Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1863-10-28
INCONSISTENCIES.
WEDNESDAY MORNING OCT. IS, 1888.


The English have boasted long and loud
ly over the Armstrong gun, whose csPaci-
ty ranged from twelve to three
hundred pounds. But all the expert
ments with these guns have showed
them to be practical failures Still, they
were very well to boast Of and to expert
ment with, until Americans came in with
the Parrot gun, which knocked the ma
sonry Of Sumter into mass Of ruins at
s distance Of two miles. This opened their
eyes and set them to comparing results.
The Examiner now says:
sItis e perfect anomaly to send our
srmor-clad feet 10 sail round our islands
and visit our ports without an effective
gun on board any one of fthem which could
make hole in the side Of its neighbor.
We are thereby reminded Of the brave
knights Of old, who were 50 encased in
steel as TO fight half day without hurting
anybody, unless some Of them fell down,
and, not being able TO founder on their
legs, were smothered in their armor" And
one Of its correspondents growls that
"tEo years have given the Americans forty
or more 200-pounders, which have beaten
down 3 strong fortress at a distance of
two miles. Sir William Armstrong; 30
FOUNDER at that distance could hardly
knock an old duck off its nest and no
gun that was ever cast or forged, with
charge Of twelve pounds Of powder, could
60 that which PARROTS gun have done"
The difficulty with the English seems to
have been not that they had no good gun
makers, for they have the WhitwOrth and
Blskely g1ns, both formidable and ser
vicesblej but that they gave s monopoly
into Armstrong; hands, unquestionably.
The London Telegraph says
HInstead Of calling all scientific Eng
land heads together, and watch events
with the Ordinance Office, Sir William
Armstrong was showed up the ladder alone;
his WncOmmittee approved his own guns;
his own factory at ElsWick turned them
ont, on his own evidence, without sufficient
proof and trial; and the first hundred Of
the Il0-pounders were served out before
the experiments upon them had been con-
eluded'
The Western Morning Mail gives a de-
tailed account Of Armstrong; failures,
from which it appears that he constructed
not less than ten different kinds Of guns /;
that Of each kind he made and put into
the hands of the Government 3 considera-
BILE number, and was paid for them, and
that not one Of all those guns has proved
ssrViceabls without great and expensive
alterations He made i10 12O Founders,
both muzzle and breech loading l5O-
polnders; 30o-pounderE, 12-pOunders, 100
Founders; and the only guns of all these
which are even claimed 10 be successful
are the l2-pOunders. Bot of these we
read hatthey have been returned and are
now having twelve inches cut off the muz-
zle to make them safe. They will, conse =
quently, when fixed, be only 9.pOund-
ers, with diminished range Of the ex.
tent to which this gun-founder carried his
failures one item will give our readers
some notion: -.--.-
"Three years ago Lord Palmsrston was
seized with the conviction that we were to
have q war with France. he succeeded in
imparting his panic TO his colleagues, and
the result was q hasty contract for four
thousand osst-iron guns Of peculiar pat
tern, designed by Sir William Armstrong.
The guns we're to be hoped and riaed for
the navy. About three hundred guns
were supplied, and one hundred hooped,
when it was thought exPedient to try
them. The trial showed that they were
utterly worthless, and they now eumber
the ground at WoolWich.n