m PEACOCK. EditdL VOLUME XX.—NO. 218 THE EVENING BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVKBY EVENING, ' (Sunday’s excepted.) -AT THU NEW BULLETIN BUILDING. 607 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. BY THB EVENING BULLETIN ASSOCIATION. VBOYBZEYOBB. ♦GIBSONPEACOCK’. ERNEST C WALLACE IlfiPraSK th°3. J. WILLIAMS js/, -CASPER 80UDEB, Jr. PRAHCIB WELLS. The Bulletin is served to subscribers In tne city at 18 cents per week, payable to the carriers, or $3 per annum, Which Is tbe Best for Family Use—The Shuttle Stitch or the Grover dt Baher Stitch ? In a recent important case before the Hon. •Commissioner ot Patents, the following tes timony was elicited nnder oath: Mr. Alonzo Taylor, of New York, manu facturer of the Howe Shuttle Machines, stated that he has purchased nearly a dozen Grover & Baker Machines for his friends, to ■be usedm their families, because he thought they would do the work better than Shuttle Machines, Mr. Nesbit D. Stoops, of the firm of Sib ley & Stoops, agent for the Howe Bhuttle Machine, deposed: ‘‘The seamot the Grover & Baker Ma chine, is as elastic as the material stitched, and Cannot be broken as easily as tbeseam of other two-thread machines, be lnK. thereby adapted to sewing many articles which other maohineß will not sew to ad vantage; that the thread tensions are easily adjusted and require little attention, where by materials of different thickness and sub stance may be sewed without varying the tensions, and that washing and wear do not affect the appearance and condition of the seam as they do the seams of two-thread machines that do not make the Grover & Baker stitch.” Mr. Yan Wyck Wickes, New York city, dealer m all kinds of Sewing Machines, de poses : Q,. For what reason are these Grover <fe Baker Machines esteemed above others by those ■who prefer them forfamilv use? A. First for their quietness; the beauty of the upper stitch for plain sewing, and the nnder stitch for ornamental work; the ease ot working them,and the little time required in learning their use; the elasticity of the stiteb, thereby avoiding the danger of the stitch breaking when used on light fabric or sewing on the bias. They will do all the different styles of family sewing, and in -addition will do the best quality ef orna mental work. Mr. William H. Hicks, of the Hicks Engine Company, New York, who has had an acquaintance of eight years in the sewing machine business, says the Grover <fc Baker is the most valuable and useful for general domestic family use, “on account of its ap plicability to almost every variety of sew, mg done by machinery; to its using the four-motion feed; sewing from two spools, or an endless thread, not having to rewind, in short lengths, any of the threads used in sewing; to the elasticity of the stitch made, on accountof the two-threads fastening their own stitch; the ease with which the operator can change from thin to thick fabrics without disturbing the tension, and on account of the general eaSe with which itoanbe learned •abd operated.” Mr. George Walker, of 47 Beach street, Sew York, for several years engaged in selling Lock-Stitch Machines testified as follows: Q. From your knowledge of the leading Sewing Machines in general use, what is your opinion as to the merits of the Grover Baker Machine? A. I consider it as ,! A No. 1” Family Sewing Machine, simple in its construction, and easy of operation; the work that it does is more substantial than any other machine. That comprehends all that I can say, I think; it is less liable to get out of order. Q,, As regards the stitch made by this ma -chine, what are its relative merits as com pared with the lock-stitch? A. It is less liable to rip if the stitch be comes broken, and is more elastic than the lock-stitch; and if the seam requires to be ripped, it is more easily unraveled than the lock-stitch; persons who make themselves equally familiar with both (the lock-stitch and the Grover & Baker stitch), would give the Grover & Baker the preference. Mr. Albert H. Hook, of the city of New York, a mechanical engineer and inventor of Sewing Machine Improvements, stated as follows; VI consider the Grover & Baker ■Sewing Machine the best machine for gene ral use. It is simple, and on that account it -commends itself to families particularly. The seam made by that machine ismoredu j-able than the Shuttle Stitoh Machine on -account of its elasticity. It is easier man- - aged than a Shuttle machine, as tbe threads are taken to the needles directly from the spools, and their tensions are less difficult ■to adjust, and I make it a point to recom mend the Grover & Baker Machine when my advice is requested, which is often the case, as many people are acquainted with the fact that I invented and patented sewing machine improvements myself ” Over one hundred other witnesses, in cluding heads of families, scientific men, and experts, persons well qualified from practical experience with different sewing machines, to judge of their merits, gave it i as their decided and unqualified opinio a that the Grover & Baker stitoh was superior to the shuttle Btitch, (or iock stitoh as it is •called,) for family use, as well as for the i manufacture of cloaks and mantillas, dress- i making, the manufacture of undershirts ' and drawers, and a variety of other manu- i factures. Sad Fate of a Bridal Pasty.