general election, notwithstanding their exertions, they were unsuccessful in carrying out the objects they had at he irt. Th"re was a b tier blast of continuous misrepresentation, which defeated their object* and that blast, he was sorry to say, was not confined to that district—it was common throughout the country, and many constituencies suffered in the same way as they did at Newport. He felt that the blast arose not so much from political causes as from misrepresentation and in- difference, and from that desire for a change which was ipt to animate so many ig. orant persons He was sure that a number of those who gave their votes for these causes must. if they reflected upon the result, deeply regret the course which they then took. If they looked upon the state of the country two snort years ago and contrasted it with what it is now, he had no doubt that many of them would feel sorry in thei, own hearts at what they had been the cause of doing. Two short years ago her Majesty's t'en Government had been the means of -taving off a serious war in Europe. The country was alto ether at peace. The relations we had got into with Afghanistan were calming down war h d ceased in that country, and they ha i maintained a position which, he whs sorry to say, they had since lo-t No part-of the policv of the late Government had been more preached against than their conduct in regard to Afghanistan. The war had been pooh- p(oh,"d as a needless o e, and one in which unnecessary blood had been shed. But what did they find now P They found that England had retreated, and Russia was advancing. (Applause.) And this was not a matter of small importance. Let them remember how they held India. ihey he'd it by the moral intluence they had over the p.,ople, and if the English retreated and the Russians advanced the people would side with the Russians and go against the English. He had a powerful confirmation of that statement from a friend in India, and a confirmation which carried great conviction to his mind of the justice of the G vernment in that respect. This friend of his was a member of a distinguished Highland re iment, and was, at the time the tioubles beg in, interpreter of a native regim nt on the north-west frontier of India. A man in that position had a greater intimacy with the natives around than the leaders of the Government could have and he said that when the news came to the North-West Province of India that the Russians had been received ostentatiously by Shere Ali at Cabul, the whcls of the regiment to which he was attached were in a ferment to know what England would do. If that happened in one native regiment, did they not think it must have happened in every native regiment, an > throughout the length and bread h of Ind a ? The stand taken then by her Majesty's late advisers, with ali the Success that. Mt.ionrl,rl 4f mno 4 J." il -u' '-Juu.u .1.1.1, "aD xiiiiJuuuiaLciy UliUWIL Over when the present Government came into power, and in tea.) of maintaining what they held they gave way to Russia. The difference between the present Govern- T, ment and the late Government in many respects was ,ST' fat her Majesty's Government in the present day upheld Holy Russia," whose name had become a by- word throughout Europe-a name of execration almost. owing to the savageries they permitted to be prac- tised upon the Jews — (applause) — and threw calumnies upon the Sultan, who was the friend of this country and the ally of many mi lions in India. That was one of the charges. He might name others, but he thought it u- desirable that lie should that evening occupy their time long. They spoke now of having a Government, but if he gave them their proper character he would say they were men who held the reins of government, but did not govern. They had only to press the Government hard enough, to squeeze them hard Ti enough, to kick them hard enough, for they were kicked in ihe Transvaal—(applause) they had only to heap upon them indignities, and they would give way. (Applause.) The first duty of a Government was to govern but the Government now in power did not govern they were aim st governed. (Laughter) They boasted of their liberality, they were the great Liberal' Govern- ment but what did their liberality and their Liberalism consist of? They accorded licence to the law-breakers, and the eby enabled them to coerce the law-abiding. Was not that the state of things in Ireland at the present time ? He couid detail many of the misdeeds of the present Government, but he thought it better at that time not to detain them and he would only urge them not to forget their organisation—not to think that, because they had come there and heard an admirable speech, they had done their duty. They had only been told what their duty was. Those who were va ers had duties imposed upon them which they could not shake — oiL And it was bad on their conscience not to vote from preconceived opinion, but to notice the signs of the times T( and to vote accordingly. He believed there were many in the room who preferred the interests of their country to the interests of party, and when called upon to again record their vot s, he would like them to ask their own hearts could they give a vote to enable ihe present Government, or mis Government, to remain in office ? His opinion was lhat if the present Government in power they would be still further degraded. Life and property wou d become insecure, and they would be brought to the verge of revolutionary times. Their duty therefore, eeiiied clear and open—to stand by those who were law-abiding, who maintained the privilege of contr ict, and who would regain for this country that influence thr ughout Europe which she had lost. In conclusion, the speaker said he would only reiter.te the expression of his sincere thanks for the kind vote they had given him, and for the confidence they had bestowed upon him for so many years. (Cheers.) ■ ——4, GA-IIDIN Almanac, published at the "Garden umce. bontLampton.street, Covent Garden, price is.. is i' h 1^'ueP It contains carefully drawti-up lists of the nnr=orV.v.IUltS' ?'l!^ veSetabl.es in use each month, of t n i e'i 8 seedsmen, and of the horticultural 1™t n a fountl'y seats in Great Britain and „ a l) la e lca-l hst of gardeners, new plants of the j eai, planting, seed sowing, draining, fencing, timber, biickvvoik, tai k, hot-water, weights and measures, leady reckoning, wages, money, calculating, and well-sinking tables, a useful and vaned mass of information,

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