The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-07 00:00:00

A LORD MAYOR IN THE FOURTEENTH
CANTUR

(From the City Press )
In the year 1381—the beginning of the reign o
Richard the Second—the kingdom wa-i far fmni
being in a prosperous state. The working
especially, feeling themselves heavily oppresHed by
a poll-tax, which had been imposed theyear before,
and which, being firmed by several nohieruee., was
exacted by their collectors with great severity re-
solved to make a general effort to rid themselves of
the hated impost. Will this view they chose a
man named Tyler for their captain ; and such was
the rapidity with which the flame spread, that he
soon found himself at the Ilea 1 of nearly a hundred
thousand men, composed chiefly of thss peasants of
Kent and Essex.
Entering Loudon on the 13th of June, they im-
mediately proceeded to the wildest excesses. All
the houses which they could learn were tenanted by
lawyers were, with all speed, laid in ruins, and the
archbishop's palace at Lambeth, with all the stores
of furniture, books, and manuscript documents,
met with the same fate. To help them in t,:ese
destructive outrages, and to augment the force
with which they hoped to pull down the whole
fabric of the State, they had, on their first entrance
into Southwark, broke open the two great prisons
of the King's Bench and Marshalsea, and released
all the prisoners. These prisoners, most of them
hardened villains, all joined the ranks of their
deliverers.
We have not space here minutely to detail all the
calamities which ensued on the outburst of popular
fury. Suffice it, that all the richest and most in-
fluential citizens, who did not secure their safety by
flight, were hanged or beheaded. The Flemish
merchants, in particular, were sacrificed in great
numbers. The Temple and the other Inns of Court
were attacked and burnt, with all that they con-
tained. Many of the most ancient and curious re-
cords relating to our national history perished in
these conflagrations. Soon after, the prisons of
Newgate and the Fleet were broken open, and all
the prisoners released—whencea new augmentation
of desperadoes to the desolating crew.
As yet, neither the Government nor the citizens
had made any attempt to resist the rioters. Their
prodigious number, and the terrible excesses by
which they gave demonstration of their temper and
their strength, seem to have struck all powerless
with consternation. At length it was resolved that
an attempt should be made to effect their disper-
sion, and that the King should proceed, for the pur-
pose of holding a conference with the rioters and
their chief, to West Smithfield, where they were
then collected. His Majesty accordingly made his
appearance, attended by William Walworth, Lord
Mayor, and a few other followers. Tyler, who sat
mounted in front of his rabble, as soon as he per-
ceived the King approach, put spurs to his horse,
and, dashing forward, did not stop till he had
placed himself close by Richard. " Sir King," lie
then said, "seest thou all yonder people ? They
be all at my command, and have sworn to me their
faith and troth to do all that I would have them."
He followed up his,speech byindignantly command-
ing one of the King's attendants, Sir John Newton,
to dismount, and remain on foot in his presence ;
and on the knight's refusal drew his dagger
and rushed to stab him—an intention which lie was
only prevented from putting into execution by the
King requesting Newton to come down from his
horse. Several efforts were now made by the King
and those with him, to prevail on the haughty re-
bel to come to terms ; but he only replied to their
remonstrunco with scorn and defiance. At last,
incensed at his insolent bearing, the royal atten-
dants called upon his Majesty to have him arrested.
Richard, with some hesitation, pronounced the bold
order, when Walworth immediately advancing,
struck Tyler a blow upon the head which brought
him to the ground. The mob, as soon as they saw
their leader fall, raised a shout of vengeance, and
were preparing to rush against the King and his
friends. One instance, however, of surprise and
indecision still retained them where they stood ;
when Richard, with extraordinary resolution and
presence of mind for one so young, only in his
15th year, rode up to them and exclaimed, " What,
my friends, will you kill your king ? Be not
troubled for the loss of your leader ; I will be your
leader, and all you desire shall be granted." This
address acted upon them like a spell ; with wild
acclamations they, one and all, followed their new
captain to St. George's-fields, across the river. No
sooner were they gone, than Walworth, who had
already acted a bold part, proceeded to raise such
a force as he could among the citizens ; and his
active exertions succeeded in bringing together a
body of a thousand men in arms, and in restoring
peace and order.

