The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-14 00:00:00

.r-.• 4

dirty rag, with their national colours, is enough to pro-
tect them. We will just chew them the difference." The
name of the Englishman, however, is not given, nor is the

story authenticated.
There are multitudes of French refugees in different
countries. They are said to swarm in England and Bel-
gium, and a Marseilles paper quotes a letter from a person
just returned from Italy, which says that in that country
there are not less than 200,000 Frenchmen who have fled
from France to avoid military service, and who inhabit,
for the most part, Florence, Milan, Turin, and Naples.
GENERAL TROCHU AND THE FRENCH ARMY.—In
the year 1867 General Trochu published a work called " The
French Army," which had six editions. Some extracts
from this shew that the General entertained an unfavout-
able opinion of the manner in which the operations of the
French Army were conducted. He says that great ex-
aggeration was displayed in the accounts given relative to
to the enthusiasm which prevailed in the armies of the
great Revolution. The true statements which have since
appeared shew that Dumouriez's schemes were constantly
interfered with by the inefficiency of his troops. Generol
Trochu was indignant at the course pursued by the
French Governments in making the general officers
responsible for any mischance that might befall them on
the field of battle. He declared that he must protest
against such unjust and injudicious acts, which lowered
the dignity of the army in the sight of the people. By
their attempt to conceal the weakness of the public powers
they only expose it in reality and shew how incapable they
are of fulfilling their duty and arranging a system of war.
The General sincerely pitied these unfortunate men, be-
cause, having experienced the chances of war on the field
of battle, he knew by what hazards it was governed anal
,enced.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF FRENCH AND GERMAN

SHELLS.—Dr. Russell submits for the consideration of our
war authorities some observations he has made respecting
the effect of the French and German missiles in action.

The first of these is the very small power of the shells,
either French or Prussian, against the regular masonry,
and even the strong earthworks of the forts, and against
the revetments of the batteries. This want of power is due
to the immediate explosion of the shell. The percussion
fuse striking against the stone or frozen earth, is
fired of once, and rapid as the velocity of the shell may be,
before it has well penetrated the bursting charge has been
ignited, and the rear of the shell is blown out, the rest not
doing much damage. This result of course cannot be fully
observed when fired against iron plates, which are sup-
posed to bury the shell. Next is the question of the ex-
plosion of the shell itself, and of the nature of its curve,
on which the action of the percussion fuses must
depend. There are places where these shells lie
thickly, and if you make a careful examination of the
ground you will see they all without exception lie on the
side—not one is to be found with its nose stuck in the
ground or the pointed end buried. When that nose
strikes the shell bursts. But then it appears seldom or
never to do so, even from the highest elevations. Two
burst close at St. Germain the other day which I ob-
served, but they were fired at very high angles,
almost like mortar shells, and one plunged into a
sloping bank, which accounted for the bursting. There
is no ricochet—scarcely any, at all events —from these
shells—elongated projectiles of which the body is per-
fectly cylindrical, the point being like a candle extin-
guisher placed on the end of the cylinder. They strike the
ground, give a sort of hop, step, and jump, and topple
over in all sorts of angles, sometimes turning right over,
so that the point lies towards the pin that fire it. I
am now writing of French guns only, but I presume
the Prussian percussion shells do not materially differ.
The loss of power is very great— a long shell which
does burst is a very harmless projectile, and not compar-
able to. an old fashioned round shot, if you could only
give the latter the range. Again, when the elon-
gated shells do burst they are not so destruc-
tive as the round shells, because of the defective
capacity for the charge. It is observed that the large
French shells of 1801 b., which contain, it is said, 41b. of
Powder, break into about six pieces-1, the rear ;2, the
nose and end of the cylinder ; 3 and 4, two large pieces
from the sides ; 5 and 6, two smaller pieces from the
sides—all jagged, and each quite sufficient to cause serious
bodily detriment to the strongest constitution. The Prus-
sians, they say, 'get at least eight, and at most 12 6elats
'rom a similar projectile.