two panniers of water, and did not stop in its career till it had broken a man's arm at some distance off! Its deadly aim at vast distances, which made it the dread of the sepoys, who termed it "the gun that kills without making any sound," contrasts strangely with the performances of Brown Bess of old, which at any range beyond a hundred yards was so uncertain in its aim that it has been calculated that the soldier shot away the weight in lead of every man that he hit. Before the breaking out of the war, our stores were hampered with small-arms of all sizes and patterns. There were, at home and abroad, no less than 109,725 flint-lock muskets, of fifteen different patterns, and 107,000 smooth-bore, percussion-lock muskets, of eight different patterns. Very many of these were in service a few years ago; and as their bores were all dissimilar, it often happened that the soldiers were provided with cartridges that would not fit their guns. In peace little difficulties of this kind are of no moment, but they are of the utmost importance in the time of war. At the battle of Waterloo, the Brunswickers, who held Hougoumont, were, for a short time, rendered helpless, in consequence of cartridges having been sent to them that did not fit their muskets. A battle, which, according to Professor Creasey, ranks among the six decisive combats of the world, might thus have been lost on account of the misfit of a cartridge. The necessity of preventing the possible recurrence of such mischances induced the authorities, at the breaking out of the Russian war, to make the bore of all muskets used by the different branches of the service uniform with that of the Enfield rifle. A thousand of these weapons can at present be completed in a week--a number which appears large, but which is in reality far beneath the real wants of the army. The private manufacturers of small-arms in Birmingham denounced the establishment of this factory, on the plea that Government were not warranted in fabricating goods which the private trade of the country were capable of producing--an assertion which the Crimean war totally disproved, as the authorities were so pressed for rifles that they had to go to France,[26] Belgium, and the United States for supplies, and at one time contemplated giving an order for 350,000 rifles at Liége. The military rifle, like the shell, being a special article required only by the army, the demand for it in large numbers is not constant, and hence the low condition of the mechanical power brought to bear upon it by the trade. The gunmakers of Birmingham have depended upon skilled labour for the production of the different parts of a musket, and thus labour, in times of pressure, becomes exorbitantly costly, to the embarrassment and loss of the public service. It was this which led the Government to introduce machinery into the manufacture--a thing the trade declared impossible, but which they now see is not only possible but profitable,