

MILITARY AND NAVAL ORGANISATION. 



by the examining medical officers. They are cer- 

 tainly not, as a class, men of education, for out of 

 every 1000 there were 143 who could neither read 

 nor write, 94 who could only read, and 740 only 



who could both read and write. The well-be- 

 haved soldier has means of earning many extra 

 allowances for doing extra duty, not purely mili- 

 tary or combatant, which increase his nominal pay. 



REGIMENTAL DAILY PAY. 



MATERIEL. 



The materiel of an army comprises everything 

 in connection with it which is neither human, nor 

 a beast of burden, nor a dwelling-place, nor a 

 fortification. The articles thus included are of 

 almost infinite variety military stores of all 

 kinds, medical stores, camp equipage, food and 

 forage, pontoon train, arms, and ammunition. 

 The very limited space of this article will only 

 allow a short description of the last two items. 



Arms. 



In all ages the sword appears to have been the 

 principal weapon in hand-to-hand combat, or at 

 least from the time that the club of the mere 

 savage had been set aside. As early as the 

 fourteenth century, fire-arms began to be em- 

 ployed, first as artillery, and very shortly after in 

 the shape of the harquebus as a clumsy hand-gun. 



In their earlier stages, cannon went by various 

 names, as bombard (parent of mortars), cnlverins, 

 petronels ; later on, they were reduced to the 

 three denominations cannon, mortar, howitzer, 

 of which hereafter. Small-arms were at first 

 literally small cannon ; the old harquebus being 

 no more than a diminutive gun mounted on a 

 rude stock, rested on a triangle or wall, and fired 

 by a match applied at the touch-hole. Naturally, 

 every effort was made to increase the portability 

 of this weapon ; and it passed through various 

 stages first, the match-lock of the fourteenth 

 century, then the percussion-lock of our own 

 day, which produces fire by the blow of a hammer 

 on a copper cap containing detonating powder. 



This lock was adopted in 1840 by the British 

 government, but it has now been superseded by 

 the needle-gun lock, by which a sharp pin is 

 driven through a detonating cap in the bottom 

 of the cartridge, and thus explodes it. This was 

 introduced with the breech-loading weapons. The 

 smooth-bore musket, known as ' Brown Bess,' 

 continued to be the form until from 1853 to 1856, 

 when its place was supplied in the British service 

 by the Enfield rifle. Meanwhile, as early as the 

 reign of Henry VIII. large pistols had been con- 

 structed as a convenient hand-weapon. These 

 were reduced gradually in size, and altered in 

 shape, until the excellence of the present revolver 

 was attained. 



Adverting, now, to the weapons actually in use 

 in the British army, the rifle owes its accuracy to 

 certain grooves or spirals within its barrel, which 

 cause the ball to revolve rapidly on an axis parallel 

 to the axis of the piece, and therefore presumably 

 to keep within very small divergence from the 

 line of aim. The advantage of this revolution has 

 been greatly increased by the adoption of conico- 

 cylindrical balls, instead of the old spherical bullet. 

 Thus provided, the Enfield rifle is tolerably certain 

 at 900 yards, while ' Brown Bess ' was considered 

 quite harmless at icoyards. The next improvement 

 was effected by the invention of Mr Snider, who 

 converted the Enfield rifle into a breech-loading 

 weapon, which, without being comparable as an 

 arm of delicate precision to the French Chassepot, 

 still combines simplicity, durability, economy, 

 and efficiency in a greater degree than any other 

 weapon then used in warfare : 12 to 1 8 shots per 

 minute can be fired from it. But the weapon now 

 used by our army is the Henry-Martini rifle, 



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