THE REPEATING RIFLE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1421, 1 December 1886, Page 2

THE REPEATING RIFLE.

Wo have so long expended all our powers of wonder at anything connected with army mat ers, that it doea not as-t mish ns to learn that it la still p'oposed to isMie the Martini-Henry r fla which as we have on several occasions pointed oat, does everythin; it onght uot to do. Is It because ear army is so munerona that it can afford to have an inferior weapon? Or, is't because a perfect form of repeating rifle ha. not yet been Invented i If the latter is the reason, why ate the great military nations of the continent adopting , some kind of repeating rifle ? Are we to wait dntil we are engaged In a great Knropeao war before we adopt H ? There will be then double the expense, for makers and inventors will doable their terms, and very likely we shall pay ** ™ a ricke'y weapon made in a harry, wblah coatd now be made with care Bit £2 lull We say nothing of the foily of waning a completely new weapon to the soldiers at the beginning of a campaign. What would it cost the country to give a repeating rifle to all the men of the regular forces ? The Austrians are spending four millions sterling, over a period cf five or six years, to supply their Urge army with a repeating rifle. We suppose our regular army c mid be provided with repeating rifles for half a million of money, a smaller sum than we have often wasted, and shall waste again, in such follies as sending ont a railway to be laid down from Snakln to Berber, and which was srat polled up by the Soudanese as fast as it was laid, auq then brought home again in triumph. Of poprse we gomq red ace the expense by celling the old Martini-Henry rifles to the Burmese QC Zulus, the Soudanese prefer BemisgWhi or ft Winchester.—Broad Arrow,