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rapidity of fire, we may be sure we are on the right track. It is in that direction that the pith and full merit of breech-loading lie. The quick breech-loader is, cæteris paribus, superior to the slow breech-loader, as the needle-gun was superior to the Austrian musket; and when we grasp this fact we know better what to look for. In this way we make, too, havoc of the great bugbear of precision. A breech-loader is not a contrivance specially for giving accurate shooting, but for giving rapid shooting. We may get, and we ought to get, out of our breech-loader such precision as may be deemed requisite for military service, and there is, prima facie, no reason why that should not be as great as is attainable even with a good match-rifle. But what we do hope people are beginning to realize by this time is, that the success or failure of a breech-loader, as a breechloader, is not to be measured by its accuracy, but, speaking broadly, by its rapidity of fire. What we are now in search of is a safe, simple, rapid breech-action. We may assume that we have the requisite accuracy in an Enfield, or, if you will, in a Whitworth rifle, and it is no difficult task to tack this accuracy on to the best breech-action.

Then, we think we can perceive indications of sounder notions respecting the intimate relations which exist between the cartridge and the gun. As much indeed depends, so far as the loading at the breech is concerned, upon the one as upon the other. There are two great subdivisions of breech-loading systems :-That which we may call the needlegun system, in which the gas check, or obturation, is effected by the gun, and that in which it is effected by the cartridge. The former system is now generally admitted to be inferior to the latter, not only because the principle of requiring a reliable and endurable mechanical fit at the breech is less sound and less reliable in practice than the principle of employing, so to express it, a fresh breech at each discharge; but because, as has been amply demonstrated in the course of the present competition, these needle-guns uniformly exhibit a liability to leave behind in the chamber after firing some portion of the cartridge, causing delay, if not danger, in reloading, and this defect we believe to be inherent to the system. It is noticeable in connection with this subject that of the arms selected by the committee to compete for the prize, not one is on the self-consuming cartridge system. This clears the ground considerably, and simplifies the conditions of the inquiry to a great extent. The contrivances for closing the breech are infinite and must always remain so, and the superiority of one system to another, as far as the breech-action is concerned, will be influenced mainly by mechanical considerations; but the possible varieties of cartridge, on which so much depends, are not so numerous. The contest in reality lies between papier-maché cartridges on the one hand and metallic cartridges on the other. The former we hold, on grounds of general serviceability, to be largely inferior to the latter for military use, if not absolutely inadmissible; and this opinion will now, we believe, be generally accepted as correct. By this process of elimination we narrow the cartridge question still further.

If we

assume a metallic cartridge to be indispensable for military service, the problem remains of the selection of the strongest, lightest, most endurable and cheapest metal, and its disposition in the manner which presents at once the maximum strength and the minimum difficulty in manufacture. Thin sheet brass disposed in a coil appears to us to fulfil these conditions better than any other known application of metal. By coiling the metal the requisite elasticity is obtained, without the disadvantages which generally belong to a highly elastic material. The stretch is effected by the uncoiling instead of by the stretching of the metal, and a given thickness, or we should say thinness, of metal can in this way be made to effect more than if it be applied in any other way. What we want is, not a cartridge strong enough to take the whole strain, but one which, while easy to load and extract, adapts itself on the explosion to the sides of the chamber, invoking their assistance, and effectually closing all escape by immediately lining the chamber tightly-as tightly as molten metal poured into a mould. If these considerations and the others which apply to the requirements of a military cartridge, especially the important considerations of expense and weight, be borne in mind, we think that of the two great rivals, solid copper and coiled sheet brass, the coiled brass will be generally admitted to be superior.

With regard to rim-fire as opposed to central-fire cartridges, it can hardly now be doubted that the balance of advantages inclines largely to the side of the latter. Not only does the rim-fire system deprive the base of the cartridge of the internal support and defence of the paper wad, but it throws upon the part thus weakened and already weak a great additional strain by the explosion within it of a quantity of fulminate. Central fire is no doubt more expensive, but the details of the system admit, we believe, of considerable simplification.

