THE ARMS TRADE OF BELGIUM. 207 
by exposure to steam. The master-stocker receives from the store a 
rough-chiselled stock, a barrel with its bayonet, a ramrod, a lock, and a 
set of gun furniture. He has then to fashion the wood for lodging 
accurately the principal parts, and again to put a finishing hand to the 
stock when it comes back from the setter- up. The duty of the setter- 
up (" equipeur ") is to lodge the trigger-guard, the trigger, the band- 
springs, and ramrod-springs ; to drill the screw-holes ; to flush the 
screw-heads ; to temper and polish all the pieces ; and, finally, to make 
the whole weapon act, by adjusting and filing where necessary. 
The rifling is effected by machinery, which was mainly created in 
the factory itself, and once excited the admiration of our mechanists, 
but has been now surpassed elsewhere. There are twenty rifling 
benches, each of which can rifle twelve barrels in ten hours. Each 
barrel passes through the machine twelve times for each of the four 
grooves — in all, forty-eight times. The grooves have one turn in two 
metres, or seventy-nine inches. 
The musket is then assembled, and brought by the stocker to the 
" salle de recette," to be viewed by the first comptroller. After a general 
view, it is entirely stripped, and every part is again strictly inspected 
and guaged by four different comptrollers, each having his own part. 
It is then again assembled, viewed a last time, and marked by the head 
comptroller, and then put into store. 
The estimate of the cost of a rifled musket with its appendages 
made at the .Royal Factory in 1860, was forty-five francs seventy- 
two centimes, or 11. 16s. 3d. These figures of course only include the 
cost of materials and labour, not that of the buildings, the machinery, 
and the staff employed ; therefore they cannot be held to represent the 
real cost of each musket. The price of those supplied by the trade in 
1859 was 59 francs, or 21. 6s. lOd. One of these arms is calculated to 
last thirty years and to stand 25,000 shots. 
The armed forces of Belgium may be stated as follows : — 
. f Effective force — average numbers drawing pay 35,000 
my * ( » » absent on furlough, &c. . 65,000 
Civic ( Active battalions 25,000 
Guard. \ Reserve battalions 55,000 
100,000 
80,000 
Total 180,000 
With the exception of four regiments of lancers, the above troops 
are all armed with fire-arms provided by the State. The whole muskets 
of the army, of patterns anterior to 1841, have been put into the hands 
of the civic guard. Those belonging to the active battalions have been 
lately rifled on a new principle invented by Mr. Jansen, a gunsmith, 
which seems to be very suitable for all barrels. About 20,000 have 
been thus " transformed" by him (rifled with eight shallow grooves) at 
