The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON. MONvAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 4, 1867.

Miscellaneous Foreign News.

ROME, Oct. 25.

You have learned by the telegraph how Nerola
was retaken on the 18th at midday, at the very
time I was writing my last letter. The fighting
was severe, not on account of the number of Gari-
baldians (there were scarcely more than 300,
Menotti and 700 men having retired the evening
before), nor on account of their valour. These
chance soldiers, ill-armed for the most part, little
or not at all trained to military life, are not formi-
dable, were they even ten times more numerous,
but on account of the height of the mountain on
which the town is situated. Nerola is ten kilo-
metres from Corese, and less than a kilometre
from the frontier. The Garibaldians took away
with them six Zouaves wounded at the engage-
ment of Monte Libretti on the 13th, and Mrs.
Stone, who went from Rome, as I told you, to take
care of them, together with Mgr. Stonor, who,
at the request of this lady, obtained permission
to leave Rome to hear the confession of the
Zouaves. During the assault, which lasted two
hours, Mrs. Stone, Mgr. Stonor, and the wounded
occupied a house set apart for them. Madame
Kanzler, wife of the Minister of War, went to
Monte Rotondo to take care of the Pontifical
wounded, who might, in case of a reverse, have
been transported thither.
The column was composed of Zouaves, of Gens-
darmes, of the Legion Antibes, and of foreign
Chasseurs, all under the command of General
Charette, of the Zouaves. His troops amounted at
least to 900 men, because it was believed that all
the Garibaldian bands were concentrated at Nerola,
under Menotti ; three pieces of cannon were
brought out. The Consul of the United States
had joined the column as a volunteer. Each corps
was accompanied by its chaplain.
Mgr. Bastide, chaplain of the Legion of Antibes,
marched in the midst of his soldiers with a cru-
cifix in his hand ; beside him was the American
Consul, armed with a good rifle, and shooting at
the Garibaldians with much sang froid. Two
cannon shots, directed against the fortress—an old
tower of the time of the Colonna—soon knocked
a hole in the wall. During this time the soldiers
assaulted the fortress from two opposite sides. Col.
de Charette had his horse shot under him, and at
night, for want of food, the horse had to be eaten.
Some Garibaldians were placed as riflemen out-
side the city ; but they were soon forced to with-
draw inside, and the whole band took refuge in the
fort on seeing the soldiers enter from all sides. But
the besieged, fearing that the artillery would reach
them in their retreat, surrendered the moment the
gate of the fortress was forced by the Zouaves.
About 140 Garibaldians were made prisoners, with
their leader, Valentini, who confessed to Mgr. Bas-
tide that he had studied theology under the Rev.
Father Perrone for two years. "I do not compli-
ment Father Perrone," replied the chaplain, laugh-

ing.
The band had lost one man and had ten wounded;
the attacking column had one killed and eleven
wounded, among whom was Captain Eschmann,
captain of the Legion of Antibes.
The Zouaves, in their hunger, went from door
to door asking for bread. One door opened and
they saw Mrs. Stone, the kind guardian of the
wounded. She passed many nights without sleep.
Captain Eschmann was placed on a carriage with
other wounded, and was conducted towards Rome,
but on his way he had to pass over an angle of
Italian territory. The captain of a troop of Italian
soldiers stopped the carriage, in violation of the
law of nations, which respects the wounded. More-
over, this officer insulted Captain Eschmann for
being a Frenchman, and took away his money, his
watch, and sword, and retained his servant and
Mrs. Stone, who had taken this opportunity of
returning to Rome ; but the next day the captain
let them go. I know that the French Embassy at
Florence has demanded the punishment of this
officer.