— The Milwaukee (Wis.) Sentinel, of the 4th. says- A short time since, Mr. Wm. B. Ragg, a .young man thirty years of age, came to this ■city from New Hampshire, with the inten tion of settling down as a farmer in the in terior of the State. On Thursday last, the £29th ult., he was married to an estimable young lady living near this city. Having purchased a span of fine horses, the couple . started on Saturday last for Oshkosh, on a wedding tour, intending at the same time to select. their future home. Full of bright . anticipations of the future, the young cou ple chatted and laughed as they sped over the road, never fearing danger of any sort. "When about fifteen miles from this city, however, the horses took fright and ran fur riously down the road, throwing both Mr. Ruggand his bride from the carriage, al most instantly killing Mr. Rugg, and fa tally injuring his bride. ' An official document states that in addi tion to the cannon and other stores at the several navy-yards and depots, there are now on board the vessels of the navy in commission 1,029 cannon of all calibres, with carriages and equipments, and one hundred rounds of ammunition for each. Scotch Emigration to Texas. —lt is *om Galveston that no less than 300 families of the Scotch working olasses from I „ li i ve i? 00 i, 1 destined to that BRITISH INGRATITUDE, THE CASE OF A PUIEADEEPUIAS IN liVAIIIUA. [Prom Msb “Belgravia," fbr JACOB SNIDES, INVENTOB; trmiw^f^ Bl6B l of “ventive genius, the ‘S 6S of inventors, the injustice of indi nfJf» 88 1 IDst e S°• kave been the theme IS J i, allal ?wmg narrative of fact, and would have been equally the subject of tSSS?^ fiotlo * fc bn , t lor difficulties at af,^l ant on th ,® latter task, which pre supposes a larger acquaintance with the particulars of invention than any wnter of fiction has yet been fraud to possess. Bulwer, in his Last of the Barons, has essayed the task, and to oompe ™L a J? preh ,? nslon ’ failed - la that great |? as *®f 8 . e “ dea l? r to expound so much of the principles of latent heat as was necessary Stve to his tale veri-similitude he has his own ignorance ot the topic he would handle. Dickens has hardly been fortunate when making a similar at aps 018 most masterly render ‘he theme in a work of imagination / 8 jSo P 0 , fonnd . tp Balzac’s Recherche de iA&sofcq in which his alchemist does not shock scientific perception, for the simple t u lo point of invention aimed at was indefinite; no mortal man then or now to . im agine orfigurq'tohimself any defimte scheme of metallic transmuta ,J ac< ?h Snider is dead and buried. His body begin Kensal Green, under what he so moments of misery was wont to call the “accursed British sod.” The daily press, which first denied his illness, and heme taunted into action, blazoned fati b bIS mi®® r y''fhen it was already too late, records his being no longer. His verv name seems passing out of public memory, the names of other men adand bnned. Enfield resounds with fMbl ? niB g ids now celebrated arms, resounds night and day—even Sun days. He was stricken down just when his great work, that had extended over seven weary years, was completed. He died pen niless, and m debt. He trusted to England’s honor, and it failed him. B u s „ A . s ii' , t 0 leave no cause of accusation l" 8 memory, no ground upon which ?° glaE c d may solace her own shamed pride, Jacob Snider s was a character wholly free trom the weak points alleged against inven if. was Provident, was economical: he kept accurate accounts; he was prompt There ke P* regQ lar tiooks. lhere was nothmg unconsidered of ill arranged about him. In any ordinary bar gam as between honorable men, Snider ‘° ,t° Id 1118 own > held it. Thiß being so, the question will not fail to arise, whether the Government of this great ““toy could have dealt by SC' wel? »St. for B hard, who deserved of it well, who, through long years of suffering slaved for it, starved for it—in the bitter end to die for it-dealt by him less honorably, than would have happened between man and man 7 we , reao ™eely provident, why did he not make suoh a bargain with the as would have served his ends? That question will be asked by the public ?w‘?L U ?7 entorB - The latter too wellkno w that the Government of this country repudi ates all bargains as between it and in ventors. 