THE ABOR EXPEDITION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 159, 4 January 1912, Page 5

THE ABOR EXPEDITION.

MOUNTAINEERS FINED. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Calcutta, January 2. The Abor villages have submitted, and fines have been imposed upon the tribes concerned in the murder. NEW GRENADE TO BE USED. When the Abors, the wild tribe on the lndo-Clinese frontier, who murdered Mr. Williamson, meet the punitive expedition which is advancing towards them, they will get an unpleasant surprise from a new weapon.

This is the "Master-Hale rifle shrapnel grenade." This weapon, which is not unlike a rocket, is constructed of metal. The body is cylindrical in shape, just over an inch in diameter and 5y 2 in in length. AV-hen fully charged it weighci less than iy 2 lb. The tube'is fixed at the end of a steel rod, which is inserted in the muzzle of the ordinary service rifle, and the ordinary cordite cartridge is used, with the exception that the bullet is extracted.

Fired from the shoulder, the grenade is propelled a distance of anything between 300 and 400 feet, the distance and elevation depending entirely upon the angle at which the rifle is held. The slightest impact will cause the projectile to fly into about 40 pieces, all of which are calculated to kill a man within a 100 ft radius.

A soldier can carry a dozen of these grenades in his belt over the roughest ground with perfect safety, as the fuse is inoperative until a small pin through the base of the grenade has been withdrawn.

The grenade is expected to be particularly useful in routing the natives from their countless small entrenchments and stockades. The Abors fight chiefly with bow and arrow, with the tips of the arrows poisoned, and the inestimable value of the rifle grenade would be that it could be fired from a point outside the widest possible danger zone of the native's arrow.