The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-25 00:00:00

is far less effectual in its consequences. The
breaking of the centre while it is the result of a
plan of attack the most audacious in its design is

the most decisive means for the gaining of a great
victory, and not only the most decisive,
but the most glorious, the most heroic,

he most chivalrous.

It was the favou•

rite thunderbolt burled by the giant hands

of the greatest Captains of modern times both by

sea and land. It was the cause of the crushing

triumph of Trafalgar. It was the secret of the
total rout of two imperial armies on the plains of

Austerlitz. NELSON knew the overwhelming

sequence of his boldly breaking the line of the
allied fleets when he bore down upon them with
that immortal signal from the Victory, " England

expects every man will do his duty." NAPOLEON
foresaw with the prescient eye of Genius the

deathless laurels which were to be reaped upon

;he heights of Pratzen on the morning of that

ever-memorable anniversary of his coronation,
when he struck down with one tremendous blow
the associated banners of the CZAR and the KAISER.
It is after the enforcement of these indisputable
facts, facts demonstrative of the inefficiency of
any plan of attack directed against a flank as com-
pared with another daringly hurled against an
enemy's centre, that General OKOUNEFF succinctly
and explicitly indicates (page 25) as the sub-

jeet matter of his little treatise, his projec
for the crowning employment of the Artillery as
the grandest and the most terrible, in fact the
wholly irresistible and overwhelming, arm of war,
when wielded, as it should in truth be wielded, in
all future military operations. His argument, in-
deed, reduced to so many words, has been thus
sententiously expressed—the employment of the
artillery " to shatter the enemy's battalions, and
io thoroughly prepare the way for the action of
the other arms as to enable them to break through
the centre of the hostile line of battle, and, by
destroying the tactical connection between the
parts of his army, expose him to a complete de-
feat." Q. E. D. Such is the glorious turning
point in the deadly art of war reserved by a Rus-
sian general as the post of honour to be henceforth
held by the Artillery. Fas est ab hosts
Here in truth are many "words to the wise"—
words which prudence tells us should not be
allowed to scatter to the winds of heaven.
General OKOUNEFF avows, chap. ii., p. 22, " I
think I can foresee the day when the whole conduct
of a battle will be bared on the action of the Artil-
lery." We go further than this—we believe the
day will ultimately arrive when victory will rest
almost exclusively upon the proper 1130 not so
much of cannon balls and bombshells as of a peculiar
and awful species of projectiles. Projectiles, the
nature of which has been dimly, but even now
dismally, indicated in the present war by the stink-
pots of the Russians, and our own destructive
asphyxiating shells, missiles reeking with poison
and detonating with blindness, and death, and
hideous mutilation. Ultimately, we believe that
war will be in a manner almost exclusively carried
on by means of projectiles, compared with which.
even missiles of this ghastly character will appear
is harmless as the sugar-plums showered down
upon the revellers in an Italian carnival. Victory,
that is to say, coming to us then as the sequel of
the Kakodyles and the Cyanides ! It is not extra-
vagant, in other words, to imagine the centre of
an enemy's line of battle irretrievably shattered
by the explosion of certain terrific bombshells,
laden with combustibles more terrible than the
Greek Fire, and with poisons more deadly than
the exhalations of the Upas Tree. Bombshells,
for example, scattering around them upon the
doomed foe in their vicinity, that dreadful com-
pound formed by the union of arsenic and the
radical metbyle—chemically known as Kakodyle
—a volatile substance so inflammable that
it takes fire instantaneously upon its expo-
sure to the atmosphere, and so deatrubtive
that, as it flames up, the arsenic contained in it,
combining with the oxygen in the air, forms itself
into impalpable white arsenic, diffused upon the
breeze, and carrying murder with it in every
respiration ! Bombshells bursting with that fear-
ful liquid formed by the blending of white arsenic
and acetate of potash, a liquid commonly desig-
nated the Liquor of Cadet, but chemically known
by the name of Alkarsin ! Bombshells, again,
discharging as they explode the foetid vapour
termed by chemists the Cyanide of Kakodyle, a
vapour which, upon its contact with the air,
becomes immediately decomposed, part of it
uniting .with the oxygen to form white
arsenic, and part uniting with the hydrogen,
to form prussic acid—the two deadliest poisons
with which science has yet made us acquainted !
That such missiles are not by any means purely
imaginary has already been plainly enough indi-
cated. A little more than a year from the pre-
sent time it was formally announced, indeed, that
" The Committee of Ordnance have had their at-
tention drawn to a new projectile-s--a shell charged
with a liquid which, when released by the con-
cussion of the ball, becomes a sheet of liquid fire,
consuming all within its influence, the smoke
emitted also destroying human life." A descrip-
tion accurately corresponding with the known
properties of the Cyanides and the Kakodyles.
Besides all which, other missiles might be yet
more readily laden with the insupportable stench
produced by such horrid substances as the oil of
garlic or as Mercaptan. General Oxon/cave, it is
here therefore almost unnecessary to add, appears
to us to be anything but rash in attaching such
supreme importance to the future reserved for the
Artillery. So stupendous in its importance we
believe that future to be, tkat upon the rapid and
deadly development of Artillery under the guid-
ance of our Chemical Philosophers, we mainly rest
our hope that War may be ultimately rendered so
destructive as to become altogether impracticable.
Let us articulate this Hope all the more earnestly
upcn this holiest day in the Christian Calendar,
•
upon this divine and glorious festival of Christ-
i
mas—sanguine that Science may thus in the end
prove herself in very deed the awful Handmaid
of Religion.
s-

" MERCATOR" has based his arguments in sup-
port of the Bank Charter Act of 1844 on the
alleged fact that it is not a currency, but capital,
that is deficient, and from thence he aims at the
conclusion that no issue of Bank Notes of any
denominations could possibly remove the evil
which has occasioned such serious injury to the
industrial population of the country. The Times
follows in the same strain, and utters loud jere-
miads on the deplorable "poverty" of the nation.
The existence of general distress is admitted on
every side. On that subject bullionist and anti-
bullionist currency quacks, and currency reform-
ers, fully and completely agree. It is the com-
mon starting point—the axiom that requires no
proof. The mere fact that the minimum rate of
discount at the Bank of England is 7 per cent. for
twy bills having more than GO days to run, and i
the consequent limitation of credit, and difficulty
of converting the most unquestionable securities
into money, establish
the accuracy of the painful
assertion beyond the possibility of doubt or con-
troversy. Bet this admitted distress arises from
poverty, say MERCATOR and the Times, and no
sane of a paper currency) whether convertible or