The Welsh Coast Pioneer and Review for North Cambria

Saving the" Fearless." Ardeola's" Claim for Salvage. Action Before the Admiralty Court. Judgment for £ 950. AT'the Admiralty Division of the High Court on Friday, judgment was given by President Sir Gorell Barnes, sitting with two of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House, in the action brought by the owners, master, and crew of the steamship Ardeola," to recover salvage remuneration for services rendered to the dismantled third-class cruiser Fearless," which had been sold out of his Majesty's service and bought by the defendants, Messrs Robert Jones and Co., of Rhyl. The services were rendered in Rt. George's Channel, between August 3 and 5, 1905. The" Ardeola is a steamship of 1,385 tons gross register, with a crew of 33 hands, and at about 4 p.m. on August 3, when she was in about latitude 510 51' N., and and longitude 6° 17' W., in the course of a voyage from Liverpool to Lisbon and the Canary Islands, with a general cargo and 43 passengers. She fell in with the Fearless," which was broken down and in distress. The Fearless" had started some days previously from Portsmouth, bound for Rhyl, in tow of the steamtug Denbigh." At about 12-30 p.m. on August 3 a passing vessel 3 1 collided with the tow rope and carried it awav. The vessels were then about 31 W.N.W. of the Smalls, and no attempt was made to make fast again, as there was a strong wind and a con- siderable sea, and the Fearless was being set by wind and tide up the St. George's Channel. In the morning the" Denbigh was despatched to Milford for another tug, and the Fearless" continued to drift to the northward and westward. Later m the day the weather became thick, and when the Ardeola" was fallen in with her assistance was taken. The vessels were connected with great difficulty, and during the operation one of the able seamen on board the" Ardeola" fell into the water and had to be rescued. The voyage was begun about 8 p.m. On two occasions the hawsers parted, but they were re-connected with some difficulty, and eventually the Fearless" was, on the morning of August 5, made fast to a Government buoy in Holyhead Harbour, having been towed a distance of from 9° to 100 miles. The value of the "Ardeola" was £ 30,000. That of her cargo and freight was not stated. The value of the" Fearless" was £4,250. The defendants admitted that salvage services were rendered, but tendered the sum of £500 as suffi- cient to satisfy the plaintiffs' claim. After the services were completed the Fearless" was arrested at Holyhead in this action, and while stiM under arrest was taken away from Holyhead by those in charge of her. This has formed the subject of a motion for attachment for contempt of court, which has recently been before the court on several dates. Mr Laing, K.C., and Mr Balloch appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr Aspinall, K.C., and Mr Lewis Noad for the defendants. The case was heard on November 15, when judgment was reserved. The President, in giving judgment, said that the principal contest in the case had been as to the state of the weather, the plaintiffs saying that it was bad, while the defendants contested that at all material points it was quite fine. On the whole, he was of opinion that the weight of the evidence was in favour of the story told by the plaintiffs. The Fearless," which was lying very light, and had no boats, no compass, no steam, no masts, and no regulation lights, was in a very dangerous position when she was adrift. The Elder Brethren pointed out that she ran great risks of collision, in which case she might have been sent to the 5 bottom, or of driving ashore in which case she could have been got off, if at all, only at great expense. The service involved the plaintiffs in considerable risk, as shown by the incidents of the service, and had caused loss to the owners of the ■ "Ardeola." In all the circumstances he could not hold that the amount tendered was sufficient. He should award the sum of £ 950, which he should apportion by giving c700 to the owners, CSo to the master, and frio to the crew, according to their rating.-The Times'' report, Friday, Nov. 17.