(From, the Engineer.)
The hollow explosive projectiles that we call shells or
bombs are a very old invention in the noble art of
human destruction. Under the name of " coininges"
they consisted of rudely-formed globes of plate iron
melted together, and filled with gunpowder and all sorts
of miscellaneous " mitraille," and were thrown to short
distances from " pierriers" (a sort of mortar) and from
catapalta, as early as 1495 at Naples, 1590 at Padua,
1520 at Heiisberg, 1522 at Rhodes, and 1542 at Bou.
longue, LiZesee. About the middle of the 15th century
bombs of cast iron teem to have come into use ; and,
strangely enough, an Englishman named Malthus (pro-
bably an ancestor of the great objector to the increase
of population) learned the art of throwing them from
the Dutch, and, migrating into France, perfected the
system for the French armies—being the first to throw
shells in France, at the siege of La Motile, in 1643.
The diameter of the bomb seems at that time to have
become fixed (doubtless, by mere combination of acci-
dent and habit) at 13 inches—the old Paris foot, and at
this it remains (with very few exceptional cases) down to
the present day all over Europe.
A few spasmodic attempts to increase the size and
power of these formidable projectiles have been made at
different moments, but never with the requisite know•
ledge, practical skill of execution, or perseverance neces-
sary to success : for example, 18-inch shells were thrown
by the French, at the siege of Tourney, in 1745 ; and
just a century before, the Swedes threw shells of 4621b5.
weight, and holding 40 lbs. of powder. The French,
when they occupied Algiers in 1830, found numbers of
old shells of nearly 900 lbs. in weight ; and in almost
every arsenal and foitreis in Europe one or two old 16-
inch and 18-inch shells are to be found as curiosities.
Scared apparently by their fsrener abandonment --which
Antoni (Uso Belle Armi da Fuoco," Torino, 1780) states
arose from the awkwardness of loading, preventing more
than one discharge in 40 minutes, and from the cost and
difficulty of manufacturing large shells, owieg to the
defective state of iron-founding in his time—no attempt
was made in modern days to realise the vast accession of
power that such large shells confer, until the year 1832,
when the " monster mortar," as it was then called of 20
inch calibre, designed by C.A. Paixhans (the author of
the Paixhans gun), was constructed by order of Baron
Evain, the Belgian Minister of War, and attempted to
be used by the French at the siege of the citadel of
Antwerp, but with the worst possible success. The
mortar, a crude cylindrical mass of cast iron, sunk in a
bed of timber weighing about 8 tons, and provided
neither with adequate means for "laying" it nor for
charging in the heavy shells, that weighed when filled
wltl:99lbs. of powder, 1,0151b5, each, could with diffi-
culty be fired three rounds in two hours, while the shells
themselves were so badly proportioned and so ill cast,
and so ill fitted with fusses, that very few exploded at
all, and some of those that did burst near the mortar,
endangering all around.
The very few that really ranged as desired producnd
effects so formidable on the works of the citadel as to
have materially precipitated the capitulation. One shell
fell nearly close to the powder magazine, but did not
explode ; had it fallen upon the presumed bomb-proof
arch of the magazine, containing 300,0001bs of powder,
it would have pierced it, according to the opinion of all
the military engineers present at the siege, and so closed
the enterprise at a blow, The ill-success of this mortar
"gave quietus" for several years to any attempt to
develop bombs into their legitimate office—as the means
of suddenly transferring mines into the body of fortified
places—of a power adequate to act with decisive effect
upon their works, although some years afterwards a
20 inch mortar was made in England for the Pacha of
Egypt, and proved at Woolwich, but was apparently
never experimented with.
But another circumstance still more tended to the
neglect of large shells thrown by vertical fire. After
repeated trials and many failures it was found practic•
able to throw 10-inch (and since that even 13-incb)shells
from cannon or "shell guns" by projecting them nearly
horizontally, or at such low angles that they should
" ricochette" and roll along the ground before they
burst ; and thus fired, it was soon seen that their
destructive power as against troops was greater than if
fired at angles approaching 45 deg. of elevation from
mortars. From this the conclusion was unfortunately
jumped at, that mortars and their vertical
fire were
useless, were no longer wanted, that a shell gun was the
one thing needful—mortars but a relio of barbarous and
disused customs. Paixhans and his school had pushed a
good and useful school beyond its proper limits, and
had lost sight wholly of the all-important fact, that
horizontal shell fire, powerful as it is against troops or
shipping, is all but useless as an instrument of
destruction to the works (the earthwork and masonry,
&c.) of fortified places ; for this end weight, and the
penetrative power due to the velocity of descent in
falling from a great height, are indispensable. So
completely, however, bad this been lost sight of, that
at the commencement of V:e Russian war we not
only
had no bomb vessels, and no good designs or models
whereon to construct them, but even scarcely any
mortars, and all were to be made at the moment when
we needed them in action.
About the latter end of 1854 the attention of Mr. Robert Mallett, C.E., was directed to themathematical
consideration of the relative
powers of shells . propor-
tion to their increase of size or of diameter which,
soßange to say, had never been attempted by any author
military science; and his inquiries resulted in a
memoir presented by him to Government, in which he
investigated the increase of power in shells with increase
of diameter, under the heads of-1. Their penetrative
power. 2. Their increased range and greater accuracy
of fire. 3. Their explosive power. 4. Their power of
demolition, or of levelling earthworks, buildings, &c.;
and lastly, their moral effect—in every case viewing
the shell not as a weapon against troops, but
an instrument of destruction to the enemy's works.
The result so convinced Mr.' Mallet of the rapid rate at
which the destructive powers of a shell increase with in-
crease of fire, that'he was induced to propose to govern-

