A NEW PROJECTILE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 947, 11 June 1880, Page 3

A NEW PROJECTILE.

The refined and attractive exhibition of firing girls out of mortars, shown at some of the London musicdialls, furnishes the New York Times with the following reflections “ While Italy and Germany have succeeded in constructing cannon larger than any yet constructed in England, tho latter country is giving renewed attention to the subject of projectiles. The English Government has tested by careful experiment a hundred different kinds of projectiles, including solid and hollow, spherical and conical, iron and steel shot. None of them have been found perfectly satisfactory, and of late a largo number of experiments have been made in the use of girls as projectiles for large guns. These experiments have naturally excited a good deal of attention, but as they are still in progress, it is evident that the English Government has not yet come to any final decision as to the merits'of the new projectile. It has, however, been abundantly proved that the impact of a heavy girl, even when fired with a moderate charge of powder, is very destructive. A girl of loin, in diameter, aud weighing 1301b., was recently fired at a stout netting, and pierced it as easily as a rifle ouUet would pierce a heavy ulster. Another girl of 16in aud 1401b weight accidentally struck a large English grocer, who came within range of gun from whroh she was fired and smashed his ribs to an extent that scarcely admits of repairs. Of course, the ‘energy’—to use tho technical term—of a girl of given weight, moving at a given velocity, is precisely the same as that of an iron ball of the same weight, and moving at the same velocity. The effect of tho impact of the one may, however, be very different from that of the other. It is for this reason that the material aud shape of projectiles demand the most careful consideration. It is admitted that as yet girls have been fired exclusively from smooth-bores, since no method has been invented of fitting them to the grooves of rifled guns. Tho English Government ought to import some of our angular Boston girls before deciding that girls cannot be fired from rifled guns. There is a strong probability that the projections of the. typical Boston girl could be readily fitted to take the rilling of any pattern of gun, thereby greatly increasing its range and accuracy. Whether other nations will regard the use of girls by tho British artillerists as contrary to the laws of nations is a grave question. In former days chainshot was not permitted to be used except iu sea fights, on the ground that it inflicted an unnecessary amount of suffering. But a girl, when fired into a compact of men would do far greater execution than any chain-shot. Her limbs would mow down scores of men, and hundreds would be wounded by flying hair-pins and buttons, It may be urged that as girls cannot bo made explosive, they would really do less injury than is inflicted by the fragments of an Armstrong shell, but we can feel very confident that unless all other nations were to adopt the girl projectile, there would bo a general outcry against its use by a British army. Without waiting for tho final result of the experiments now iu progress, we may assume that girls will prove very destructive when used against unprotected bodies of men, but that they will be useless when fired at heavily-plated ironclads. Of their effects when used against earthworks, we have no data sufficient to justify our opinion.”