'Trust to our honor” is what dU e im£ V » mment ® ayB; “ We 1181011 to no con - D , ot . fi gnratively written; it is a stern literal truth. Whether the honor of England be or be not, in respect to inven tors, as a broken reed or a lying voice, as 1 n watera or whispered to known^’ let 016 of Snidermake The absolute legal right of the British Go nfbf Invention it pleases; take it without consultation, treaty, com pensation, or regard of the inventor—the public, any body—take it absolutely for F°* blD £’j f 80 willed, was established by the of the suit, Feather versus The Queen, That was ruled to be the law. Whether the rulingcan be over-ruled remains to be seem mat was a remarkable decision. Bv th» t Srt??Dvhi f vlrtne of iniquity there the British Government acquired a despotic power oyer inventors. It was a power that time had known before, when time was younger than to-day; it was a power bring ing types to mind .that were hoped to have passed away; one that, when mob-throng “&> rail-breaking, unwashed, yellow clay-fashioned crookeiy-ware moulded fellows threaten their betters, is called by evil names. It established a lawless law— over right. Such was the law R f r«nf tZ Boriickingen and Front de Cnmberiand moss-troopers knew that law. It was Rob Roy’s simple plan. It “9indTurpin’s pistol- presentation drafts at sight; or the blander arguments, not less cogent, of Claude DuvaL ’ Such, then, at present, is the law. It was arrived at tentatively. It was a decree too barbarous, too medisevally despotic for ac ceptance all at onoe. When Snider first came to England in 1859, the law was dif ferent. Then, guided by the evidenoe of his accurately kept .diary, we shall find hi 81 ’*,,*! 16 ,? 11118 - witb tbe Government, he failed not to exercise the con trol incumbent on every prudent man. The law as it stood then subsequently found a new interpretation. Some big-wig law yer. of bold conceptionand truly Bismarkian audacity, opened a Schleswig-Holstein campaign against inventive genius. He battled on a small inceptive scale; he won iu S fi!?» I L fiBbt—be bron ght in a small bills that bfil became an act. Then the silence of desolation stole upon inventors. Pale men wept, and starved, and starving died. Thev muttered low, as poor Snider muttered. The Bationi heard it not; the law heeded it not. Some Lawyer Bitmark had made a desert, and called the silence peace. 1 Whilst we English, fooled by the cacKle of our own crowing? wapa valiantly upholding Sir William Arm strong s gun, and almost before the eoho of foreigners’ laughter at our crowing had died away, then the artillerist quondam lawyer knight, Oliver Twist like, suddenly found he wanted “more.” In print the TO^l?f^ oDSß ? n Y as P erfeot . not in the field. re ß® ver ‘° become what newspapers bad ,? lade B. perfection upon perfection would have to be piled on that already per fect gun. John BuU glorified himself. There was nobody like him. Rule Bri tannia I Long live Sir William! British coal and iron forever! British plnok. Bri tish honor, Hritish ingenuity !—it was all Drifts*, and confusion to the Frenoh tt,« h A^f re Boorets of instruction about the Armstrong gun—so sacred as not to be even whispered at Woolwioh.” It Was won derful toe accuracy of toe Armstrong gun. The gulls and the wild geese killed (on paper) by Sir William’s segment shells passed comprehension. There were other killings by those segment shells that “or- PHILADELPHIA, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBEB 19,1866.-TKIPLE SHEET, gaus of the mess” either did not know, or knowing, did not print. In the Chinese war, lead-sinppinffs/rom those segment shellsfired at the Chinese killed ow own men. began changing, improving, perfecting the perfect, Eclectioandnot pre judiced, Sir William cast about to take im provements wheresoever they might be round. But such notions as he wanted were under protection of the patent law. Thev were the fruits of the brains of others, who rights to remuneration that Sir William himself had claimed. If taken, they had to be paid for at the inventors’ own price. Thereupon Sir William Arm strong spoke strongly at Sheffield on the of patent laws. He proposed their abolition as best for all. The Dad points of these laws are salient. A more clumsy way of remunerating inventors it would be hard for a barbarian to have devised. But, then, inventors were not answerable for the exis tence of these laws. They had beendeereed as other laws are decreed. Men of inven tive genius would have willingly seen the laws on behalf of patents for in vention swept away, on the understanding that their government had given them, or would give them, an equivalent. But when it 'was stolidly propounded that inventors could not advance any moral claim to the inventions of their brains as property, all the then existing patent laws were defended by men of fertile brains in technical things with a pertinacity not warranted by any in trinsic excellence of those laws, but under the control of the feeling that bad laws were better than no laws at all. Between man ana man the patent laws continued to se cure a meed of rough justice. Inventions were indeeq too often unproductive to the inventor; monetary non-success was too often the sequence of monetary pressure; pa t ents continued to be divided,hypothecated, bartered for a little money—the birthright was often disposed of for the mess of pottage: but disposed of, at any rate seemingly, between man ard man, there was no ap pnation without recompense, or, in plainer terms, stealing outright. The issue of this debate and agitation, was a Pfrtain Act of Parliament, by virtue of i which the relations previously subsisting between Government and