THE EXHIBITION OP 1862. 167 
exigencies of service may require., the system is worthy of the 
highest attention. 
War is a rough and rude master, and though we cannot hut 
a dmir e the extraordinary ingenuity and the" great mechanical skill 
brought by Sir W. Armstrong] to bear in the construction of his 
guns, and the perfect contrivance which it is, when we consider 
the great care required even in preventing corrosion or injury 
to the bore, we may well doubt, without presumption, whether, 
though tested in a short campaign in China, from starting on a 
wrong basis, his ingenuity has not been misdirected, in creating 
a weapon too delicate for the rough handling and neglect in- 
separably incident to a protracted European campaign. 
Our limits forbid our entering on the description of the 
numerous other ingenious and original inventions exhibited in 
the military court; such as Captain Fowkes’s admirable collapsing 
canvas pontoons ; Captain Boxer’s diaphragm shells and para- 
chute lights ; and the various small-arms, &c., which rendered 
this display so instructive. These will be found described in the 
jury reports, which we have endeavoured to supplement, to a 
certain extent, by a popular description of the principles 
involved. 
What will all this lead to ? Are armies and navies, like the 
famed Kilkenny cats, to fight till nothing but their tails are 
left ? Where will it all end ? These are complex questions, which 
must have suggested themselves to many. And yet there is a 
simple solution which presents itself. In affairs of honour with 
the small-sword, A’s and B’s seconds would egregiously fail in 
their duty if they permitted B to use a rapier an inch longer 
than A’s. All A’s swordsmanship would be thrown away, his 
most scientific attack lost, if, when finally lunging on his anta- 
gonist, B had simply straightened his arm. Before A’s rapier 
could reach him, that one extra inch had given B the victory ; 
he had “ pinked ” A. 
If an extra length of sword thus secures the victory, one 
would infer that, in the days when swords were worn and used, 
they would all have been of the utmost length consistent with 
the capability of the wearer to wield them. Yet an examination 
of an old armoury will prove this to have been anything but 
the case. In the single combat, the chances undoubtedly are, 
within certain limits, with the longer sword. And yet use and 
experience seem to have proved that, for all general purposes, 
a rather under-sized sword was in the long-run most efficient. 
Is it not so with armies ? For an army with the comparatively 
short-ranged smooth bore to meet another equipped with the 
long-range rifle, would in all probability be to court defeat, — a 
probability varying from certainty on a plain, to even chances 
on very broken ground. A commander cannot neglect any 