mere tho employment of shells of a eieeni ele
hetere imagined by any one, namely, of a 3:.r I
in diameter. and weighirii, when in fleglA, about a ton
and a quarter each.; end to prepare &forges, 'e
spear: navel and peculiar, for the censtrueLi, e t,.,._
capable of projecting these enormous olohcee Like every
proposal, however, that far outreaches the te:e-!e'ls
tho-righte cf ordinary thinkers, this was ill r ee:v by
the then Ordnaeco eutheroies ; they aelmittad Mr. Met-
let's eonc/usione as to the value of those euorno:as shells
for those, being based on mathematical reasoning, could
not be denied, but they denied in effect that it wee pos-
sible to make shells of this size that would bear being
thrown, or to make a mortar thee- would tl.row them.
Nor would any atteniwi even have been made to realise
what must now be c )neidered the rno,,t tremendous
offensive siege weapon in the world, had it nut been ft r
the clear conceptions and energetic interfereece of Lord
Palmerston as Prime Minister. What was in 1854 a
presumed official
fact.ffieia o
l impa Oct.
ossiilill, has become in 1857 all
accomplished the
first of those colossal
mortars constructed from Mr. Mallet's design was fired
on Woolwich Marshes, with charges (of projection) gra-
dually increasing up to 701 b. ; and with the tatter charge
a shell weighing 2,55011). was thrown a horizontal range
of upwards of a mile and a half to the height of probably
three-quarters of a mile, and falling penetrated the com-
pact and then hard dry earth of the Wooleich range to
a depth of more than 18 feat, throwing about cart-loads
of earth and stones by the mere splash of the fall of the
empty shell. What would have been the crater Mown
out if the bursting charge of 4001 b. of powder had been
within and fired at that depth ?
It would be nut of place here to attempt to follow Mr.
Mallet's mathematical results as to the relative powers
of email and large shells; some popular notion, however,
of the subject may be given in a few words.
Say we have a 13-inch shell, and a 36-inch shell, and for
simplicity that each has the same proportion of iron and
powder in relation to their hulks, of the same density.
Roughly the large shell may be said to be three times
the diameter of the small one. Then, a ring or circle,
through which the larger one will just pass, will have -
nine times the area of that through which the smaller
one will just pass, and the weight of the large shell will
be 27 times that of the small one.
It the two shells, then, be thrown at the same angle of
elevation and at the same velocity, the larger shell will
range greatly further than the small one, for their relative
resistances in the air are about as one to nine, while
their relative energy of motion or momentum is as une
to 27.
A 13-inch shall, weighing about 18016. is thrown by a
charge of 301 b. of powder barely 4,700 yards. We have
teen that, wi h not much more than double this amoun
of powder, the 36-inch ehell of more than 14 times its
weight was thrown 2,650 yards, or much more than
half the distance. Hence, the power of obtaining great
range with those large shells.
The explosive power, it is obvious:, is approximately
proportionate to the weight, of powder; but, by calcu-
lations, of which the result only can here be given, Mr.
Mallet has shown that the total power of demolition,
that is to say the aLsolute amount of damage done in
throwing down buildings, walls, &c., by one 36-inch
shell, is 1,600 times that possible to be done by one
13-inch shell, and that an olject which a 13-inch shell
could just overturn at one yard from its centre, will be
•verthrown by the 36-inch shell at 41 yards distance.
A 13-inch shell penetrates, oa falling upon compact
earth, about two and a half feet. The Antwerp shell
penetrated 7 feet. The 36-inch shell penetrated 16 to
18 feet. The funnel-shaped cavity, or " crater" of earth
blown out by the explosion of a buried shell, is always a
similar figure, called a'4 paraboloid ;" its diameter at
the surface, produced by the 13-inch shell is 7 feet, and
by the 36-inch shell about 40 feet.
No bomb-proof arch (so called) nowjexists In Europe
capable of resisting the fall of one of those huge shells
upon it, whose energy of descent may be represented as
equal to about 300 tone, against the tremendous fall of
such masse;, still more against the terrible powers of
their explosion, when 4801 b. of powder, fired to the very
best a lvantage, puts in motion the fragments of more
than a ton of iron. No means or precautions are possible
in a fortress, no splinter proof--no ordinary vaulting,
perhaps no casemate exists capable of resisting their fall
and explosion, either of which would sink the largest
ship (even the Leviathan) or floating battery. And
as
no precaution could save either garrison or town from
such shells, so their moral effect would be paralysing.
Other great and special uses have been pointed out for
them by their proposer, both for attack and defence,
which we cannot enter upon.
A single 36-inch shell in flight costs 251., and a single
13-inch 21. 2s , yet the former is immeasurably the
cheaper projectile for to transfer to the point of
effect the same weight of bursting powder we must
give—