Finally, in the course of the present inquiry it has been clearly established that small-bores, on account of the length of the cartridges, admit of a less rapid rate of fire than large-bores. But if it should be thought desirable for purposes of accuracy to adopt a small-bore, there seems no reason why the diameter of the chamber of the gun and of the cartridge should not be enlarged, permitting of a corresponding reduction in the length of the latter. In connection with the subject of small-bores it should not be lost sight of, that with equal charges the initial strain is in these arms necessarily more intense than in those of larger calibre, and this necessity entails the employment of a stronger cartridge and breechaction, and renders the problem of the production of a good breechloading system somewhat less easy of attainment.

These points will no doubt all be fully weighed by Colonel Fletcher's committee; but it is well that the public should understand upon what considerations the selection of an efficient military breech-loader mainly hinges.

191

Coasts and Sentiments.

SINCE there are "toast and sentiment manuals" for the present generation, an old custom which has passed out of the regions of common life must be presumed to have life in it yet, and go much further than the personal "healths" which give rise to such eloquent assaults on veracity at public and private banquets. In origin, the custom was purely religious, just as the stage was. Both were of the province of the priest; and neither was at all found fault with till the management of each fell into secular hands. Then "healths" became profane, and the stage worldly.

Observers of popular customs cannot have failed to remark a little ceremony which often occurs when members of the lower orders are about to quaff from the foaming pewter. He who holds the full tankard pours a slight portion of it on to the ground before he drinks. He knows not why and cares not wherefore; but he is really doing what his pagan ancestors did at a very remote period-offering a libation to Mother Earth; selecting her by way of honour; drinking, as it were, "to her health."

It is curious to see how this custom spread away out of Paganism into countries of other faiths. Thus, the Mingrelian Christians, as late at least as the beginning of this century-and perhaps they do so even now -observed this custom of libation. With them it formed at once a grace and a "health." Before sitting down to table, they took up the first cup of wine poured out for them, called on the name of the Lord, and drinking to each other's health, sprinkled part of the liquor upon the floor, as the Romans used to sprinkle their liquor in the earliest days. Originally, this custom at banquets was in honour of the Lares or household gods. The wine was sprinkled on the floor or table before the entrance of the first course, failing which observance the guests could not expect digestion to wait on appetite, or health to accompany either.

"Health," or salutation to the gods, was performed in another fashion, at sacrifice. The officiating priest, before the victim was slain, poured a cupful of wine between its horns; but previous to doing this he saluted the deity, put the patera reverently to his lips, barely tasted the contents, and then handed the cup to his fellows, who went through a similar ceremony. In this way "healths" were of a severely religious origin; and till within these few years, at the harvest suppers of Norfolk and Essex, there was, in the health or ale songs there sung a serious, thanks

giving aspect. The master's health was given in chorus, with a chanted prayer

God bless his endeavours,
And give him increase.

Within the remembrance of many living persons the old religious spirit" superstition" if you will-was not extinguished in Devonshire, in connection with this subject. On the eve of the Epiphany the farmer was accompanied by his men, bearing a pitcher of cider, and these, surrounding the most fruitful apple-trees, drank thrice to their budding, their bearing, and their blowing; and the ceremony generally ended with the old libation offered to the most prolific apple-trees, a portion of the cider being cast at the trees, amid the shouts of the joyous persons present.

The mixture of ale, roasted apples, and sugar, sometimes used on these occasions, and called "lamb's-wool," was certainly handed down from very remote times. Thus the pagan Irish had a very great reverence for the angel who was supposed to preside over fruit-trees generally, and the reverence for that graceful guardian was not diminished when Christian times succeeded, and the festival of All Saints took place of that in honour of the protector of fruits and seeds. The first of November was called La Mas Ubhal-"the day of the apple;" and the composition which was drunk on that day received, in a corrupted form, the name of the day itself, and "La Mas Ubhal" became, in England, that lumb'swool of which Devonshire rustics partook in honour of the best of their bearing-trees.

