Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-05-25

The machine gun is the most deadly
weapon ever invented. The United
States army possesses the most dead
ly of all machine guns. 1t is called
the Benet-Mercier gun
The Benet- MERCER gun is capable
of killing 400 men a minute. 1t would
kill 400 MeXicans a minute If they
got in the way. The MeXicans also
have some machine guns, but they are
OF very inferior type to the Amer
lean, and those half-civilized people
are not capable of keeping the mech
anism in as good running order as
bright, ingenious American soldier
would do.
machine gun is device that fires
rifle bullets continuously and auto
matically. All the soldier has to do
| is to pull a string or press lever
and then the bullets fly out. The man
in control can play the stream OF bul-
! let's over a field just as you scatter
| the lets of a watering can over the
garden. 1t Is impossible for any man
| to remain alive in an open space over
which a machine gun is playing its
death rain.
The only imperfection in the abso-
Lutte deadliness of the machine gun
was it's liability to jam occasionally
That has been almost entirely over
come in the Benet- MERCER gun.
This gun weighs only 20 pounds,
and needs no tripod like the older
machine guns. In an emergency It
might be rested on the shoulder OF
one man and fired by another. But
under ordinary circumstances the SOL
dier who fires it lies on his stomach
on the ground, holding the breech,
while the muzzle is upheld at the
requisite elevation by pair OF steel
prongs.
Only two men are needed to oper-
ate this marvellous weapon. one
aims it and pulls the trigger, whiit
the other replaces the spent clips oil
cartridges with fresh ones as fas
as they are used up. Two addltiona
men are required, however, for bring
ing supplies of the cartridge clips
, , each one of which contains rife cart
, ridges with conical bullets.
:. Theoretically, the gun is capable o
, firing 500 bullets a minute-that Is t
say, at the rate of ten second. Ii
actual practise, however, 1t can dis
charge only 400 per minute, becaus
some time Is lost in replacing tn
u spent clips with fresh ones. But ~
per minute means $4,000 man. killin
:, projectiles per hour-at which rat
the entire population of Greater NeN
York might, theoretically speaking, 0
wiped out by a single Benet-Mercie
in a battle over eight days Of twenty
: four hours each.
II The Benet- Mercier is an automati
II gun. 1t is gas operated. the ga
II from each powder charge, followin
II the bullet as it goes through the bar
II rel, passes through hole in the bot
U tom of the barrel into the chambt
beneath the latter. The expansio
in the chamber presses back pisto
! with @ coiled spring, the recoil {
which elects the empty cartride
case, feeds in new cartridge, an
fires It, Thus the process repeatin
itself with almost inconceiVabl
rapidly, the bullets are discharge
in continuous stream like wat'
from q hose.
Nothing to compare with the Bene
, MERCER has been known up to II
! present time. Yet the war depar
| ment does not consider it beyor
| Improvement. AS matter of fac
! the perfect machine gun has not "
| been developed. All such weapon
! give trouble now and then viii
"jams," due to stoppages of the m
J chanism. Such jams may be cause
by heat caused by the enormoi
activity of the mechanism, by di
accumulated from the firing,
breakage of parts, due to rapidity
fire, or, in other instances, to irregr
larities In the cartridges. Once In
while 1t happens that the prim
drops out of a cartridge into Il
mechanism, clogging the latter. The
troubles have either been eliminate
or reduced to a minimum in &
Benet-Mercier aun. a sandstone b