EXPERIMENTS WITH THE NEW FRENCH RIFLE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2510, 11 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE NEW FRENCH RIFLE.

According to all accounts, the new " Lebcl rifle "is wondrous weapon, and is destined to do terrible things in tho hands of the French soldiers. The Members of the Academy of Medicine, wishing to diagnose the physical consequences of wounds inllictcd by the bullets of the gun, recently had experiments made on twenty corpses, probably those of paupers whom nobody owned, or those ill-fated waifs picked up at the Mrr*ue. The bodies were placed at the ordinary firing distances, from 200 yards up to a mile or so. The bullets whizzed through the bones and picrccd thein without fracturing them, as is done by tho bullets of the " gras rifle." Two wounds—if they may be called so —which were inflicted, were small in their punctures, and consequently very dangerous and dillicult to heal. Injuries inflicted, at short distances were so considerable that, in the opinion of the surgeons, they would b"! almost incurable. At the longest range, ' '2000 metres, a poplar tree was hit; but ' the bullet, which impelled a certain quantity of air before, did not go through the tree. At 1200 metres the tree was pierced through and through. The discharges of the rifles are unaccompanied by smoke, and the reports are comparatively feeble.