55 shells of 13 inches, at 21. 2s £ll5 10 0
Against 1 shell of 36 inches

Showing a saving in favour of
the large shell of £9o 10 0
and this assumes that 55 small shells, or any number of
them, could do the work of the single great one.
We must, hoorever, pass on to notice the mortars
from which these Titanic p-ojectiles are shot.
The mortars are, with the exception of one part (the
base), and the elm timber ends, formed wholly of
wrought iron, in concentric tings, and each entire mortar
is separable at pleasure into 13 separate pieces, the
heaviest of which weighs about 11 tons, so that the ice-
mense weight, when all put together (about 62 tons),
is susceptible of easy transport, on ordinary artillery
carriages, over rough country, or can be conveniently
shipped, stowed, or landed. Special mortar rafts for
the use of these mortars at sea have been designed by
their inventor, and novel and more precise methods of
pointing, especially at night, than hitherto practised.
The two mortars which have been constructed were
made partly at Liverpool, by the Mersey Steel Company
and by Messrs. Fawcett, Preston, and Co., engineers,
but chiefly at the Thames Iron Works (late C. J. Mare's,
Black wall).
had they been in existence three years ago, there is no
hazard in affirming that we should have given a better
account of the Russian casemated fortresses both on the
Baltic and on the Euxine ; nor can there by any doubt
that their becoming perfected and established in prac-
tice will materially molify the constructive works of
fortification and defence, and alter maay of the existing
methods of attack.

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