The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-27 00:00:00

271 E A RIII S T.R 0 Nt7 GUNS.

(From the Timer.)
We publish this morning an elaborate and circum-
stantial account of the cost, trials, and general per-
formances of the Armstrong Guns, from the first
adoption of the new artillery up to the present time.
The statement comes from Sir Willi am Armstrong
himself, but it is given in the very figure of authen-
tic reports framed by Government servants, and it
is so clear and specific in its details that any inac-
curacy or omission could be at once discovered.
Before directing our readers to the chief points of
the exposition before them, we had better, perhaps,
briefly indicate the principal charges of which Sir
William hero makes his reply. It was alleged,
then, that the Armstrong gun was costly in the
extreme, an average outlay of some £2,000 being
required for every cannon ; that it was, neverthe-
less, neither a strong nor a durable instrument, but
easily rendered unserviceable, especially by rapid
and continuous firing; that the vent-pieces of the
guns were very liable to be blown away; that the
projectiles were too delicately constructed to be used
with safety ; and that the actual experience of the
Chinese War had shown the invention to be a
failure. With these hints in his mind, the reader
will be able to appreciate the importance of the
defence to which Sir William now addresses himself;
and, indeed, the interest attaching to the bare sta-
tistics now for the first time published is of no ordi-
nary kind.
The total number of Armstrong Guns proved
from first to last is 1,622, of which about half have
been issued for use, and half retained in store. It
will be observed, however, that the distribution be-
tween store and service is by no means uniform in
the different calibres. The 6-pounder piece seems
to have been soon given up, 49 specimens only of
this pattern having been manufactured, and five
issued. The 12-pounder was a far more successful
model, and of this description of gun there are up-
wards of 300 in use, against 150 in store. The 25-
pounder, again, appears never to have got much
into favour, but the 40-pounders and the 100-
pounders, being the guns employed in the sea service
and for fortifications, are largely in use. Altogether
796 guns of various calibres have been actually
issued for service, and Sir William now tells us that
of this number not one single piece had ever burst,
and that 20, and no more, have been returned for
repair. This is certainly not an alarming list of
casualties. So insignificant, indeed, does it appear
to us that we shall not follow Sir William through
the explanations by which he reduces even these
figures to something less than their apparent value.
We come next to what has been regarded as the
critical question of the vent-pieces, but here Sir
William at once corrects the popular idea by
observing that the vent-piece is not expected
to possess the same durability as the rest of the
gun. It is formed of a separate piece of metal,
is removed every time the gun is loaded, and
is always issued in duplicate, by way of provid-
ing against natural contingencies. For the 796
guns, therefore, there have been issued 1,592 vent-
pieces, and of these we learn that five have been
blown away, and 32, of which 24 were steel and
eight iron, rendered otherwise unserviceable. This
return, however, Sir William proceeds to qualify
by certain remarks which merit careful attention.
It seems that a considerable proportion of the acci-
dents recorded are attributable to the ignorance or
inexperience of the men serving the gun. The offi-
cial report actually speaks of one class of mishaps
as" always" ari3ing from carelessness, and Sir Wil-
liam roundly asserts that " no vent-piece would
ever have been blown away had the gunners known
their drill from the first." We are introduced, in-
deed, by these statements to some curious incidents
of the new practice. Probably our readers will re-
collect that Captain Halsted wrote of an Armstrong
Gun which had been returned from a gunboat as
unsafe, but which was retained for " cautious use"
at Shoeburyness. The remark points to a fact of
some consequence, though the light thrown upon
it by Sir William is new. There is, beyond question,
more than one way of using these guns, but the
truth seems to be that the " caution" was all on
board the gunboat, while it was confidence that
carried the day at Shoeburyness. The Armstrong
Gun was altogether so strange an implement,
and its powers were so little understood, that
the least apparent flaw induced a suspicion
of mischief, and the piece was sometimes
condemned as unsafe when there was really no
insecurity about it. The captain of the
vessel in question has actually written to Sir Wil-
liam, stating candidly that, if he had known the
guns at first as well as he knows them now, he
would not have thought it necessary to complain:of
them as he did. It will be seen, too, that Sir Wil-
liam points to a singular feature in the reports of
these failures. They are identified not so much
with particular guns or particular machinery as
with particular stations. A large percentage of
the casualties occurred at one spot, and, as we may
presume, under one particular system of handling,
while thousands of rounds were fired from guns of
the same kind at other places without the least
mishap.
On the general merits of the Armstrong gun its
inventor now speaks with a justifiable complacency,
and with a boldness which will rather astonish his
opponents. He tells the country in plain words,
that so far from his guns having never been sub-
jected to continuous and rapid firing, there is no
class of them which has not stood that test. He
asserts that the strength and endurance of his gun
cannot be doubted, though the proofs to which it
has been subjected have been incredibly severe.
He informs us that the gun, with its new
projectiles, new appendages, and new incidents
of drill, has been introduced into the service
" without loss of either life or limb, or
injury to a single individual." One of
the 100-pounders actually threw a I,ooolb.
shot without strain or fracture. Sir William even
appeases our alarms about the cost of the article by
stating the latest contract price for every descrip-
tion of gun after proof at the butts. It will be seen
that the figures give only a fraction of the cost
alleged, but on this head there is more room for
ambiguity. Results of this kind can so easily be
modified by the admission or exclusion of particular
items of expenditure that we should be loath to

