e French
Guards, fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander.
"The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not till then
did punctilio come to an end. Such a colloquy in our day would need
to be carried on with forty-horse power speaking-trumpets, or with the
thunderous articulation of that between the bellowing Alps and echoing
Jura. Even smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred
and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to keep their
distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be captured by a charge
of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle destroys _quantum suff._ of their
horses, and, their support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey.

For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of conclusions
with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is to improve its
interior in the same manner. This has been done, and with marvelous
effect in some respects. But the rifled cannon, though extensively
used both on sea and land, throwing shot and shell five miles, and at
close range through iron plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a
perfected weapon. It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent
anxiety, on the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament
of man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the
"brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is maintained
by very good American authority that for use under some conditions,
at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of large calibre is more
effective than a rifled gun throwing a missile of the same weight.
Our monitors continue to be armed with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very
recent experiments being cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron
plates greater than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course,
at very close range.

The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex instrument than the
smooth-bored piece, and will always require superior intelligence to
manage it. The army which naturally possesses this requisite in the
highest degree will best handle this decisive weapon, and be, other
things equal, the strongest army. This consideration operates in favor
of our people, among whom the rifle has always been in so much more
constant and familiar use than with those of other countries. Our
broad forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains,
east and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the
distinction of