During, the attack on Nerola, a charge d'affaires
of France, M. Armonde, went to the Pope and
declared to him, in the name of the Emperor, that,
happen what might, the support of France would
never fail the Pontifical Government. From that
time, we began to believe in the intervention, not
only morafbut material, of France. The next day,
we learnt that the Garibaldians had been driven
out of Orte, where they had entered on the 17th,
and proclaimed the Government of Garibaldi(" II
Governo di Garibaldi.") We learnt, almost at the
same time, that a band of 180 Garibaldians
had been repulsed at Farnese by a mixed column
of Gensdarmcs, Zouaves, and peasantry. At this
engagement Lieutenant Du Fournel, a Frenchman,
of the regiment of Zouaves, was killed. This
officer had only arrived a few days since from
Valentano, where he was in garrison, and much
respected by the inhabitants for his piety and
amiability. He died as a saint, offering up his
life unto God for the Pope.
A French despatch boat, l'Actif, arrived at
Civita Vecchia on the evening of the 20th, and
landed General Prudhon, sent by the Emperor
to inspect the state of Rome and the means of
defence, which were at the disposal of the Holy
See. General Prudhon saw the Holy Father next
day, and announced to him that the French fleet
had left, and would arrive at the latest on the
25th. Ile then visited the Minister of War, and
advised him to fortify Rome against a coup de
main, so that the city might hold out until the
arrival of the French.
Rome has been fortified ; the gates not easy to
be defended, are barricaded ; the others are open
during the day, and are defended on the outside
by earthworks and cannons at each gate ; the
bridges in the neighbourhood are mined ; all peace-
able citizens are ordered to go home if they hear
five cannon shots, and all shopkeepers to shut
their shops if they hear five cannon shots ; all
gatherings of more than four men are forbidden,
and will be dispersed by force. On the evening
of the 22nd, a certain number of Garibaldians
having succeeded in passing into Rome, and com-
bining with those inside the city, made an attempt
at a rising, which was speedily put down. At
half-past six an Orsini bomb was exploded on
the Piazza Colonna, near to the column of Antonine,
of which it knocked off a fragment, and did no
further mischief. It is supposed that this bomb
was thrown from the windows of the Palace Piom-
bino, which, in the absence of the Prince, a poli-
tical exile, is occupied by private persons. A little
time afterwards, a fearful explosion was heard. It
was the Serristori barracks of the Zouaves which
was blown up. It was situated near St. Peter's,
and was very large and very high. The revolu-
tionists had placed two barrels of powder in a drain
tinder the building. One only of these barrels took
fire, and, therefore, only one wall was destroyed.
Fortunately the musicians only of the regiment
were in the barracks. Up to the present time
sixteen dead or wounded have been taken out of
the ruins. The Pope, on hearing of the explosion,
sent Mgr. de Merode to the spot, who passed the
night in assisting the workmen in extricating the
wounded. There were not more than three or
four hundred Garibaldians inside the city. They
were to have been joined by those on the outside,
but this junction did not take place, because on
the previous night the Garibaldians in the vicinity
of Rome, in the neighbourhood of San Paolo, were
taken prisoners by Colonel Eligi, who seized at the
same time a large depot of arms. This is how
the rising was put down. Some sentinels here
and there were disarmed. The most serious affair
took place on the Capitol. The guard routed the
assailants, about 200 in number, who fled across
the Forum. In all, the army lost four men and
had two wounded. About fifty of the Garibal-
dians were killed or wounded, and about 150 were
taken prisoners, all strangers not belonging to the
Papal States. The next evening, at seven o'clock,
a band of eighty or a hundred Garibaldians ap-
proached the Porta del Popolo. They were stopped
by a company of Chasseurs, who killed or wounded
fifteen men and put the rest to flight. This band
was composed of young men of good family. There
were in its ranks two Collaredos, of Udine
nephews of a former ambassador of Rome. At this
moment moveable columns are scouring the coun-
try about Rome. A column of young Romans, not

soldiers, patrol Rome ; amongst them are several

nobles.

ROME, OCt. 26.

The road into Rome by Leghorn and Civita
Vecchia is quite free. There are people still com-
ing in as if there were nothing amiss, nor is there
any sign as you travel along but that all is as
usual, and local circumstances seem as little altered
as the blue Mediterranean, or the green Campagna.
The following announcement, however, appears in
the papers :—" Government has provisionally or-
dered that the city of Rome be temporarily declared
in a state of siege. This measure completes the
system of security which the Roman people have
called on Government to adopt."

