Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-12-09
It Takes Many Hundreds of Bullets
to Kill One Man.
CHANCES OF DEATH ARE DECREASING
What is Shown by the Records Of
Many Great Battles.
MODERN MACHINE GUNS
Special Correspondence of The Evening STIR.

| Special Correspondence of The Evening STIR
| PARIS, December l, 1899
| III we are to believe certain French re-
| ports the Beers have now in their possess
| sion number of Quick-firing guns ex-
| tremely like the Hotchkiss mitrailIeuses
| adopted by the French infantry. The Brit
| lsh have both Colts and Maxims. As these
| machines are capable of firing from 400 to
zoe cartridges minute each, the world
naturally stands anxious, waiting to OBJ
| serve the slaughter
| Yet the hecatombs are not reported The
ordinary bullet. weighing 80 grammes, a
| machine gun throwing out GOO of them
| every minute, will distribute, every min
| ute, somthing like IS kilogrammes, or 40
| pounds of lead Now, since there are 80
| minutes in one hour, should there be any
| record In the Cuban campaign, in the
philippines or in South Africa of 60 dead
from one hours work of a Colt. Hotchkiss
| or Maxim machine gun, it would mean that
| 90 pounds of lead will kill one man in war
But there is no such record The accounts
remain vague. The private soldier has a
right to pluck up heart again. And the
answer to the question How many pounds
OF lead does it take to kill man in bat
te?' is likely to remain curious sur
prise.
Many Bullets to a Man.
According to the official complies rendus
and the reports of the military surgeons
Oh the epoch, in the famous battles of
Austerlitz Eylau, Wagram, Friedland,
lena and Eckmuhl, each soldier killed or
wounded represented 5000 cartridges shot
AT Leipzig, and during the French cam
paign of 1914, it took as many as 10000
pals to put single man hors du combat.
With the perfection of European arms
the average was lowered rapidly. AT Sol
ferino, in 1859, the AustrianS poured on the
dol, 80 . N I.nn
ules, killing or wounding 1900 French
men. with an average of 700 cartridges per
man. In 1870 during certain particularly
deadly engagements, the average fell to 80
cartridges for each man killed or wounded
While in the operations around Santiago 1t
| attained the minimum of $50 balls And this
was with the full use of the Colt quick
firers.
To kill a man, however has always re-
CURED much more lead. AT Solferino out of
1000 only 1000 We're k;lled-befng one for
every 100 cartridges fired; although at
GraVeiotte, in the late Franco-Prussian
war, the average had fallen to 300. When
1t is considered that the Mauser bullets
When not dum-dum'd-are even less muir
derous, although they account for a greater
number wounded, this figure may be taken
as an average for today. How many
pounds of lead does 1t take, therefore, to
XIII soldier outright? Thirty times 1900
gives 800 grammes, or eighty-five pounds
or solid lead. Were this cast into one bull
let OF the ordinary diameter, it would be
125 feet high!
Wicked Invention
1t seems, therefore-in the absence OF
great execution by the machine guns-to
depend on the dum-dum- of the bullets;
for II was just this matter of insufficient
killing with the small cal,oer bullets Of
their Lee-Metfords that caused the British
troops in India to hit that wicked IN
vention. The lead bullets being covered
with a 11Ckat of nickel ba sol
diers themselves began to pierce the ex-
tremtty of the envelope, in order that the
softer lead might be forced part way
through 1t by the force of the discharge
The resulting wounds We're terrible To
make them worse the soldiers cut the bull
lets longitudinally. 1t was the good Cen
eral Tweedie who first saw. officially, the
beauty of the idea, and began manufacture
ing at Dum-Dum, near Calcutta a new
form Of cartridge that should carry it out
to perfection-a ball with a soft point in an
open envelope. 1t is useless to recall the
violent protestations of all Europe, and in
particular the German savants. Gen.
Tweedie ceased to manufacture dunl-dums
they injured the rifles. and had scarcely
sufficient initial force-replacing them by
the ball cartridges called Number f." They
were used In the late campaign of the Sou
dan They have no opening at the point of
the copper and nickel envelope. But on the
other hand. they have no lead there either
The point being empty, it will open when
1t strikes its object, forming a mushroom
NiiIiS INC SOlC ledu SCaCterS IN the WOund
The German, Or. Bruins, has been expert
menting with the cartridges Number 4 and
this IS what he found:
Makes an Ugly Wound
"A horse was killed at. the first shot
The wound was eight inches in diameter
where the bullet went out, and its edges
were all mangled and full of fragments
The disorders caused in the liquid parts of
the body, such as the heart and stomach,
were terrible, the ball does not leave
them. but scatters in veritable powder of
lead"
The British have taken the cartridges No
4 to the TransVaal with them, fitting equal
ly their rifles, revolvers and machine guns;
yet we hear no cutlery from the Beers.
Is 1t because the Beers have modified
dum-dum OF their own? Or is it because
! the British hold possession of the cables?
The British themselves say that the effect
OF their No. As has been maliciously exag-
gerated. THE ball, it is true, is quite ex-
pansive; the force of its shock is indubi-
table; IL 1T meets light resistance 1t causes
considerable ravaees in the tissues; but
the wound is no more terrible than that of
the Springfield rife ball. and far less than
that Of the old-fashioned musket ball.
What Europe is Doing.
Is there not, after all. a great deal of
illogical sentiment expended on this matter
of the larger wounds of the dum-dums?
Is it worse to be torn with one expansive
ouliet tHdl " bc silot through WIN IIleeI
cleaner-cutting ones? Yet this matter Is
just what they purpose doing with their
machine guns, now adopted by the merciful
generals of France and Germany. The
French, alarmed by the description of the
German Maxims, have at last taken up the
Hotchkiss rapid firers
1t is in particular to the chasseurs a
| pied that the new arm has been intrusted in
both armies, since it has been thought bet
| ter adapted to the lightly-maneuvering in
fantry than to the artillery proper. The
German Alpine troops of Gothard and Saint
Maurice have been largely furnished with
! them also; and it is in the defense of
mountain passes, where few men may
| hope to stand off hundreds, that both
French and Germans profess to see their
greatest use. Perhaps, therefore, the Brit
| ish may have reason to regret these IN
ventions before the Transvaal war has
tailed off in guerrilla tactics.
The French MitrailIeuse.
The truth is that the French, having
been so bitterly disappointed with the mi
| trailleur of 1870, still look askance at these
much promising machines. The mitrailleuse
l.