Daily State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1862-05-08

out any pain or injury; but plant swift blow
there with -our fist, aud you double the man
up with pain; perhaps kill him outright; but
there will not be the slightest outward mark
Hence, in boxing, a blow below the belt is IN
deed foul
Press hard upon mans left side, and the
elasticity of the ribs, aided By the elastic car
tileges at each end, allows great depression 10
be made-consequently the heart and lungs
TO be pushed aside; and yet everything comes
back to Its place without pain or injury; but
swift blow over the same part with a club, or
a fall from house upon a hard substance,
may fractuae the ribs, drive the sharp broken
points through the membranes, or even para
lyze the heart, and kill the man outright,
without leaving blemish on the skin.
Standing once in the bow of vessel, as
she bore down upon a hostile battery, my
eye caught the first flash of a cannon, and
quicker than one could wink twice, the ball
crashing through the bulwarks, and smote
down comrade, before my ear caught the
report, which he, alas was too far gone to
hear. A underground shot struck him full
upon the pelvis; but being partly spent in
splintering the wood, its force was further
broken by his body, and it fell back to the
deck with him. No blood was drawn, but the
internal parts were so smashed that he was
hardly got to the cockpit alive.
Soldiers and sailors have other superstitions
about spent balls. The old soldier loves TO
retail them TO the recruit, upon whom he looks
down as sophomores do upon freshmen, or as
our regular officers do upon volunteers, and
with as little reason, few of them ever having
seen much hard fighting, for the Mexican war
was but sort of dress campaign, against a
poor, weak enemy, in the whole of which
there was less blood shed than in Napoleonic
skirmish. The old soldier, say, will tell you
Of the greenhorn, who, seeing spent ball
just moving on the ground, tried to stop it
with his foot, but had it cut off instanter.
The fact is, cannon ball, partly spent,
ricochets and rolls with just the same force as
though it had been rolled by mans hand,
and no more. The force depends upon Its
weight and velocity, of course.
Mortal wounds, however, without any
bloodshed or breach of the skin, are not gen.
orally made by spent balls, but by those hav-
ing great velocity; and according to my the
ory, they should be more frequent by smooth
bore than by nned cannon.
The balls rotate swiftly on the axis as. they
fly, and in directions according to the forces
acting upon them as they leave the gun.
Now take 32-pound shot and hold it be-
fore a mans thigh on the outside, or before
his ribs, in such wise that if you push it for
ward, and he stand firm, the ball will pass, by
reason of his flesh yielding, one inch; that is,
by being pressed inwards one inch. The ball
will thus move through space before occu-
pied by flesh or bone, because it passed slow
ly, or the parts yielded and no harm is done.
But if the man is standing firmly, and that
same 32-pound shot, rushing as swift as light
ning strikes him in the same direction, it may
roll over the skin without breaking it, but
may, nevertheless, dash it inward with such
sudden shock as to paralyze all vital action
and even crush the bone.
Jove's thunderbolt could not strike a man
dead more suddenly, or leave less scars.
Sometimes it is found the internal parts are
ruptured, marked, and even pummelled to a
jelly, though there were no outward marks
Generally, however, the discoloration shows
itself plainly the surface in short time
after death.
War has real terrors enough; and moving
cannon ball is fearful missile; but we should
get rid of all superstitions about it.-Bostor
Transcript.