inventors of in ventions needed by Government were es sentially changed. It was decreed that upon the inception of the first stage of a patent, upon the inventor communicating to the patent office the secfet whereupon he desired to acquire a patent fight, it should be ob ligatory on the patent officers to di vulge the secret to certain government offi cials, who, if they should deem the subject of invention acceptable to or needed by the Government,should bar the future progress of the patent, and compensate the inventor by some, equivalent reward. How the equivalent was to be determined remained a point in doubt. An equivalent was recog nized nevertheless; and at that time there was no claim advanced to take an invention for nothing. It would be hard to demonstrate, on any foundation of right and morality, where rore between Government and inventor a different law should prevail than between inventor and the public. If a government needs inventive talent; if, in certain cases, government must use inventive talent, then it seems inconsistent with the high state of civilization to which the world has arrived, and especially this country, that the law t-hould affirm the asiugof such talent gra tuitously, after no preliminary compact, giving no equivalent at all. Such, never theless, was the ruling in the memorable suit of Feather versus the Queen, and thus the law remains. Nevertheless, in affirming the conclusion legally, no difference of opinion prevailed amongst men of whatever shade of politics as to the moral incumbency of Government to reward theoriginatorof any government adopted invention according to some eoui i able stale. This understood, it was hoped, pay believed, by many an inventor, that as between himself and the Government, the issue would be more favora ble than even had Borne law of agreement and contract wevailed. It *as felt, and reasonably, that henceforward people of inventive genius taken up by the Government would be on honor with the Government, and therefore treated honora * Tv was not violent. What other belief wouldseem reasonable in the presence of all the majesty of imputed honor which our social and, jpolitical system arrogates to itself? Without evidence dam natory and crushing, who among English men would have believed it possible for the Government to have behaved more shab bily to an inventor—not to write cruelly— than a private gentlemen would have done? are intended to dear the ground of certain objections that might have been possibly raised by persons not understanding the law and the facts bear ing upon the case of Snider. This inventor was precluded from making any bargain. All the prudence and sagacity that would have stood him in Buch stead in any ordina ry affair of private business was beside the question now. Once resolved to put his in ventive talent at the disposal ofthe Govern ment. it only remained for him to trust im plicitly to the honor of the Government. He had no alternative. We now take up the history of Snider in so far as our pages will afford space to ac complish a task that could only be folly achieved by an entire volume. Such a volume is in progress, and will speedily appear; the materials, in the shape of copious diaries accurately kept bv Snider himself, now lying before me. Snider was originally a wine merchant in Philadelphia, and had large transactions. He failed, but honorably failed, paying everybody almost in full, and leaving him almost destitute. He came to England in March 1859, bringing with him a specimen of-the Mont Storm breech-loader; a weapon intrinsically different from the one that now B ,n aine- It would more comport with the object of a mechanical journal tban with ours to enter into any details relative to the construction of that breech-loader. Suffice it to state that the Mont Storm gun did not üße a cartridge carrying its own ig nition, and needed capping liice any ordi* nary, musket or muzzle-loading fowling piece. In 1869, and long subsequently, it was a fundamental maxim not only with our war authorities, but those of every country save Prussia, that, assuming a Bystem of breech-loading • adapted for it must be suoh ' as per- > mitted the übo of the military cartridges then extant. Emphatically the proposition was laid down, that self-igniting cartridges Tim? *£S|*Btole for military or naval ser vice. The prejudice against cartridges car rying their own means of ignition was founded on the fact that, if a box or packet of them were shattered by a cannon-ball, or struck with an ordinary small-arm ball, the entire lot would explode. This much !• conceded; but the advantages which accrue from doing away with the need of capping —always inconvenient, and in cold weather well-nigh impossible—have come to out weigh the counterbalance of danger which OUR WHOLE COUNTRY. 'tog cartridges necessarily torolve. iiiL 8 *? 10 ?* s .^° r “ g* llllB a good weapon; nn dci the linutetions which the use of caps fni?.? 7 cartridges presuppose. Khali, further, the collateral merit of ability tense i°f D l E ®s? wde A if preferred; capability, too! of loading by the muzzle, supposing the breech-gear to have got out of order. S wfibiJES thia Snider brought) wiitJ 31111 B0 ? ne rough specimens of this weapon, made out of United States ri »Bft,ri Unit ed States firearms 118 «° n< ? 