THE LABOR-QUESTION. 605 



The manner in which the ordnance of this country is constructed is 

 sufficiently familiar to our readers. A tube of steel is encompassed by 

 jackets of wrought-iron, and in this way the toughness of the latter 

 is combined with the hardness of tlie former. All our guns, as we 

 have said, load at the muzzle, while those of Russia, Germany, Austro- 

 Hungary, and Turkey, are breech-loaders. Italy, in the case of the 

 100-ton guns with which she intends to arm her two stupendous tur- 

 ret-vessels, the Duilio and Dandolo, has adopted our method of con- 

 struction, except that she employs smooth, instead of studded, pro- 

 jectiles. With the employment of a gas-check at the base of the shot 

 to prevent windage and so secure the full force of the exploding 

 charge, the use of studs in a shot appears to be unnecessary, sufficient 

 spin being imparted to the projectile by the soft metal of the gas- 

 check before named, which causes the shot to rotate after the manner 

 of a Snider bullet. So satisfactory, indeed, were the Italian trials of 

 these projectiles last year that it is by no means improbable that we, 

 too, may give up the use of studded shot. 



As to the comparative value of breech-loaders and muzzle-loaders, 

 we shall not offer an opinion. No doubt a muzzle-loader is the stronger 

 weapon, because its breech is solid ; but our cousins, the Germans, 

 urge very justly that, since their guns do not burst, they are quite 

 strong enough. Advocates of the muzzle-loading system argue again 

 that their weapon is more simple in construction, and for this reason 

 is to be preferred ; but on the other hand the sponging and loading 

 of a gun is more easy to effect if it o])ens at the breech. Indeed, in 

 the case of very heavy guns located in a casemate or on board ship, 

 the Germans reproach us with the assertion that we must needs have 

 recourse to all sorts of complicated and awkward machinery in load- 

 ing, while in their case a simple pulley or crane is all that is necessary. 

 Either, say they, we must expose our gunners through the open port 

 when loading, or, as in the case of the Thunderer, rely blindly on 

 hydraulic apparatus to work the guns for us. So stands the question : 

 perhaps the present war will bring us a solution of it. Nature. 







THE LABOE-QUESTION. 



By E. G. ECCLES. 



IN sociology, the " personal equation," if not eliminated, distorts 

 men's view of Nature's workings more than in any other depart- 

 ment of thought. Despite this, nowhere else do they cling so tena- 

 ciously to this distorting factor. Shallow conclusions, based upon 

 traditional notions of right and wrong, tinctured with the bias of class 

 or education, is the sum total of the majority of attempts at making 



