A TERRIBLE WEAPON OF WAR.

Southland Times, Issue 1057, 16 November 1868, Page 3

A TERRIBLE WEAPON OF WAR.

Since the battle of Sadowa, great advances have been made by other countries — notably England, Prance and America — towards perfecting the utility of the curious descriptions of firearms used by them. Dv Gale's ammunition slide gun forms, however, the most decided step recently made in the direction oi' absolute perfection; Tbe principle of working the invention is very simple. The weapon forms a kind of skeleton fire arm. The stock, barrel, and hammer are in their accustomed places, but where the common revolver has its circular breach for the reI ception of cartridges, Dr Gale's gun or pistol contains a blank square-shapped j space for the reception of a horizontal ! metal slide of very simple yet ingenious j construction enclosing the cartridge. As I tbe cartridges are fired one by one, the slide by self-acting mechanical action passes on through the hollow space in the stock, until the last cartridge having been used a fresh plide filled with cartridges can be instaneously employed. In this way one hundred and forty shots per minute have been actually fired by Dr Gale in presence of the Duke of Cambridge. Eeach slide contains ten or more cartridges, and is iriliirely" distmct from the firearm. The process of reloading the slides is extremely simple and safe, a child being enabled to perform the task with ease, and to keep the firer fully i supplied with ammunition. Of the value and efficiency of the invention there has been expressed but one opinion. The ( Mining Journal* declares it calculated . not merely to increase the fame of Dr Gale . but "to prove of enormous advantage in J the science of warfare," a sentiment echoed by nearly every practical scientific writer. The ' Morning Herald' assuming that the weapon would discbarge sixty shots per minute, says that, armed with weapons on the Gale principle " a single fc regiment of infantry would litterally and absolutely pour forth a veritable storm of bullets; for, assuming such a regiment ] to be eight hundred strong, it would certainly throw forty-eight thousand bullets in the face of its enemy in a single minute of time ; and as few men. would 5 relish facing a body of weapons which ' gave him sixty shots a minute as his own particular chance of death, with a reasonable probability of an extra and large per centage of chances against him as his comrades fell, we only hope that this ] invention may be an additional link in that chain of destructive powers which may in the end make war too dreadful a game for nations to play at." Taking, however, one hundred and twenty shots „ per minute each man, the discharge of the eight hundred soldiers would be 96,600 per minute, or 5,760,000 per hour! Could anything more destructive, more terrific, be imagined than this apparant 1 hell-storm of death ? A regiment thus armed would almost be enabled to annihilate an entire army of opponents. — "John Plummer's Story of a Blind Inventor."