The Press. — London, England, 1857-11-21 00:00:00

MONSTER GUNS. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir, —In your impression of Nov. 11th you pub lish a letter addressed to you, and signed " Robert Mallet," containing a most unprovoked attack upon me. This letter must be a hoax, and the production of some enemy of Mr. Mallet, not from himself, because I have been lately in friendly correspondence with him in reference to the priority of our inven tions, in consequence of a review in the Mechanic's Magazine of a pamphlet of mine, in which review it was stated that Mr. Mallet had forestalled me. I thought the most frank and gentlemanlike way of finding out if this were so would be to write and ask Mr. Mallet and Dr. Hart, who was quoted as having made the calculations. I did so, having had the pleasure of malting their acquaintance during the meeting of the British Association in Dublin, and received from each the same reply, viz., that our dates were so close that I could not have borrowed from them nor they from me, but that they really could not say which was absolutely first. On the 7th November the Mechanic's Magazine published a letter from me to this effect, in which I added that I applied the principle referred to in a different manner from Mr. Mallet, and that I had not very sanguine hopes of the performance of the wrought iron chosen by him. It is impossible that, a week after this, Mr. Mallet could have accused me of wishing to be thought the maker of his mortars, which I never saw till a month ago, and do not think much of now I have seen. Your correspondent further states that the design for the mortars was " carried to completion without alteration in any essential principle," a statement which cannot have been made by Mr. Mallet, as the mortars have no longitudinal bars in the inside, which I believe would have been very objectionable, but which were certainly part of the original plan. In Mr. Mallet's book on the subject, published I believe in on page 14S there is a drawing, and in page 149 the following description, of his in vention : A gun thus formed will consist of one or more plies of longitudinal bars, extending the whole length of the gun and closely fitting at the edges, forming by their internal surfaces (when together) the cylindric cavity of the chase, upon which a number of circular rings will be closely fitted, 4:c. Again, your correspondent says that the merits of his mortar " rest on totally different ground, from their being built up of concentric lamina," whereas Mr. Mallet in his book, page 152, says:— I .. 1 IP 1 II 1 I, 158 ~ Solid reinforce rings, indeed, have been repeatedly pro• posed and frequently applied to various projects or forms of cannon, but the author believes that the reculiar advantages of their application in their concentric laminte, the internal ones of which shall be compressed by an ini tial extension of the external ones, has never before been distinctly pointed out, and their adoption proposed and urged—the essential and radical distinction being this, that by no arrangement or variation of design can a gun be formed in a single ply of rings, whose strength to sustain an internal pressure shall be greater than the cohesive power of the material per square inch of section ; whereas by the subdivision of the rings into a number of superimposed plies, each compressing those within it, the strength of the gun may be increased so as to bear an internal pressure any required number of times greater than the ultimate cohesive powers of the material—in fact, may be increased ad ilyinilurn. Lastly, Mr. Mallet is a person of education, and has mixed with society and knows its laws, therefore cannot have written the threat of your correspondent to "go into questions as to the originality of my investigation or patent " out of revenge, if any one sets up claims for me as respects these mortars—so, as I said, the letter must have been written by an enemy of his. My plans aro at all events successful, as a perusal of the following results will show :—Four 9-pounder guns were tried in 1855 at Woolwich and. Shot:nu ry ness to decide their relative ♦alues. They were, a cast-iron service gun, a brass service gun, one made by Mr. Dundas of wrought iron (on a plan identical with Mr. Mallet's, except the adoption of the one principle, which your correspondent disavows), and one on my plan. They were fired— THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 21, 1857. 