build upon them. At any rate, however, we may
now conclude that at the present moment, and with-
out reference to any preliminary outlays, the
heaviest of the Armstrong Guns can be manufac-
tured at the rate of £650 a-piece instead of £2,000,
while the ordinary 12-pounder costs less than a
third of that sum.
Such are the deductions to be drawn from the
communication which we print this morning, and
f-w will b, disposed to underrate their importance.
We do not charge ourselves with any blind or un-
compromising advocacy of Sir William's invention.
We have admitted the representations of his oppo-
nents, and we now allow him to speak in reply.
Our duty lies only with the discovery and establish-
ment of the truth, with the definite recognition of
the gun's merits, if merits they are, or with the
exposure of its defects, if the defects preponderate.
Nobody could expect t hat such an invention should
have been brought to perfection at once, but, unless
the statements made by Sir William in this letter
can be effectually refuted, the public, we think,
will be of opinion that no specimen of rifled ord-
nance y)t produced is superior to the Armstrong
Gun.

HEALTH OF LONDON. DURING 2HE WEEK.

(From the Regzstrar-General's Weekly Return.)

The mortality of London, which has been rising
since the beginning of the present month, exhibits
a very considerable increase for the week that ended
last Saturday. The deaths were 1,251 in the first
week of November, 1,288 in the second ; and last
week they were 1,434. The mean temperatures of
the air in the three successive weeks were 42 0 deg.,
39 7 deg., and 37 5 deg.
A large proportion of the increase of deaths in
last week was contributed by the Eastern districts
of the metropolis, where the number rose from 277
in the week that ended Nov, 16, to 343 last week.

The mortality shown by the present return is
rather higher than it would have been if a rate
equal to the average obtained from the returns of
corresponding weeks in 1851 60 had prevailed.
The deaths at 60 years of age and upwards were
returned in the last three wees in the following
numbers :-217, 235, 271. From bronchitis the
deaths at all ages were in the same periods 87, 131,
170 ; from pneumonia 89, 82, 104 ; from phthisis
159, 154, 175. Last week the deaths from scarlatina
were 115, and from diphtheria 27. Scarlatina was
fatal in 4 cases in Brompton, 4 in Fulham, 5 in
Balgrave sub-district, 5 in Islington West, 4 in St.
George, Bloomsbury, 5 in St. George the Martyr,
Holborn, 4in Greenwich West. There were 5
deaths from typhus in the Green sub-district of
B ethn al -green.
Mr. Wells, the registrar of the Tottenham-court-
road sub-district, reports that 3 deaths from scarla-
tina have occurred in the house, 8, Draper's-place,
within a fortnight ; and amongst the survivors there
are 5 persons who are now suffering from it. The
cyheoalresr, ad.‘
eaan
edu
widow of a seaman, aged 57 years, died on the 21st
Nov-, at 13, John-street, Mile-end Old Town, of
Regent-
street, Poplar, of
theiit wife
November, o f a
a shipwright,t 28
o la naged e
n4t3.
A labourer, aged 4eoh
n
Greenwich
years,o lera Asiaticddied
e (nineru m
sdays).tea
common on the 14th. November, of exhaustion,
arisingNfrinome
pensionersexp su r night air and
cold.
returned, 6 of whom died on thenlvl9l* Hospital are
Last week the births of 939 boys and
914 girls,
in all 1,853 children, were registered
in London.
In the ten corresponding weeks of the years 1851-
60 the average number was 1,624.