4 enfißciently differ from national Enfielda to impose the ®i ty $f al ? y epepial description. Snider Kctp of *? with Mr. °‘ ti l6 Worcester porcelain works—a , B hß M e^?«f Who had 8180 some interest in o tteTil 01 access f° ‘s® Dea n of Worcester, who, happening to he on terms of correspondence with ?erf, an introduction to the latter was chained throngh that clerical chan nel. Hence, curiously \ enough. Snider Rn^Bh >e w al<i J?« haTe “PProached the yar Office through the Brit- Mot,f C | l . Urch- A * to® War Office the MOTt Storm gun, thus heralded, was much ' Ed< , ,- Snlde r’ s djary (hereafter to be made publics, so far as can with propriety be done) records the particulars of many a conversation respecting it between him and F rfh General Williams (of Kars), the Duke of Cambridge, Gen. Hay, Sir Wm!‘ Armstrong, and the Prince Consort, wheae opinion of its merits was fervent and undis guised. The .Duke of Cambridge procured ae cess to the late lamented Prince Consort for nhinVtu -^ e rince kept in conversation aboutlhe gun for nearly an hour, and subse quently requested, in a letter.'to the War Of fice, that it mightundergotrialforthwith. “It is out and out the best military breech-loader I have ever seen,” wrote the' Prince to Gen. Peel. It is of interest now, after tbe seven andSadowa, to-be aware of the faet that Prince Albert deprecated the PrussiacZiindnadelgewehr. It carries a self igmung cartridge, as we know. The Mont Storm gun does not. The Zundnadelgewehr violates a certain canon of military teach ing, as then laid down; yet the Prussians knew what they were about. P°r a time affairs appeared to dispose themselves favorably on behalf of the Mont Storm gun. Atone period it seemed likely to become the accepted breech-loader of the British service. Yet even during this favor ite period, Snider's diary enlightens us as to the troulfieshehad to encounter,the straits to which he was often put whilst superintend ing the conversion to the Mont Btorm sys tem of certain Enfield muskets consigned to him for the purpose. Stranger as he was to London, he had to find out the proper workmen for doing what he wanted. His n ? Bn< r eß 'were scanty. I find a sorry record of letters waiting to be posted for want of the penny stamp; of long walks when he should have driven; of meagre dinners, or nodmrers at all. These and other hard ships, to a man some fifty years of age ac customed to luxuries, bv taste an epicure, and, as I imagine from his recorded svmp tome, afflicted with heart-disease, were not trifling. He frequently records spitting of blcod, short coughs/ Bud other indications of heart-malady. The circumstance may 88 well be recorded here, that, although I was the first person to whom Snider wrote when he landed in England, the last to whom a letter from his hand was penned* though we came to be on terms of affection ate intimacy, yet I never stood to him in the relation of physician to patient. He was a homoeopath, and most enthusiastic: of course, there could be no community of medical feeling between us. On many an occasion in times past he told me he would rather die than be bled. When apoplexy struck him down on the 9th of July, he wssnot bled. When the stroke-fell again, Octdber 26th, he died. “ Resuming the nanaHve, it was during Snider’s operations with the Mont Storm gun, at the request of British war au thorities (as the writer has ample docu ments to prove), that the memorable ten pounds of powder was supplied to him If om Woolwich; on behalf of whioh official lawyers’ letters were sent, pressing for payment, of li. Is. 2d., and relative to which, as he wrote to me shortly before his death, and told me not thirteen hours before that event, he was sued. Inasmuch as this suing is denied by Mr. Clode, the War Office solicitor, it becomes of some importance to be precise as to the grounds of counter-alle gation. Ido not find among Snider’s docu ments any actual writ or otherprocess-paper; but I find lawyers’ letters, in abundance I moreover find evidence of a claim more mean and contemptiblestill,. namely, oae for wooden plugs ,of Enfield bullets—less than three shillings.' In the early part of the year 1859, Snider went to Paris for the purpose of introducing the Mont Storm gun to the French war' authorities. In doing this he committed no breach of faith with the British Govern ment. The point has to be remembered; that at the time in question Sir William Armstrong had not moved to promote abo lition of patent laws. The Act of Parliament abrogating inventors’rights as against the Government had not been passed. The celebrated cause of Feather versus The Queen yet belonged to the future. Snider could treat with the British Government, or not treat, as beat .might suit ; his interests. He elected not to treat with the Government farther than to elicit their acquiescence in the system. This achieved, his programme to make over his patent rights in the Mont