I am sorry to find the story of the blowing up
of a Zouave barrack is too true. Finding them-
selves worsted in fair fight, some few Garibaldians,
who are hiding here, resorted to this mode of doing
mischief. Most providentially there were only the
band in barracks at the time ; these are all Italians,
but, I believe, the loss amounts to at least twelve.
Among the injured by this affair is the only non-
Italian in the band, a little Spanish boy, who, out
of his devotion to the Holy Father, travelled all
the way hither alone last year to beg to be put
into the Zouaves, and cried so bitterly at finding
himself pronounced too young to be received, that
the colonel, out of very pity, got him placed in the
band. It was most providential that not more were
injured. The men had been ordered not an hour
before to investigate a suspected house in open
country at:the Tre Fontane, about six miles out-
side the walls, where they found a considerable
quantity of arms concealed, and about 70,000
francs. This was on the 22nd. Since then there
has been another seizure of concealed arms in the
Trastevere, and all the apparatus for manufactur-
ing bombs in active operation ; but no attempt
of any sort at any disturbance of public order,
beyond the explosion of a few bombs, and an oc-
casional cry of alarm in the streets, in the view of
creating panic and excitement, and inducing the
timid, who are always the majority, to prefer the
imposition of a government they hate to the con-
tinuance of a condition of fear. The declaration
of the state of siege will put an end to this sort of
thing. The order for the surrender of arms, too,
is issued to-day.
There does not appear the least disposition on
the part of the people to sympathize with the
movement. Every one speaks with indignation of
the diabolical affair of the 22d, and, indeed, of
the whole Garibaldian interference. Yesterday
all the chief representatives of the great Roman
families paradedßome, wearing white and yellow
scarves—the Pope's colours—to testify their ad-
hesion to the established regime in the most public
manner possible.
Yesterday Viterbo was attacked on six different
points at once, and the Garibaldians were repulsed
everywhere and forced to retire with the loss of five
dead, thirty-five wounded, and fifty prisoners. On
the Roman side only one dragoon was killed and
two wounded. All the ammunition of the attack-
ing party fell into the hands of the Pontifical
troops, as well as a number of horses.
The whole munber of wounded in hospital only
amounts to about thirty. They are all in the best
disposition. Indeed nothing can be more edifying
than the devotion with which all bear their suf-
ferings. Many cases are very sad to witness, par-
ticularly one poor German who received a ball in
his mouth. The lower part of his face is all manner
of colours. It was hardly supposed he could re-
cover, but under the unremitting care of the Sisters
of St. Vincent he was able yesterday, for the first
time, to eat something.
Garibaldi was seen here one day this week, and
is reported to be at Foligno. He was very nearly
taken while here, but it is as well he was not, for
as a prisoner he would be rather like a white
elephant.

There are a good many foreigners here, quite as
many as usual at this time of the year.
P.S.—To-day's Osscreatore comes out a quarter
of an hour before post time, and as the door of
the office is always besieged, I could not get it in
time to send you, but the man in the office has
promised by all his gods to despatch it faithfully
in a cover I have left with him.
It is a rather anxious time here, because there
arc so many cowards and alarmists who predict
dreadful things, but I think what I have written
is a fair statement,and all is from most authentic
sources, but I cannot put names. _ _

The poor Zouaves are terribly overworked. It
is wonderful what spirits they are in, as they are
hard at it night and day. _ _

FLORENCE, OCt. 25.

At last, the line by Orbitello is pronounced to
be clear, and in a few hours more I shall be on my
way back to Rome, and shall at last learn the truth
as to what is passing there.
We hear such surprising budgets of news every
day, that it requires some forbearance to abstain
from inundating you with reports. It does not
do either to suppress them all, for, even when
most unreliable, they serve, like the straw before
the wind, to indicate the direction of the coming
storm. The amount of false intelligence industri-
ously circulated every day in the legion of little
cheap papers throughout the streets of this capital
is a noteworthy instance of the gullibility of human
nature. According to them the Papal Zouaves
(who only number about 2,500 in all, remember!)
are continually appearing in bodies of 2,000 at a
time at various points of the frontier, and are
always beaten and dispersed by the Garibaldians ;
and the number of victories these have obtained
ought certainly by this time to have made them
masters of a province more than double the size
of the Roman State in its present reduced limits.
One of the most notable instances of imposture
known, came within my own notice on Tuesday,
when some of the so-called liberal prints had the
effrontery to report a grand demonstration in favour
of the "liberation" of Rome, in the Via Calzaitioli,

the night before at half past five. Now it happens
that I passed through this street (the Piccadilly
of Florence, and about half its width, consequently
always a particularly crowded thoroughfare) twice
between a quarter past five and a quarter to six
without meeting the appearance of anything at all
unusual going on ! After this, what faith can we
put in anything else they publish?
The streets were placarded early on Tuesday
with announcements that on Monday the Romans
had risen against the Government [subsequent
telegrams and private letters prove this to be a
mere fabrication], and calling on their " fratelli '
of Florence to make a grand demonstration in
their favour at eleven in the morning. Just at

