1852.] OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 117 
of Parliament compelled the construction of bad ships under 
heavy penalties. The old Tonnage law, according to which ships were 
built and registered and taxed and bought and sold, virtually 
said to the builder and owner, ‘‘ Thou shalt not build a ship of 
the necessary beam to carry sail; Thou shalt not give her the 
depth and height necessary to security and sea-worthiness; Thou 
shalt not build her of any suitable shape for speed, under penalty 
of 20, 30, and 40 per cent of fine for every ton of freight so 
‘carried in such ship.” In short the law offered a premium on 
a ship, the amount of which was in the proportion of her being 
wall-sided, top-heavy, crank, unweatherly, and slow: while it 
inflicted a penalty in the shape of port charges and all pilot, harbour 
dues, lights, &c. in proportion to her fitness and reputation as a 
sea-worthy, fast, and wholesome ship. To cheat the law, that is to 
build a tolerable ship in spite of it, was the highest achievement 
left to an English builder, and formed his continual occupation. 
The manner in which the English system was opposed to the good 
qualities of a ship, especially speed, is only to be understood by an 
analysis of these qualities. The two examples selected for illustration 
of the qualities of sailing vessels, were— the yacht America, built 
without restriction of any kind, and the yacht Titania built under the 
restrictions of the law of measurement of Tonnage, which is still 
retained in all its deformity by the English Yacht squadron. 
It was shewn how the element of ‘‘ stand-up-ativeness’’ is dependent 
on the beam of the vessel at the water-line ; how the power of carry- 
ing sail depends on this element, and how this element is prohibited 
to the utmost by the Yacht Club’s law of Tonnage. Another element 
of the vessel, the area of her vertical longitudinal section immersed 
in the water, is by another portion of the law compelled to be reduced 
in an injurious degree. —It was next shewn that in the other ele. 
ments of the form of the two vessels they were nearly identical ; 
and that they were both under water constructed on the Wave Prin- 
ciple in its most perfect form. But for the existence therefore of 
these antiquated laws our yacht-builders and our ship-builders would 
have had nothing to fear from competition. Happily the mercantile 
Tonnage law had been altered and the new law was all that could be 
desired ; and in consequence a new race of fast ships were rapidly 
springing up. The old Yacht law unhappily remained. It is pecu- 
liarly unfortunate, however, that the evils bad laws have done, do not 
die with them ; and in this instance it has been found that when men 
have been trained for generations under a bad system, their preju- 
dices remain too deep-rooted to achieve a sudden change of exis- 
tence, and keep them in the deep and worn ruts of routine, by habits 
of thought and opinion almost inveterate. It is, however, to be hoped, 
that in the next ten years the English will escape from their preju- 
dices, and that the rising generation will supply no unworthy com- 
petitors to their young and emancipated brethren on the other side 
of the water. 
It appeared from the comparison which was instituted between 
the construction of American and English vessels, that the American 
