The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03
! eS@"* - 49, 49, ~
STRANGE KINDS OF ARTIIIFRY:
10 Cannon of Leather Have Been in Battle and
Others We're Constructed Ice, and Wood AS

ME- are told that in the action of
Red Idol Gorge the Tibetans
used about twenty leather cannon and
jingals, says the London Standard. The
fact would be simply amusing If sew
eral hundred of the poor wretches had
not been shot down with magazine
rifles and Cuttings and mountain guns.
That spoils the fun Of the announce
ment. Though our generals and SOL
dlers are blameless, to the public it
seems almost as cruel as the massacre
of unarmed men. Leather guns at best
take rank with bows and arrows-so
we are apt to think in these days of
scientific weapons. But that depends
on the manufacture and the use made
of them. AS regards the former point
we have no information yet, but the
Tibetans contrived to maintain a tcon-
t1nuous fire" for no small space of time
apparently. They began as soon as the
troops came in sight, and persevered
through snow storm that lasted an
hour. If the balls had hit they would
have done their work as effectually as
the best rifled ordnance But "all the
missiles fell Short That was not
necessarily because the guns were
made of leather. One of the most i'm
portant battles in the history of the
world was decided by such artillery.
and the struggle between king and
parliament in this country might have
assumed another form but for leather
guns.
The credit of the invention is assign
ed to Robert Scot, a scion of the house
| of Beautrie, who levied 200 men for
the service of Gustavus Adolphus That
great soldier always welcomed novel
ties, and Scot speedily convinced him
that his contrlvance would be useful.
A cannon of leather, strongly bound
with iron, could be turned out of any
dimensions required in a couple of
days, and it would bear at least fifty
discharges. Accordingly Gustavus
made great use of them. Providing an
extra supply before the battle of Leip-
sic, he silenced Tilly's artillery and
won the day. Scotch soldiers return
Ing home, when the religious troubles
began, did not forget this useful in
vent1on. A son of the Earl of Had
dlngton set up a foundry of leather
guns for the equipment of the Cow
enanting army in 1889. At Newtown-
ford they. proved their value. The
works raised by Charles to protect his
passage of the river crumbled before
them, and the English soldiers, delight
ed with the excuse, quietly walked
away in different directions. But John
Evelyn records a tradition that Henry
VIII. used create leatherne guns" at
the siege of Boulogne; in fact, the
things themselves were shown at the
Tower in his time. Evelyn adds: MY
Lord Herbert in his history doubts
But if Lord Herbert, writing early in
the seventeenth century, refers to
leather guns whether used by Henry
VIII. OR another, it is clear enough
that Scot was not the first inventor.
The StrangeSt material ever used for
artillery is, no doubt, ice, but we are
assured by the most serious historians
that four guns and two mortars so con-
structed were fired six times each with
out bursting. 1t was at the marriage
of Prince GalitZin, one of the brutal
jests which amused the Empress Anne
Of Russia. The prince, an amiable and
intelligent veteran, was her favorite
butt as a browning stroke of humor
she married him to a poor woman of
eighty-five, and presented the unhappy
couple with palace, furnished from
attic to cellar-but the building and all
in it was ice. After a banquet and
ball, which must have been uncom-
monty chilly, bride and groom were
undressed and laid upon nuptial bed
of ice, while the four guns and two
mortars outside, also of ice, discharged
salvoes. So they remained shut in
till morning. The jest proved killing
to both. But terra Gotta, as material
for cannon, is almost as strange as ice.
1t has been used, nevertheless, though
not exactly for warlike purposes. Some
fifty years ago a number of terra Gotta
guns, with a store Of terra Gotta balls
We're found in a tomb upon the island
of Chimal, in Southern Mexico. They
We're good limitations of Spanish pieces
in the time of the Conquest, nearly five
feet long. 1t is suggested that the In
dams made them after Cortez had
passed through the country, hoping,
perhaps, that when they had cannon