The Captain's Evidence. Captain Hawthorn gave evidence on behalf of the underwriters, and stated that the Fearless was never in any danger of foundering, that after she was cast adrift from the tug he kept her in the trading route, and knew that if the two tugs which were searching for her should fail to pick her up she was always in a position to signal passing steamers for assistance that at the time the Ardeola hove to he had not even put up signals of distress, and that at the time there were two other vessels in sight. The claims of the "Ardeola were grossly exaggerated, and the money paid into court was more than sufficient to compensate them for the services rendered. In cross-examination Captain Hawthorn ad- mitted that the "Fearless" was somewhat difficult to navigate, because she had neither steam, nor sails, nor masts, but he was able to keep her in the trading route, and if necessary signal for assistance. The sea was rough and stormy, but there was no gale blowing, and the "Fearless" was sufficiently manned, and it would have been impossible in the circumstances for her to have sunk. She was practically and actually unsinkable, and all on board knew it, and were in no way alarmed at their position. In answer to questions as to ownership, he declined to give an opinion as to who was the legal owner. That point he preferred leaving to the legal gentlemen, who at present seemed unable to agree. He, however, stated that the legal owner was the registered owner, and that was the name he had given in the first instance in his report to the customs, and was technically correct. He still maintained he was justified in giving that name because it was so recorded in the register at the Admiralty, and that the owners of the "Ardeola were as much responsible for misleading the court-if the court had been misled-for they also in their affidavit gave the name as Mr Constant as alleged owner, and they got their information from the Admiralty. Captain Hawthorn admitted that there were several subsidiary owners, and that the "Fearless not being a registered 64th-shares ship, there was some difference of opinion as to who was the legal owner, and he wished to explain that if she had been a 64th-share vessel her managing owner would have appeared on the register, and not the actual owners.

Aberystwyth Town Council decided on Tuesday that a representation be made to the Prime Minister, the leaders of the Opposition, Irish, and Labour Parliamentary parties urg- ing the necessity for and the importance of ) rearranging the period of the Parliamentary ¡' session so that it shall commence in November and be brought to a close in June, in the inter- est of the holiday public and British holiday resorts.