the appointed hour the rain came down in torrents,
and may have afforded one cause for thinning the
number of demonstrants; but the show was weak
enough. A few hundred boys and roughs and curi-
ous idlers lounged about and listened to some
haranguing and then tramped—a procession of
wet umbrellas—to the office of the Ministry of the
Interior. Here they found the inner gates of the
Cortile closed against them, and (very unneces-
sarily) lined with a detachment of gendarmi.
Nothing followed but the uttering a few " evvivas"
for Garibaldi, &c. Many of the more respectable
townspeople stood in their doorways and sneered
at the train as it passed. In spite of the perpetual
posting up of thrilling notices in large type, and
the screeching by small boys of fabulous victories,
there is nothing like popular enthusiasm in favour
of a movement on Rome. The most significant
part remains to be told ; the said haranguing was
by Garibaldi himself, and yet elicited so little in-
terest that no one even greeted his pretended
escape from Caprera with any emotion which
could be construed into delight. No London
mob greeted him. In the night he left for the
South, and as there are no special trains to be had
without the express permission of the Government
he left by the half-past six train. But that this
prisoner of State whom four men-of-war are sup-
posed to be guarding in his island, should be
openly walking about the streets of the capital in
sight of every one, and suffered to depart in triumph
orra mission forbidden by law, is irrefragable proof
of either the incompetence or the connivance of
Government ! But for whose benefit has the farce
been played ?
The enlistment of recruits is 1, ciDg actively

pushed on without any concealment ; you may see
knots of these ill-conditioned hirelings waiting
round the door of the depot. Poor wretches
thrown out of work by the present crushing
scarcity of money, glad of any employment by
which they may eat a piece of bread, and who do
not scruple to beg of you as you pass. Fifty francs
in hard cash (and remember we never see coin here
unless we buy it at an enormous premium) is the
bounty held out to them, and it is astonishing that ,
there are not more attracted by such a bait, for the
amount of distress in the streets is most depress-
ing to witness. Beggars accost you at every turn ;
if you let your eye rest for an instant on any pale-
faced, careworn fellow in the street, even if in
tolerably-respectable garb, he immediately holds
outhis hand for an alms. 1 was going into the
magnificent mausoleum of San Lorenzo yesterday
when I found an emaciated woman lying across the
doorstep, crying bitterly; she had been turned
out of her house for default of rent, and had no
place to go to. I was later in another church, and
was assailed by five different applicants, none of
them bearing the cachet of regular beggars.
I am happy to be able to give you the news from
a reliable source that Orte, the only place at which
the Garibaldians have had even a temporary suc-
cess, was retaken by the Papal troops within a few
hours of their entry, and before they had succeeded
in wresting the subsidy I told you in my last they
had demanded of the religious communities of the
place. Their short triumph was marked by many
outrages. The Governor and other public officers
who all faithfully asserted their allegiance to Go-
vernment were ill-treated and their houses rifled ;
the Pontifical arms were torn down from the front
of the public buildings, and broken in pieces in
spite of the indignant remonstrance of the towns-
people. At Viterbo they committed even worse
excesses ; a party of them forced their way into the
church in the hopes of pillaging it of whatever
precious ornaments they might find, and, being
disappointed with the amount of their booty, vented
their rage on the religious symbols of the altar, and
even, if report speak true, on the sacred contents
of the tabernacle.