“Healths” in honour of mortals came to us from abroad. The first given in Britain was given by a lady. It was the "Health of the King;" and mischief came of it. The lady was Rowena, daughter of Hengist. That Saxon ally of the British King Vortigern entertained at a banquet the monarch whom he intended first to make his son-in-law and then to destroy. After dinner the ladies were admitted-a custom which has not yet died out on occasions of public festivity-and Rowena was at the head of them. She carried aloft a capacious goblet of wine, and approaching the dazzled and delighted king, she said, with a courteous reverence, "Lord King, I drink your health." This was said in Saxon, and Vortigern shook his head, to imply that he had not been taught Saxon, and was very sorry for it. He looked inquiringly at his interpreter, and that official translated the lady's words. But this rendered Vortigern little the wiser, as Rowena stood silently gazing at him, cup in hand, and he found himself in utterly new circumstances, and in dreadful want of a master of the ceremonies. "What ought I to do?" he asked of the interpreter; and the latter replied, "As the lady has offered to drink your health, saying, Wacht heil!' you should bid her quaff the wine, saying, 'Drinc heil!'" And Vortigern shaped his British mouth to the utterance of the foreign idiom, and Rowena smiled so exquisitely at his uncouth accent, before she kissed the brim of the cup, that the king lost head and heart, and speedily became double drunk, with love and wine. Thus was a drinking of

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healths brought into Britain, and under such distinguished patronage that it became a universal fashion. And it had a pretty circumstance attached to it, which in later degenerate days went out with the fashion itself. The gallant Vortigern, when he returned the Saxon lady's compliment, and took the cup to drink, not only quaffed it to her health, but, before he did so, kissed her rose-tinted lips with such fervour that the custom of giving health was at once firmly established, and when a lady drank to a gentleman he not only pledged her with the formulary of "Drinc heil," but saluted her lips!

The wickedness of man brought about an unwelcome change in the custom. We all remember the unpleasant story, how the young King Edward the Martyr drank from a bowl of wine as he sat on his horse at the gate of Corfe Castle, and how, while he was drinking, he was stabbed in the back by a murderer hired by the young King's stepmother Elfrida. From that time pledging involved drinking again, but it no longer implied kissing, even when the health was given by a lady. When a man then drank, his neighbour pledged him; that is, undertook neither to stab him himself nor to allow such an act to be committed by another.

The old forms of " pledging," however, did not die out readily, nor are they yet altogether extinct. It was long the custom at Queen's College, Oxford, when a Fellow drank, for the scholar who waited on him to place his two thumbs on the table. This was also an ancient German custom. As long as the drinker saw the two thumbs on the table he was quite sure that the hands they belonged to could not be lifted against his own life. The fashions of drinking survived the names of the authors of them. If Rich, in his English Hue and Cry (A.D. 1617), had remembered the incident of Rowena, he would not have said:"It is pity the first founder " (of giving healths) "was not hanged that we might have found out his name in the ancient record of the Hangman's Register." Rich was not only ignorant of the "founder's" name, but he was guilty of pious mendacity as to what became of that individual, for Rich says: "He that first invented that use of drinking healths had his brains beat out with a pottle-pot; a most just end for inventors of such notorious abuses."

The ancient fashion stood its ground in spite of its moralists; and it is still in force in Guildhall and the Mansion House, though in less vigour now than in the last century. The City toastmaster, who proclaims with such a roaring eloquence at a Lord Mayor's feast, that the Metropolitan magistrate is about to pledge his guests in a loving-cup, probably is little aware of what used to take place on former occasions of a similar nature. At the old Plough-Monday banquet, for instance, the yeoman of the cellar used to stand behind the Lord Mayor, and at the close of dimer he produced two silver cups full of negus. He presented one to the Mayor, the other to his lady, or her representative if there was one, and then the form of proclamation was to this effect:-" Mr. Swordbearer, Squires and Gentlemen all! My Lord Mayor and my Lady Mayoress drink to you in a loving-cup, and bid you all heartily welcome!" The cups were handed

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