A Great Power Scheme. Overhead Transmission. Carnarvonshire Lakes Utillsed. Ax important and in some respects a novel power scheme, on which about £ 300,000 has already been spent, will, savs The Evening Standard and St. James's Gazette, be put in operation in North Wales about a month hence. Its objects are twofold :-(i) To carry electricity to the quarries within a ten-mile radius of the power station, and (2) to supply current for new electric railways. It marks an advance not only in the application of electricity, but also in the attitude of the Board of Trade, and from it developments of far-reaching effects inevitably must be expected. A current is to be transmitted overhead by means of bare cop- per wires at 11,000 volts. This potentiality is twenty times greater than the working voltage on I the London electric tramways, and nearly fifty times higher than that which is used in the ordin- ary house wires. Hitherto the Board of Trade has regarded 500 as the sate maximum. But British electrical engineers have for a long time looked upon this standard as antiquated and the legislation which demanded it as grandmotherly. The experi- ence of America and Germany, where no such re- strictions are in vogne, goes to show that, given I proper safeguards, a much higher voltage than 500 for overhead working may be used without addi- tional danger. The Welsh scheme, while it may be accepted as a precedent for future working in similar condi- I tions-that is to say, open country for the most part- cannot, of course, be regarded as an ad- mission that transmission at 11,000 volts will be allowed in all circumstances. We believe, how- ever. that we are right in saying that the Board of Trade is watching the experiment very closely, and new regulations, founded upon experience j gained in the operation of the scheme, probably will follow. The source of the supply is in the neighbour- j hood of Snowdon. Lake Llydaw, which is situ- ated at a height of 1,400 feet above the sea level, and forms pait of the old crater of Snowdon, has been harnessed to furnish the motive power for generating the electricity. It has an area of 120 acres. Between the lake and the power station in the valley of Gwynant-the Electric Valley would not be an inappropriate name—there is a distance of a mile and a quarter, and a fall of i,ico feet. Another lake, 500 feet above Llydaw, is also avail- able for future development. Details of the equipment of the power-station would be interesting only to the expert, but it may be mentioned that there are four generators, each of which is capable of developing 1,000 kilowatts, or 1,500 h.p. The current is to be transmitted by over-head wires, fixed to poles of wood or steel- steel in the more exposed regions. One circuit goes to Blaenau Festiniog, across the Lledr valley, another to Llanberis, via the Pen-y-pass, and a third is continued to Nantlle, across the Snowdon mountain tramway, and thence by the shores of Quellvn lake and the Drws-y-coed valley. Second- ary lines branch off to the various quarries, where the current is transformed to a lower voltage. Where the lines cross public roadways and rail- ways, a netted cradle of steel wires is attached, so that, should a line break, it would be rendered dead before it reached the ground by coming into contact with the protection. In the immediate district to be served there are thirty quarries, including the Penrhyn, the Dinor- wic, the Blaenau Festiniog, and the Nantlle-all very large concerns. It is believed that those who take their power from the new station will effect a saving on their present cost of working of at least 40 per cent., and in the bills of some of the quar- ries this represents a large sum, which may be applied to further development. Already contracts have been made for supplying one quarry with 2,000 h.p., another with 1,000 h.p., a third with 700 h.p., and others with smaller amounts. The new electric railway is another advantage in the same direction, not only for the quarries, but for other industries, and it will largely increase the transit facilities of the districts. The main section will extend from Carnarvon to Portmadoc, the scheme including the electrification of the narrow-guage railway from Dinas to Rhyd-ddu, or as it is popularly called, Snowdon, and the tram- ways from Portmadoc to Croesor, a new line linking both. Another section will run from Bedd- gelert to Bettwsycoed, via the Gwynant Valley, Pen-y-gwryd, and Capel Curig. It is proposed to extend the line eventually to Corwen, there to connect with the Great Western Railway. In making the new line on the main section-namely, from Beddgelert" to Croesor-one tunnel, a thou- sand feet long, has had to be pierced through the Z, I mountain at Aberglaslyn. High-tension transmis- sion poles will be carried above the other wires alongside the line at Portmadoc. The consulting engineers for the hydro electric installation and railways are Messrs Harper Brothers & Co., of 13, St. Helen's--»lace (who are at present carrying out important undertakings in Canada) and Sir Douglas Fox & Partners. Mr W. V. Waite and Mr A. W. Buettell, of Bruce, Peebles & Co., are the contractors. There is another high-tension transmission scheme on foot. It is proposed to harness Lake Llyneigiau in the same way as Lake Llydaw, build a powerful station at Tal-y-Bont, between Ccnway and Trefriw, and supply power to the surroundtng district. On the strength of this proposed distribu- tion of cheap energy, arrangements have been completed for the erection of large aluminium and carbide works.

