PROFESSOR SMASH'S GYRATIC BULLET.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3194, 15 May 1879, Page 1

PROFESSOR SMASH'S GYRATIC BULLET.

It wai while public feeding was in this healthy state—humanity strongly developed, and inrention of destructive weapons stimulated to the highest point, so that the-man who discovered a new gun of a new projectile might hope to be made a knigHt, or even a baronet, and be sure, in any ease, of getting a good round sum for his pains—that an ingenious scientific gentleman brought out a beautiful new bullet, warranted to go round the corner. Earthworks and traverses would be no longer of any use, however well you might be sheltered. Unless you .had absolutely a roof orer your head, this new bullet would find you out, and when it did you were done for, because part of the invention was that the bullet on striking the object burst into a score of fragments. No fear of the bullet coming short of "its purpose by doing only trifling damage, as merely, going through the fleshy part of the arm or leg, and letting the wounded man turn, up all right again at the end of the campaign, as the clumsy missile did which' it was intended to supersede. " Warranted to wound mortally," was stamped on the wrapper of the cart*, ridge, just below the neat trade-mark. And the inventor did not claim more than he was entitled to, for when the cartridge was tried down at Woolwich marshes on some dummies, placed like soldiers lying snugly behind the parapet of a redoubt, the dummies were found to be all smashed to bits, the splinters so scattered, indeed, that the officer in charge of the experiment had - some ado to get his accounts passed by the audit department because the fragments could not be found. The new. bullet became "the talk of the day, quite cutting out the-'famous African traveller, who came home a fortnight too late for his reputation.' A visit to Woolwich became as much an item in the season's work as a visit to the Royal Academy, and young ladies laboring under a press of engagements would economise time by seeing the experiments in the morning and going to the Artillery ball in the evening. "So awfully interesting, don't you know ! " some fair damsel would say to her partner at dinner ! the next day. "JN o, not the ball; that, of course was pretty jolly; the gunners are a very good, sort of fellows at their town mess. I. mean that wonderful gyratic bullet. We saw fifty of those dear ridiculous dummies put in the redoubt, and Captain Fuse —he's the officer in charge, don't you know—said that if they had been real soldiers, not one could have been identified after ten miuutes. So awfully scientific and interesting his explanation was. They say Professor Smash sis to hare a peerage."—From the " New Prdeal—Preliminary." in Blackwood'i Magazine. ' ■