2 rounds, with 8 lbs. of powder, 1 shot, 1 wad 8(1 It 3 19 1 „ 0 „ 26 ~ 1 1 „ 0 „ 5 5 19 1 11 1 11 5 ~ 5 >, 2 „ 1 ~ 3 11 6 ~ 2 „ 1 „ Here Mr. Dundas' gun burst. The rest were fired 107 rounds, with C lbs. of powder, 2 shot, 1 wad, when the cast-iron gun burst. The remaining two were fired sixty-four rounds with the same charge, when the brass gun became unserviceable, mine only re maining, and bearing an additional proof of 134 rounds, with 0 lbs. of powder, 2 shot, 1 wad I ~ 0 19 4 „ 1 „ 1 ~ 6 ~ 5 „ 1 „ 6 1 7„ 1 „ 8„ 1 „ 9„ 1 „ 10 /I 1 1, Have I any reason, sir, to prefer Mr. Mallet's untried plan to my tried one? I prefer also my own way of bringing forward a plan. Mr. Mallet was at ones backed up by Lord Palmerston and a more exalted personage, and re port says that the country's money enabled him to carry out his views. I hear that the two mortars cost 15,0001., although Mr. Mallet has givan his time and first-rate abilities gratis. In 1853 I was at Constantinople, and saw what a few gunboats could do to avert a inar, if armed with one monster gun each. I urged thisi view with the Turkish com mandant of the arsenal, Halil Pacha, and with an influential person in the Embassy. When the army came, I had some conversation on the subject with Lord de Ros and General Cator, but neither could neglect their immediate duty to attend to me. In August, 1854, I laid a plan before the select com mittee at Woolwich, and they answered distinctly that they did not contemplate the use of very large guns. I next tried to get some manufacturer to make a huge gun on my plan (cast. iron, strengthened with concentric cylinders or wire), but failed. In November I heard of the battle of Inkermann, of the storm in the Black Sea and of the likelihood of a long siege, and immediately started off to Turkey to urge the use of the immense Turkish brass guns, to be strengthened with wire and used as howitzers, and of the 10 inch shell guns of the navy so strengthened to throw solid shot for battering pur poses. This was a practical proposal, and could have been carried out in a few weeks, not two years. Again I failed, and returned to Europe, and set to work to get 18 and 21 pounders made at my own expense, as models. I saw the Duke of Newcastle, and was referred to the select committee which had already decided not to use large guns, and which now pronounced my plan of making them imprac ticable and dangerous. After several experiments, I sent the gun which stood such a wonderful proof. Then Lord Panmure strengthens all the Lancaster guns, thrown aside as dangerous, on the plan de clared in June,'ss, to be impracticable, and writes to me that my plan is not new, having been proposed in 1807. Here was encouragement to a young officer to advance the science of his profession! I used what interest I could with the late Lord Hardinge to be allowed to sell my commission and devote the money to making a large gun, and not succeeding, I raised money to carry on my experi ments at a ruinous cost. This proceeding will cause me inconvenience for life, but I glory in having made sacrifices to carry out what I clearly saw was of importance to my country—what, if adopted, would have saved thousands of men and millions of money. I have not one relation at either the Horse Guards or the War Department—l am not even a Scotch man—so have little chance of even being thanked for my exertions. Mr. Mallet, backed as he is, will probably be well rewarded. I sincerely trust he may; but he may rest assured no reward will give him half the satisfaction which I feel in having per severed in a good cause, in spite of poverty, great mechanical difficulties, the entreaties of my friends, and the resolute obstructiveness of the War Depart ment.—l am, sir, your obedient servant, T. A. BLAKELY, Capt. R.A. THE TRANSPORT OF TROOPS BY THE INDUS is thus referred to by the Sind Kossid :—" The steamers Planet, Napier, and Assyria, with the flats Ethersey and Nitocris, have been ordered down from the Persian Gulf, and are expected here daily.. . . With this fleet, and the camel train, organised so efficiently by Colonel Hutt, we ought to be in a position to despatch some thousands of soldiers for the relief of the upper provinces in a shorter space of time than can possibly be done from the Calcutta side, and we think the public will agree with us in saying that it is very much to be regretted the home autho rities did not order the greater portion of the rein forcements now on their way out, to disembark at Kurrachee rather than in Bengal." 