Storm gun to a member of the British gun trade. Snider had an intimate acquaintance with French; he spoke and wrote it perfectly. He bad often been to France; therefore he was as well competent to forward his interests there as in England, other olroumstances being equal. He took with him to Paris a letter of introduction to the Princess Murat. From that distinguished lady io the Prince the transference was easy; and Murat had imperial audience whenever he pleased. Snider’s diary conveys much of interest as to the considerate, even friendly way in which his introduction was responded to by the Prince, who secures the. entry through the douane of Snider’s experimental wea pons; drives Snider about; takes him home, and manifests towards him the most considerate hospitality. Finally, the Prince announces to * Snider the pleasing intelligence that the Emperor had requested him (the prince) to bring Snider Into the imperial presence at any hour, if the gun really were of sufficient merit. Then comes a turning-point in the French history of the Mont. Storm gun. Prince Murat suggests that the Emperor’s armorer, M. Gastenne Benette, should Bee the arm, and criticise it. Snider consents: experiments are made. The gun is fired, and,owing to some cause not neoessaryhere to investigate, the result is not satisfactory. Doubtless the issue is made known to the Emperor; for, do what Snider will, he can- Dot gain the access that onoe seemed inevi tabla Onoe he is very near succeeding. He manages, by some means, to penetrate even to the Emperor’s anteohamber, There He has conversation with Gen.Fleury, who.affier some polite generalizations, told Snider that the Emperor at that time was positively in accessible. _ ‘‘Then,” my friend’s diary goes SP to »*?P l ¥ n » “the general seemed as though he had suddenly forgotten an an poimment. Hurriedly laying hold of a bundle of papers, he said I must excuse him, and passing into the imperial oham tier, left with my guns on the table and my guet-cases on the floor.” , A circumstance has now to be recorded that may have given Snider 1 his first crude Jdeaofthejeelebrated gun now adopted for ““t^h. infantjiy service, and associated with his name. His interview with the Emperor’s armorer, M. Gastenne Eenette. has been noticed. On that occasion that •celebrated gaumaxer showed to Snider a certain breech-loading carbine of the Em peror s own devic®, and with which the cent gardes are equipped. To, conveys gene ral notion of that araa a Defaucheux breech loading ahot-gnn has to he imagined. The ctnt-garde carbine barrel bends down at an asgle from the stock in a similar manner, and 13- loaded similarly. The cartridge however, is not a lefancheux pin-cartridge! but one on the central fire principle, func tionally identical with' the one associated with the Snider arm.. The cartridge of the cent-garde carbine is exploded by a half fnctlonal,.half-impact stroke of the bmm»r itself, after a manner that would need a diagram, to make it fully com-: prehensible. What OBly concerns' pre sent purposes is to announce that the cent-garde carbine was the first mili tary weapon, ever associated with the use of a central-fir® cartridge ignited at the base; ““ the presumption may reasonably be that Snider derived his first Ideas of the central-fire system from this French cent garde. carbine. To any reader >t all con versant With the specialties of military small-arms the circumstance need not be stated, that with the similarity of car tridge the comparison between the two svs temsends. J : Snider was busily engaged during the whole, period of his sojourn in Europe on other affairs than guns. Dye-stuffs, looms, carriage wheels, ooal- contracts, schemes for the introduction of ornamental woods, brewing, ship-sheathing,— all those pro- J ee * s helped to coßsume his time mid absorb his monetary resources. His fanancial credit, for one in his position, was good, as transactions with the . CO ?. o C.^ r ’ Henry Peabody and others testily. He must have been an excellent financier; an extraordinary faculty to be as sociated with so great an inventive talent Although large sums of money passed i hsough his hands during his seven years and a half scjonm in Europe, and though by temperament luxuriously disposed,Sni per lived on an economical, nay penurious average. In justice to one wbo-has been represented as having deserted his family, I am able to record the pleasing fact that he sent to his wife and children the major part of the moneys raised. His diary entries of these American despatches are'most pre cise, and the details recorded-are often touching. His sons, though all grown up to man’s estate are the objects of a solicitude foreign to our conception of American precocity of boys, and expressive of the man lor kindness. (_ ccasionaily he will not trust bis sons as to their own choice of olothes •but he sends them clothes;.and once I find him giving specific directions how a certain Inverness cap is to be lined; so as to be more adapted to the rigor of the North American climate. It is very touching to see that Snider, often having perhaps raised two