A quotation from this leading article says it all "One of the most perplexing, and yet interesting studies which will fall to the lot of the military historian of the nineteenth century, will be that of the introduction, development, and frequently the disappearance, of the many wonderful engines of warfare which the mechanical activity of the present day gives birth to. Of none, perhaps, has the rise been so sudden, and the sensation it has created so widespread, as the attempt to devise a system of torpedo warfare, and especially to use electricity for this purpose. Ellis #128.