The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1859-07-14
Modern Science in the con,,. w..

conf,cs on tne eve of the most tremendous arme,
ev"Hc' winch the world has seen since the dors,
Napoieon the Great. The wars of imnar;o r.a
sls,.y wars as all the world knows NJ
ausn.ered hecatombs were ever piled So b;gt % ~ =
great Emperor. piled them The dead naver Us =. 'ne
sa,0Hly on any battlefield, of which history InaLoo
NY mention. as they lay Eyau and Boradipo an5
: e'Ioo nnat amount of destruction and rn;serv
,;n,. =. III 'ne hands of genius, could, in a given
'i'ne, zeal out on given number of men was 9bora
amply demonstrated A was there
rDo u. II Is not saying too much to say that if the
european powers let their armed hordes loose nnon
one ahotner this summer, ruthless DESTROYER as NJ
poeon was, he will be shown bef,re throo - - va va
o'er 70 nave been tyro in the art of destrnc
uon since his day all the arts have advanced ,rith
Iap'u STRIDES, out none with strides so rapid as this
oe- lhe weapons with which his soldiers were aro,
ed, with which the bridge of Lodi was carried 81
Aus'eritz and Marengo were won, bore much the
same relation to the rife of the present dav nc The
=; pore to the old frelOck. Death did not
In his time fash from the serried ranks until the foe
men stood two or three hundred wards anart II
now HES IN the air nearly three ouarters of n mile
as lar as the sharpest eye can make a human 6pure
ms serge artillery would be TODAY by no means
heavy field pieces. wellingtons heaviest breacbing
guns at Badajos and Salamanca were twenty fonr
Founders The Russians at Inkermann and the
british at Tchernaya, brought thirty-two Founders
INTO the neld with ease and effect But the advant-
age which heavy guns have always had over light
Ones hitherto, for the ordinary purposes of field ar
uery, has been rather in the length of the range
III thc Size OF tIe DAHL twelve FOUNDER rush.
ing through column of infantry is full as destruct
i've and almost demoralizing as one treble the
weight but formerly il could be projected near
" so far Science has, in our day, destroyed the /
difference between them Recent inventions, some 1
OF them those of our countrymen some of En-
gishmen. and some of the present Emperor of France
have furnished light field pieces which four horses
can whirl at the widest gallop from point TO point
with more than the deadly power which, forty years
ago. belonged only to weapons which sixteen horses
could move with difficulty, and which always
pieces de position
Moreover facilities have been created since Water
loo was fought, for bringing together of men
thus armed, and dashiDg them against another,
such as the great Napoleon in his widest dreams
never dreamed of We all know how the rapdity of
his movements daZzled and asounded fathers.
We know he strobe over Europe like magician
taking armies up, it seemed in those days, in the
hollow of his hand, and fnging them in twnkling
of an eye on every point where his giant plans need
ed them. We know how distance seemed to shrivel
up at the blast of his trumpet. We know how the
pupils of Turenne and Monteculli recciled in dismay
before legions which struck like thunderbot after
having advanced like the wind. But great was
the perfection to which he carried the art to rapid
il becomes the crawling of a turtle
when compared with the power with which railways
have armed the generals of our day. When Napo-
Icon started on his expeditions armies were of necss
ty divided into columns, which, IN order to secure
the means of subsistence and of transport,
compelled either to follow each other tolerably
long intervals, else march on the same point by
different cIrcuitOuS routes And they did march
literally marched, trudged every inch of the way
foot aud the eagle tapped his wing them in ap-
probation if they achieved fifty miles in the twenty
four hours. The maddest impatience of the maddest
conQueror had in those times to adapt itself to the
capabilities Of human legs and human stomacbs.
1t took, even in the hands of Napoleon, a long
while to concentrate two hundred thousand men at
point three hundred miles distant and when they
were there it required stupendous energy and stur
pentOus feed them. All the grand old
heroes had TO take pork and -four into their grandest
calculations and pork and -four, alas have to be
carried about to be of any use.
The other day were told, in contrast with this,
that che present Emperor able to send twenty
five thousand men in any day from Paris TO Lyons
a distance of three hundred miles 1t would have
taken his uncle n week of forced marches TO accom-
,lisb the same object Austria is sending troops in
10 Italy at the same rate Moreover, the same power
which renders this rapid concentration of troops so
.asy renders their subsistence just 2 easy The
railroad dumps the soldier now-a-davsdown ON the +,
,attIS1 |eId and the next day dumps down a months
provisions in their rear The telegraph, we need :
hardly saw PLAYS as wonderful part in this change
as the railroad. One OF Napoleon generals ~oulu
have required four FIVE days TO ask for reinforce
nent which he asks for in as many minutes.
Il reaches him in many hours as 1t would then
nave taken days.
The destructiveness of the changes which these new
Instruments are likely introduce into warfare has
not so far attracted as much attention as 1T ought,
,ecanse within the last thirty years we have had no
vars in the part Of the world in which science cond
-enjer the soldier efficient and what science mas
lone IN that interval make more sanguinary II
sill only appear when the sword is drawn in e1un-
ries like Italy and Germany, which are blessed OF
ursed with all the '' modern Improvements
J.xip1 armed the cornbattant with the means OF
destroying life all around him within radius OF
housand yards it hurls him against his Toe at the
ate of thirty miles az hour There is an VI
,nm,n misery revealed by even ten minutes renc-
ion on such a theme this, which no one mas ever
con war in its most harmless aspect, can con'eni-
late without a shudder-.G T. Ereni"g Fos-