THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
hip rather than from the shoulder. In this weapon, the needle was driven 
forward through the base of the paper cartridge, and struck a disc of 
fulminating material inside it. The needle was apt to become much 
corroded, and to break; this was another grave drawback to the weapon. 
Hence other nations continued for some time to prefer the muzzle loader. 
But the great success of the needle gun in the wars of Prussia with Denmark 
in 1864, and with Austria in 1866, confirmed the superiority of the breech- 
loader. In the latter year France adopted the Chassepot, a superior arm 
on the principle of the needle gun; this rifle also fired a self-consuming 
cartridge, and though a more powerful weapon than the needle gun, neces- 
sarily suffered from the drawbacks incidental to the system. These two 
rifles were hammerless, and their breech actions were on the door -bolt 
principle, i.e., the breech was closed by a bolt moving fore and aft, and 
locked by lugs brought into play by a partial turn. Breech actions on this 
principle are now almost universal for military arms, but the system was 
long viewed with disfavour in this country owing to certain dangers of 
accidental discharge, since completely guarded against. Hence the Enfield 
rifle of the British Army was converted to a breechloader on a block system, 
that of Jacob Snider, an American, a block hinged at the side and pierced 
for a striker, being interposed between the hammer and the breech end of 
the barrel. In this rifle, very successful in its day, the Boxer central-fire 
cartridge was used, having the cap and an internal anvil in the base of the 
cartridge, and a flange round the base to engage the extractor. This central - 
fire cartridge extinguished the breech -loading systems, such as the Westley 
Richards, in which the flash from a cap placed on the nipple penetrated 
the paper of the cartridge and ignited the powder. The chief objections 
to the breech -loading system were thus finally overcome, the cartridge 
case, expanded by the explosion, absolutely preventing all escape of gas 
at the breech. If it required a special movement to pull the cartridge out 
of the chamber and another to remove it from the action, at all events the 
fouling difficulties due to the remains of the self- consuming cartridge 
were no longer to be feared. The need for handling the empty cartridge 
was eliminated in the next stage of development, for in the Martini Henry 
and other falling block actions, both its extraction and ejection followed 
automatically on the movement of opening the breech. The operation of 
pushing the cartridge into the chamber with the thumb next disappeared 
with the general adoption of the bolt action. In military, and in a majority 
of sporting, rifles at the present time the cartridges are not handled 
302 