The Late Archdruid. THE following is a copy of a letter which the Rev R. Peris Williams, of Wrexham, has received from Colonel A Davidson, the King's private secretary, expressing his Majesty's sympathy with the rela. tives of the late Archdruid, Hwfa Mon The private secretary is commanded by the King to thank the Rev R, P. Williams for his letter of the 14th instant, and to say that his Majesty hears with deep regret the news of the death of the venerable Archdruid of Wales, the Rev Rowland Williams (Hwfa Mon). The King would be glad if the Rev R. P. Williams would convey the expression of his Majesty's sincere sympathy with Hwfa Mon's relation's on the loss they have suffered by the death of the Arch- druid of Wales, for whom the King had a great regard. I It was Hwfa Mon who led the King, when Prince of Wales, into the Gorsedd circle when his Majesty was received a member of the Gorsedd, and as Archdruid Hwfa Mon had the honour of admitting the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the Royal Family as members of the Gorsedd. It is regretfully admitted on all hands (writes a Welsh correspondent to the Manchester Guardian) that the Gorsedd of the Bards of the Isle of Britain has been shorn of more than half its glory by the death of Hwfa Mon. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the late Archdruid's rank and quality as a poet, no one will question his pre-eminent distinction as a figurehead in the Gor- sedd ceremonials. Hwfa on the "logan stone" was almost sublime. Towering above his attend- ant bards in his mystic snow-white robe, his massive head crowned with a chaplet of oak-leaves, he seemed a figure that might well have graced some bardic pageant of the British prime. Presiding, as I saw him once, over a Gorsedd held on the slopes of the Great Orme, in cluse proximity to old Conway's foaming flood," he might have been taken to be the resurrected image of Gray's Bard, whose hoary hair Stream'd, like" a meteor, to the troubled air. Unkind people have said that Hwfa Mon as a picturesque Gorsedd dignitary was discovered by Professor Herkomer, and, indeed, that the Gorsedd itself owes its pomp and colour as a ceremonial to that distinguished artist's solicitude. No doubt Professor Herkomer deserves a share of the credit for the recent rehabilitation of the Gorsedd. The bards sadly needed-and still need —a teacher of deportment and of the significance and conduct of a Gorsedd ceremonial. Some years ago the way they managed things was deplorable. I Z!1 Matthew Arnold has left on record in his Study of Celtic Literature his disappointment with the spectacular side of a Gorsedd ceremony witnessed by him at Llandudno in the sixties. "The gor- sedd," he writes, was -held in the open air, at the windy corner of a street, and the morning was not favourable to open-air solemnities. The Welsh, too, share, it seems to me, with their Saxon invaders an inaptitude for show and spectacle. Show and spectacle are better managed by the Latin race, and those whom it has moulded the Welsh, like us, are a little awkward and resourceless in the organisation of a festival. The presiding genius of the mystic circle, in our hideous nineteenth-century costume, relieved only by a green scarf, the wind drowning his voice and the dust powdering his whiskers, looked thoroughly wretched so did the aspirants for bardic honours and I believe, after about an hour of it, we all of us, as we stood shivering round the sacred stones, began half to wish for the Druid's sacrificial knife to end our sufferings." The Gorsedd orders its ceremonial somewhat more impressively now, although there is still vast room for improvement. A white-robed bard will sometimes appear in the mystic circle carry- ing an umbrella, sublimely unconscious of either the anachronism or the absurdity of the thing. In truth it must be said that even the picturesque and occasionally majestic Hwfa was not always so careful of the dignity of the Gorsedd as he might have been. He had, at his best, a voice whose compass was admirably suited to an open-air ceremony conducted in the presence of thousands but many of his sallies from the "maen jn the so-called "logan stone," were not c°ncel, rjng; a taste worthy of the occasion. The wan foreigner listened to !bese utterances in -.ation belief that they were bursts of bardic insp" consonant with the high solemnities^ o moment. The Welshman knew |Xer at* bravely did his best to suppress his laug en quips which, clever enough in their way, ha better reserved for the bards in their secre claves. Hwfa Mon, although a man of jn j^is of high seriousness in many ways, was ^0- relations to the Gorsedd largely a humoufis yS, had greatness thrust upon him. He a seemed conscious of the facetious side oe0t Gorsedd ritual, and whenever a comical in happened his enjoyment of the joke was as as that of any layman in the crowd. physical gifts—his stature, his leonine pea great voice—invariably saved the situation- to g. succeeded in raising the Gorsedd ceremonies much higher level of picturesqueness, » dignity, than they had ever attained before. Hwfa Mon's place will be difficult to n -^ce. living Welsh bard has anything like his It is to be hoped that the Gorsedd bai choose a president not for the strength .^s lungs, but for his intellectual and poetica and his claims to the respect of the Pu^ c'e3f to Archdruidship is not, as many people aPP. n0t think, an office of any great antiquity; even so old as the English Laureateship- known Welsh professor has declared "iaaj| be Welsh term Archdderwydd might, f°r„ knows, signify a maker of oak rtf office, however, has for the late years acqui little dignity, which it behoves the bards in up the vacancy to remember and to preserve.

While there is accommodation fr cCleS*' children in the elementary schools in 1111111" field, the children now on the registers I ber 5,850. (tent, Henry Pownall, a Warrington in was found hanging dead at his lodgi*j° 0[d- Latchford bj" a roi)e attached to a frig fashioned bedstead.

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