1135 THE LATE MR. AUGUSTUS STAFFORD. MR. AUGUSTUS STAFFORD, M.P., died on Sunday night at Morrison's hotel, Dublin, to which Mr. Stafford bad been brought from his seat in the county of Limerick a few days previous. The cir- cumstances of the death of the hon. gentleman were such that his friends determined to have an official investigation. An inquest was held on Wed nesday last, and the evidence given revealed the most painful particulars. It appeared that about the 4th of November, when at Cratloe, near Limerick, Mr. Stafford suffered an uneasy feeling in the lower part of the stomach. He had experienced this without alarm on previous occa sions. But the feeling becoming painful and the pain increasing in intensity, he seat for Dr. Griffin, a surgeon in Limerick. Dr. Griffin bled him and administered a dose of laudanum. In the night, the bandage getting loose, the arm burst out bleeding again, and Mr. Stafford rose, roused his servant for his assistance, and ultimately getting into his servant's bed fell into a sort of stupor. From this he was never fairly roused. The soles of his feet were beaten, by direction of Dr. Griffin, to keep him awake ; lie was pulled out of bed and forced to walk up and down the room. Another medical man was called in (Dr. Dickinson), who pronounced Mr. Stafford suffering from an overdose of opium. The beating by sticks on the soles of his feet was con tinued ; at one time five men, on and off, were en gaged. On Tuesday, the 10th, feeling better, Mr. Stafford expressed a desire to be removed to Dublin for superior medical advice. Sir Henry Marsh was sent for, and attended him until he died on Sunday evening last. From the medical evidence of Sir Henry Marsh, it appeared that, while admitting the value of laudanum iu a case of excessive pain arising from gall-stones, he said that nothing would justify an " excessive dose " unless intensity of pain existed. The necessity of copious bleeding would also depend upon the "intensity of the pain experienced." In answer also to the question whether, after a patient had been bled to the extent of :30 oz. and had taken 300 drops of laudanum and henbane, a further dose should be applied, Sir 11. Marsh said, " I will not say it was wrong practice, but I would not do it my self." In another portion of his evidence, Sir Henry Marsh said the treatment applied by Dr. Griffin to Mr. Stafford appeared to be " very st. ong ;" that the bleeding and laudanum unquestionably did debilitate him, and that the necessity of flogging the soles of Mr. Stafford's feet to arouse him from lethargy during the whole of the next day as " decided evidenc"s of his having been completely narcotised by the use of opium to a dangerous extent." Mr. G. Porter attributed the cause of death to fatty de generation of the heart. The intense pain Mr. Stafford suffered arose from nineteen gall-stones in the bladder. He considered that the bleeding and laudanum aggravated the debility caused by the disease, and "hastened death." The Right Bon. H. A. Herbert, who had visited Mr. Stafford in Dublin, said that deceased entirely attributed the cause of his illness to the overdose of opium given to him by Dr. Griffiin : He told me that he had been ill at Cratloe, and had received an overdose of laudanum from Dr. Griffin. He also described the agonies he had suffered during the treatment. Before long it was evident that the effort of speaking was too much for him, and I said he had better postpone telling me the rest. He then said, " Mick will tell• you all " (meaning his servant), and his servant then told me the story, only not so much in detail as he has related here to-day. He alluded to the subject himself after that, and was certainly convinced that the cause of his death was the treatment to which he had been sub— jected. Dr. Griffin in his explanation briefly said that he could not charge himself with having acted rashly or improperly : He did not know how any man could withhold relief from a patient in excruciating agony, where the pain still continued, and where he still cried out for relief, the first dose not being effectual ; lie believed that any man in the same circumstances that lie was in would have exercised the same discretion. As the jury had been told by Sir H. Marsh, it was by the intensity of the pain only that a man could judge of the remedies that were to be applied. 'I he jury ultimately returned a verdict to the following etfect : We find that the said Stafford Augustus O'Brien Stafford died from natural causes, and that there is no blame to be attached to Pr. tiriffiin for the treatment which de ceased received while at Limerick under his care. amp MU sau inaku• J. UV., 11.•. al/ C .--. I ----- I