All the Pontifical troops seem to have done their
duty gallantly on all occasions. If there is any
distinction to be made it is of course in favour of
the Zouaves, who, being entirely a devoted body,
have naturally both more intelligence and more
entrain than others. One Englishman, young Col-
lingridge, I hear, fell nobly at Monte Libretto. All
who were absent:on leave came pouring into Rome
at the first suspicion of danger, and there has not
been a single case of desertion among them, or, in-
deed, from any corps. The Romans among their
number have been as devoted as any, belieing the
reported doubts of their bravery, or of their alle-
giance to Government. One of the most spiteful
misrepresentations of the " Liberal " papers is the
calling these troops habitually " mercenaries,"
when, certainly, a more disinterested army never
was called together, men of position and rank offer-
ing themselves as mere privates, without a chance
of distinction in this world for their services. Nor
are these only among the Zouaves. Many a scion
of families of the oldest names of Rome are among
the Dragoons. The peasantry, too, round Frosi-
none, who have for some two years past been
armed for the defence of the border against bri-
gands, applied of their own motion to march
against the Garibaldians, and have done good ser-
vice. And a Florence paper complains bitterly of
the services rendered to the troops by a spirited
Roman lady. To return to the Zouaves, I must
repeat a testimony to their intrepidity which has
just been mentioned to me, borne by a member of
another corps, the gendarmi, as fine a looking regi-
ment as you could wish to see, and all Italians.
He could hardly find words to express his admira-
tion of their bearing. "Their efforts are something
superhuman," he said ; " when they have once fired
they do not waste the time to reload, but charge at
once with the bayonet, and thrust and thrust again ;
nothing can stand before them. They don't seem
to know what danger is."
All day yesterday and the evening before, a new
placard was sedulously posted at the corner of every
street, quite seditious in its remarks, on the attitude
of Government. It announced the most alarthing
state of things in Rome, and declared that Gari-
baldi was to head the attack there within a few
hours, ending, as usual, by begging for money.
Every here and there a man was posted, who pro-
duced a taper and matches in the most casual way,
but appeared so intent on reading it that he could
not forbear doing so aloud, whereby the passers-by
were arrested and enlightened as to its contents at
the same time. You will smile at the narration of
such tricks ; but they are significant as speci-
mens of the system which is at work here. This

placard was very soon torn down, for some reason
it would be difficult to guess—possibly only be-
cause it failed to bear the penny stamp which is
inexorably required on the smallest notice, be it
only a strip of paper with the announcement in
a shop window that " English are spiked here."
Its successor was closely printed, and gives a most
detailed account of stirring events it alleges to
have taken place in Rome on Monday and Tues-
day. It asserts that all the large piazze were filled
with troops, that the people indignant at this exhi-
bition of force shot at them with pistols and re-
mained masters of one or two positions, while it
goes on to blame the military for firing on what it
calls the unarmed people. Then, forgetting this
plea of their harmlessness, it goes on to narrate
their prowess in attacking the soldiery in their
barracks, and blowing them up, " by which means,"
it concludes with savage glee, " who can calculate
the harvest of victims? Up to eight in the morn-
ing fifty corpses of Zouaves had been extricated
from the ruins, and every moment more are being
brought out." At the same time that this notice,
purporting to have come direct from Rome, was
being circulated, private persons got no letters, and
to-day those of the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, were re-
ceived together. Where so many untruths are
being told, it is difficult to steer clear, but the pro-
bability is that there was an interruption on the
line, that no letters were received yesterday or the
day before from Rome, and that the placard is a
fabrication like the rest ; for all the letters from
Rome I have seen to-day—some from people who
are professedly observing what is going on, are
written in blissful ignorance of any such excite-
ment.

Meantime, while the cheap Radical papers and
the mysterious Comitato are regaling us with these
sensational fictions, we are kept most strangely in
the dark as to the movements ;and intention of
Government. The ministerial crisis is believed to
be a mere ruse for gaining time ; and, in fact, there
is such duplicity in all matters, that no one puts
faith in any statement. There is certainly an, at
least, momentary lull in the onslaught on Rome.
Last evening's papers tacitly confessed the dis-
comfiture of the Garibaldians, and even allowed
that there was not one left in the neighbourhood
of the Eternal City.

BOULOGNE, Oct. 29.

The following short description of A very inte-
resting ceremony, which took place in the mag-
nificent cathedral of this city on Sunday last,
will, no doubt, prove acceptable to many who are
not strangers to this very beautiful church, which
is still far from being finished, although the Vene-
rable Mgr. Haffreingue is indefatigable in his
exertions to complete it. A very fine marble altar,
with iti tabernacle, manufactured in Rome, and
presented by the family of Larder M'Lean, has
been placed under the large painting of the Imma-
culate Conception, and was solemnly consecrated
by Mgr. Marinelli, bishop in partibus, and Papal
Sacristan. The ceremony was very imposing, and
perfectly carried out in all its details, Mgr. Cataldi
acting as Master of Ceremonies, his second being
the Rev. Abbe Alphonse Debette, so well known
both in England and at Turin, and everywhere
esteemed for his amiable and gentle manner. He
is a most efficient Master of Ceremonies. The Vene-
rable Mgr. Haffreingue assisted at the ceremony.
After the consecration Mass was celebrated by
one of the canons of the diocese resident at the
college, and who wore a particularly rich suit of
vestments. The music was very good ; the cere-
mony concluded at about half-past two. Some of
your readers may be aware, perhaps, that there are

