Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1878-01-23
KRUPP'S GREAT GUN FACTORY.
Its Progress from Ten Men Employed in
1910 to Nine Thousand i'm 1877.

A correspondent writing from Berlin
says:
" An international congress Of rare
character assembled a short time ago
at Bredelar, in Rhenish Prussia. Mr..
Krupp, the greatest gunmaker of the
entire world, and director of the cele-
DRAFTED foundry at Essen, invited repre-
sentatives Of all ionalities-Russian,
English, Austrian, Belgian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Danish, Brazilian and even
Japanese-to witness the experiments
of a new piece of artillery, the plated
cannon, or, as it is called in German,
the "panzer canone." The number of
officers present at these interesting ex-
periments was fifty-fve. The object
was to solve two problems .consid-
dered extremely difficult, and which
have hitherto defied the ingenuity of in
ventors: First a permanent pointing in
aim; second, the protection Of the
piece. Now this new Krupp gun has
no recoil, and therefore, it is only neces-
sary to aim it once if the object does not
change, In the second place it can
neither be damaged nor dismounted by
the enemy. The artillerymen who
serve it are sheltered in Il sort Of sentry
box formed by iron plates Ofabout TWEEN
ty inches in thickness. This sentry-box
contains the gun and the gunners. The
roof and the exterior sides are protected
by earth, while the front is pierced by a
hole for the passage ofthe mouth of the
gun. The enemey can see nothing but
this hole. The experiment was SO de-
cisive that almost all the officers want
ed to go into the sentry-box while two
enormous siege guns showered shot
upon them at short range. This inven-
ton may bring about a revolution in
the art of defending strongholds.
1t is known that the Emperor, while
at the military maneuvers at Essen,
visited the factory Of the Messrs. Krupp.
and. this affair recalls the origin of this
great industrial family. When the first
chief Of the factory came to Essen, the
village had only 5000 inhabitants. To
day it has 10000. Krupp commenced
in 1910 with ten worlmen, and in 1913
he had 100. It was his son, Alfred
Krupp, that gave the establishment the
prodigious development which it has
reached to-day 1t was from England
that he brought his method of making
steel, and he has wonderfully improved
upon it by combining it with the Besse-
mer process. In 1868 he had 1000
hands employed, and he has 5000 at
present The buildings of the factory
cover a space Of over 200 acres, and are
surmounted by 100 chimneys. Awork-
ingmen's city, with 5000 houses, gives
to the hands apartments which are rent
ed at from $40, to $50 a year. An associa-
ton for providing food, with twenty
sales-rooms, furnished the inhabitants,
at reduced prices, with all that they de-
sire. A single bakery makes 100000
pounds of bread in a month. There is
in this factory of Essen 413 steam
engines, representing a total Of $1,000
horses, and II steam hammers for
striking iron, among which figures the
famous hammer called Fritz" and
which weighs 100000 pounds. There
are thirty miles Of railway communicate
ing with the different parts of the manu-
factory, as we'll as forty miles Of teh-
graphic lines. The establishment can
manufacture in twenty-four hours 1900
rails, $50 locomotive wheels, $50 wagon
wheels, and l, 800 shells, in a month, $50
feld-pieces and 81 others Of larger
caIiber