or three hundred pounds one day, what with' patent expenses, clearances of outstanding debts, and remittances home, leaves himself after three or four days so destitute that he is pressed for the means of a dinner, a cab-lure, or sometimes a Dennv stamp! ******* His energy was indomitable,, his- peaetra uon mostaonte. Intuitively he seemed to grasp a principle, and see its bearings and applications. These faculties are well ex *m plified by the history from inoeption to completion, of his now celebrated central hre gun. His dear perception gave him a glimpse of theinevitable, when others called it the impossible. Often do I remember saying to him, “Yon waste your time; our war authorities will never adopt a system using a self-igniting cartridge.” “They mw>t adopt it sooner or later,” Snider would retort with peculiar energy;“ hey mast come to it at last. Yes, nir.”’ They did come to ? e , aware; but how j the once Philadelphia wine-merchant could have so distmoUy wrought out that conclusion tohia mind—how ,he found ooorage to act npen that conviction through years of illness, suffering,- pecuniary straits, impri sonment for debt, and other troubles—is a mystery to me, a monition to the weak hearted and weak of faith. Contempora neously with his labors on breeoh-loading f “all arms, Snider gave attention to artil lery systems. He wrote and published a pamphlet, the existence of which I knew not. at the time, but wbiob I find amongst his ltwse papers, on a proposed method for utilising cast-iron ordnance and adapting them to the rifled system by an ingenious process antipodally the reverse of what had hitherto, or has subsequently, been done. Whereas other schemes to this end have contemplated leaving the bore its original I size pins the rifling, and strengthening the chase by hooping or jacketing outside, Snider proposed to contract the bore by the insertion of a cylinder. He suggested the accomplish- I ment of this by the following means: the cannons were to he heated, whereby expan sion should ensue; the internal cylinder was to be chilled by a freezing mixture, whereby it should undergo contraction. In its con tracted state, it was to be slid into the chase, which, closing inward upon the cylinder and the latter expanding outward upon the cylinder, a perfect fit would be accomplish ed. He then proposed to rifle this cylinder, after a system that might seem most expe dient. The process was ingenious. It be spoke the meohanical ingenuity of Snider in this branch of technical art new to him; but there'is muoh reason to be lieve that the scheme, if carried into opera tion, would have failed ,to achieve the ob ject desired. Space admonishes me to deal briefly with the phases of invention through which his present celebrated converted small-arm passed before arriving at its final perfec tion. Only those who have been aotively engaged in such matters can understand or appreciate the numerous troubles whioh he to encounter. I remember meeting with Snider soon after the British war authorities had officially revoked their con demnation of self-igniting cartridges, and had gone to the extreme of advertising that this sort of ammunition was a sine qua non pf Saider was triumphant. "They'have given In at last,” he ex claimed; “I told you they would.” Thence forward he felt himself secure in all that regarded competition with other converted breech-loaders on the self-igniting system. About this time it was that he oomtauni- F. I. rETHERSTON. THREE CENTS. caftd with me professionally; and as the issue affects the status ofhififrmemory before the Government and tbbjpbltc. I• recog nize the need of stating tmPhecessaiy cir cumstances,' Hehadknomiine'td have been engaged in devising a certain of cartridges; therefore, he applied to me that 1 would make a suitable cartridge for hi« ' heat and failed; thereupon, Hnider was thrown upon bis own resources. ,t n ? d matiy things, he; ultimately ed 0184 8 I. 11111 brass-plate cartridge, with paper or cahco-outside, would be best c ? ® ora ® to be madejbut they were : and clumsy Col. Boxer, the l 8 "*? 8 * 1 at Woolwich-, navitg the machinery and re* sources of that vast establishment at his disposal, soon turned them out in their Drs sent perfection. These are the facts;: and being so, lam at aloss to understand how. a . n y sufficient ground. Colonel Borer ' ?5v 8y cl ? im to the cartridges as his. Never tteiess, when Sniderwasfiret stricken dovm , ~ apoplexy, in the beginning of : July' I®®'? “® press teemed with paragraphs im puting the credit to Colonel Boxer, Snider ™S to " ftthe hand of deBthi clea-r intellect remained nn last; and this perhaps is ft enabled him to giveau iL® D - c J? Oh business, to realise the fSar of" °^ cera on 1110 'watch. His hand remained tmparalysedi and Snider, being propped 'up managed to the day before his death-to write upon a small table with short legs, set upon his bed. The mental agony I' have seen him undergo in those moments of ex- TKi’wi? ow to contemplate.. Ifceiot blood would rush to his face, and his eyes shed tears in torrents. What agi *nncb was the prevalence ofa belief that