of our infantry soldiers had been arranged side by side, so that by a very simple breech-action the whole could be loaded without a chance of jamming. Thus the objection both as to jamming and to the multiplication of ammunition was overcome.
Yet the Ordnance Department declared that the question had been already decided by the reports on the old Gatling – a decision about as reasonable as it would have been to decide that steel pens should never be adopted into the public service, because quills were better than the roughest form of the first idea of a metal pen. The matter was, we have every reason to believe, not again referred to any of the authorities who had pronounced against the old Gatling.
But the quaint part of the story was this. The Admiralty, having a strong wish to obtain, for their purposes, Nordenfelt guns, were unable to get them made or issued to them by the Ordnance Department. They continued to use the Gatlings which they could get. As a sequel: when the Zulu war broke out there was a general cry that for rapid movement into a country where transport was difficult, and against an enemy who habitually moved in dense masses, some form of multiple gun was desirable. The result was, that the old Gatling, which had been condemned, was the only form available, and the one that was actually employed in Zululand. We believe the department were even themselves obliged to send out some Gatlings to supplement those landed by the Admiralty. A more complete stultification of itself by a department than the use of an avowedly inferior form of weapon, for no other reason than this – that they had condemned all possible improvements of it because in its first form it was a failure – has perhaps never been recorded in any country.
We can only cull these few choice flowers from the rich garden of the blunderings of the department, but we can assure our readers that they are nothing to the bouquet that would be gathered by any searching inquiry.[1]
We come now to the question of gun-manufacture itself. Having originally entered into a "practical partnership" with the Elswick firm, we have, since the time when, at heavy cost, we freed ourselves from that bargain, been involved in an indirect and uncertain alliance with the same firm, of such a kind that, partly from this cause, and partly from the fact that we retained all the while the worst evils of the former French system of obscurantism, wrongs of the most grievous kind have resulted. We are about to describe a case which has required very great pains fairly to investigate, and in which, as we are now convinced, more practical injustice has been done than in almost any other – grievous as is the catalogue with which we have had to deal. The case is that of Mr Lynall Thomas.[2] Before enter-
- ↑ We hope, in any case, that the two calm and moderate statements by the late Sir William Palliser, a man of the highest honour and character, known as "Memorandum A" and "Memorandum B," regarding the late head of the Artillery Department, Sir F. Campbell, will be called for by any investigating committee and sifted.
- ↑ "The Action of Fixed Gunpowder in Guns." Article in the ' Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine,' July 1884, by Mr Lynall Thomas.
Thomas v. The Queen. In the High Court of Justice, Exchequer Division,