four lateral altars round the dome, two on each side
of the Sanctuary of our Lady of Boulogne. On
the Gospel side are the altars of the Nativity of
the Blessed Virgin and the Annunciation. Facing
these are the altars of the Visitation and of the
Immaculate Conception. The three others are for
the present only temporary. Perhaps some charit-
able friend may (following the pious example of the
donors of the altar of our Lady of Boulogne, and
the one consecrated on last Sunday) come forward
and bestow on the church the three still wanting.
The two already named are the gifts of English
friends, and a young lady of the family, who gave
the one the Immaculate Conception, was received
into the Ursuline convent in this city, some few
days since, Mgr. Haffreingue giving her the habit
and white veil.

We are glad to be able to inform those who
visited this church in August that since then the
frescoes in the Sanctuary of our Lady of Boulogne
have been all completed. Six were then wanting—
three on each side of the altar. They are all well
done, and represent the different mysteries of the
holy Rosary. This beautiful little chapel or sanc-
tuary is fast approaching its conclusion, and will
certainly be a gem in its way, well fitted to attract
the attention of artists and people of good taste.
The erection of this mighty pile in honour of
Mary will be the most lasting monument to the
memory of the venerable and saintly man who
has so nobly devoted his life and energies to this
great work, and his good Queen and Alother seems
to so favour him as to enable him to see the com-
pletion of his work.

THEORIES OF GUNNERY.

(From the Pall Mall Gazette.)