he was not ill at all—onlyhidine tor safety and the better to move the War- Office. That belief never ought to have prevailed. Within a few days after Snider's first attack, I published the fact in th® • MormngPost, and communicated it to th® , 1 fear in this particular Snider’® medical attendant, I>r, Hahnemann, has* much to answer for. On the day of the funeral, that gentlemen told me he did not mihcipate the fatal issue, and in quired of me whether such had not been also my opinion. The queatien surprised me not a little. For my part I not only believed that Snider would snc cnmb, if measures of relief were not imme diately adopted, but I attested that belief orally and m print so often, and in so many quarters, that particnlarisation would be unnecessary here. Deeply as this inventor, execrated, and had cause to execrate, the government Bystem of dealing by his invon-- tior, he went home and slept to death, im pressed with the most kindly sentiments in • respect to toe sound-hearted British public. He might have lain and died, and the pub lic not known o'f his illness, but for a- ' taunting paragraph which appeared m *he Engineer newspaper. That'-• paragraph having been copied into Money Article of. the Times, caupled with a doubt—rather a denial—of Its ■ accuracy, a letter was sent to the Times, - affirmmg all. it was not published in the Times, but appeared in the Engineer. It attested all the allegations; whereupon the leading journal acted strenuously enough, Unfortunately, however—and fbr what reason I cannot even guess—when on® of onr highest civil-engineering firmn sent its principal to Snider’s bedside; when that principal attested, in a letter to the newspapers, that Snider’s ease had been under-colored, not over-colored: and. on mediral authority, that his ease would be fatal if the patient were not speedily heved from his immediate anxieties; when that letter was sent to the dailv papers, coupled with the intimation‘that the : London Westminister Bank wonia receive contributions from th© civil*©ngin©erinff* ; 1 corps, so as to make tip a minimum - douceur of 4,oooZ— that letter 'wus not -wi* serted. This was on Tuesday. On the- Thursday Snider died. I saw him the evening preceding his. - death. He was flushed and excitedf He had been studying some worrying docu ments that had just come in. He had also received a hint about Sheriff 1 on the watch. I tried to keep up his spirits, but he would not be comforted. 1 What ; shocked him most was the discovery that a great country like England had contracted, a debt of honor and leftit unrequited. From' the first he had most exaggerated notions of ’ reliancoon what he called “the chivalry of - England.” Far from regretting the fosue of the cause, Feathervs. The Queen, he gloried ! m it. “Now we, shall be on honor," he wonld say to me; “gentlemen with gen tlemen.” No one did I ever meet with, so deeply impressed as he with, the maxim, Noblesse oblige. Republican, aa ' he was, no garter king-at-arms could, have greater faith in the honor of monarchy to inventors than he. Snider was undeceived at last. A few days before, his death he drew my attention to ah illus tration of our social system-one that had. escaped from my memory. “Ah,” said he, “now I. realize what you told me when I came from the " pottery workß. You said that people here were either ohina or crockery, I am crockery—of the yellow day !” ex claimed poor Snider; “nobody—mere adventurer; the pledged honor of England takeß no heed of me.” Then bursting into fury, and raising his yet un paralyzed hand, “D—n the China war®, people; the - —mean beggars!” he mut tered through set teeth. “Let me write mv fi? . lo , ok - 1 ‘ wiu shame them into their shoes, the mean beggars That book he was never destined to write. fi is o\roi opinions as to probable recovery varied from time to time. “Now ” h» would exdaim, “I shall soon be under the accursed British sod.” Now he would talk ot futurity—what he meant to do as to guns: what afterwards. On the, very Monday preceding his decease he wrote men letter— partly to expedite my movements, if possi ble, in pressing forward the engineers subscription of 4,000£; partly to in quire ; whether I would accompany hi m to Germany; grieves me to wnte it—to state that intelligence had h® e P brought him of officers onthe watoin At Wiesbaden he expected the King of Prussia and General Moltke to meet him relative to the adoption of his gun. To il lustrate the indomitable energy of the man. he had actually, commenced learning Ger-, man—of which he. knpw nothing the Son- • day evening preceding his death! ;;:.. , Hope against hope as one may, yet the : fact is not aiterei that the firat aponleotto attack is the herald of death, to strike aud to any,time. It is as the aoceptanoeof a bill payable at sight. From my medical ■ point of view* I could'Only anticipate the ■ I would try Snider up to. the contemplation of , &i rOSI f nw ¥ y ' It is development, as birth is a development.” I would say; “a natural change, as the falling of the leaf, God grant i may die as tenderly
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