We have at last a final and formal abandonment
by the Americans of the great American gunnery
theory of " racking." By most Americans we are
inclined to think the theory was tacitly given up
long ago, and what remained of it was destroyed
by the first round fired against an iron target by
the Rodman gun at Shoeburyness. But " when all
the rest of the American press was disposed to give
up the gun as a failure," one journal, whose words
we quote (words, by the way, which let us into the
secret of the sort of estimation in which the gun is
held in America), clung to it with desperate energy.
This journal was the New York 7 imes, and we have
at last, on the part of the .New York Times, a frank
disclaimer, not, it is true, of the gun, but of the
theory which matched the gun and gave it half its
seeming value.
What a world of trouble it would have saved if
this had all been said before " The Americans,"
says the New York limes, "have no such theory [as
racking]. The American gun is not made
to rack' nor to ' punch,' but—" And here we
may well pause and wonder what, iu the name of al
that is practicable, even an American gun can be
designed to effect against an ironclad, if it be neither
to rack nor to punch ? Well, the American gun is
designed, it appears, simply " to penetrate, as any
other gun, small or large, ought to do." If it were
not for the further enlightenment vouchsafed tis
on this point, we might still be at a loss as to the
real object of the American attack. Racking is
not sought for, punching is not sought for, but
penetration. However, " there are two kinds of
penetration, one of which is the British sort, con-
sisting in punching' awl-holes, and the other the
American sort, which strives to make great jagged
holes, such as cannot be plugged."
At last, then, we have a definition of the sort of
effect which the Americans really desire to produce,
" a great jagged hole, such as cannot be plugged."
Distinct as this expression may seem, it is open to
manipulation in skilful hands, and it is because we
are anxious prospectively to prevent such manipu-
lation that we will set forth the two possible senses
in which the words may be understood. They may
be understood, then, to mean a hole externally
jagged—cracked and splintered like a hole in a
broken window pane ; or they may be understood
to mean a hole clean itself, but internally broken
and splintered, and bearing within the structure of
the ship evidence of destructive effect.
We should suppose, that the New York Times
means by "a hole which cannot be plugged" a
bole externally jagged ; for that is really the only
sort of hole which it is difficult to plug. In this
case we have only to observe that such a hole
is not producA by the 15-inch Rodman with.
1001 b of powder. That hole is as clean and defined
in the iron as in the holes made by our rifle pro-
jectiles, and practically every whit as easy to plug.
Fired with a less charge than 1001 b of powder, or
some approximate equivalent, the Rodman gun
makes not a hole at all, but an indent more or less
deep, and fails, therefore, to accomplish what we
are now told the Americans desire—complete pene-
tration. Turning from external to internal destruc-
tive effect—the second possible sort of jagged hole
—it would surely appear to any one not absolutely
purblind that a very much greater amount of
splintering and total destruction must be wrought
by the passage of a shell through a ship's side than
of a shot—briefly, by the English system as op-
posed to the American system, the most audacious
advocates of which have never yet claimed for it
the merit of being a shell system.
If, then, the Americans think that their 19-ton
gun will produce great chasms in a ship's plating
instead of " awl-holes," they are as mistaken as they
undoubtedly wreare, a ship to
theycx‘,,henimagined that those
pieces.
To penetrate
tough iron of any thickness the hole must be what
the New York Times would call an " awl-hole,"
whatever its diameter. To penetrate such plates
the effect must be intensely local ; and the result of
local effect is a clean hole. Behind the plate the
hole assumes a different character —it becomes a
great splintered rent ; and this rent will be more
extensive, the splinters more numerous, and the de-
struction more complete when a shell passes through,
bursting in its passage, than a shot, while in nine cases
out of ten the shell produces the additional compli-
cation of setting fire to the woodwork, to say nothing
of its greater effects, moral and physical, upon the
crew. If the Americans will state frankly that,
abstractedly, they prefer shot to shell penetration,
and that they prefer to use a heavy gun to a light
one, then we shall be better able to appreciate the
alleged merits of their guns; but as it is doubtful
if they will ever be brought to acknowledge this,
we must decline to admit the advantages of a sys-
tem of attack which permits of the use of shot only
over one which is available equally for shot and
shell, and which necessitates the use of the most
massive ordnance in place of guns of more moderate
dimensions.
Another fallacy underlies the whole of the argu-
ment of the New York Times. It is the old fallacy
common to most American arguments upon the
subject, which we have before pointed out—that
the immediate object of attack is the destruction of
the enemy's material and not his men. The real ob-
ject in the attack of ironclads, as of other ships, is
less the disablement of the vessel than of the men
and guns which it contains. The vessel is a means
of defence and attack merely—a protection or shield,
so to express it, which we desire to strike
through, wreaking our destruction upon those
within. The penetration of the vessel is in fact
the means only to an end ; and to destroy the
vessel when we can if we chose reach the men and
their guns is a tedious and roundabout way of
accomplishing our object. What is claimed for the
English system is that it accomplishes the true
object more swiftly and more easily than the Amer i•
can system. We say " the American system,"although
we really do not believe that the Americans have
any such system. They know, and the New York
Thies knows as well as any one else, that the great
American smooth-guns were adopted at a time of
great pressure, as a rough and ready means of
doing that which with our leisure and opportunities
for experiment we found ourselves able to do by
other means very much more certainly and effec-
tively. We are far from blaming the Americans
for adopting these guns, and for trying to evolve
out of them a sort of " system." ludeed, we have
always thought that under the circumstances the
guns did infinite credit to their constructors. But
what we have all along been anxious to show is that
in point of science and completeness this system is
theoretically and practically inferior to that which

we have elaborated at such great pains and expense.
We may ask not unfairly why, if the Americans
are so well satisfied with their smooth-bore guns,
are they now so busy constructing large rifle guns ?
If we were engaged at this time in making big
smooth-bores the fact would certainly be accepted
in proof of our dissatisfaction with, or want of com-
plete confidence in, our rifled guns. But since we
have discovered that,the most fatal wounds can be

inflicted most promptly, conveniently, and certainly
on men and material by pointed shell, we have
never swerved from the system of ordnance which
alone permits of such projectiles being used.
It is tedious to have to hammer away at this sub-
ject month after month, but the shifty nature of
the American arguments leaves us little choice.
And the advancement of this new theory requires a
few words of reply. The controversy is now nar-
rowed down, however, to a sufficiently fine point.
The Americans—if the New York Times is
to be accepted as a fair exponent of Ameri-
can opinion on these subjects desire, as
it seems, like ourselves to penetrate their
enemy's vessels. But if they really are in-
clined to cling to smooth-bores in preference to
rifle guns, simply as a means of making ragged holes
instead of clean holes, then we would refer them to
the target recently penetrated by the Rodman gun
at Shoeburyness in proof of our assertion that the
hole made by a smooth-bore in a good thick plate
is very much the same sort of hole as is made by a
rifled gun, neither better nor worse ; while the effort
required to produce it with a smooth-bore is infi-
nitely greater than with a rifle gun, and inferior
also to the extent to which shot penetration is infe-
rior to shell.