Deadly Cotton

1916

It takes 400 pounds of cotton to make the powder for one shot from the Queen Elizabeth's guns, or from one of the German 17-inch guns. The same quantity of cotton would provide ammunition for 400 shots from a field gun, or 80,000 rounds from a rifle.

Some idea of the consumption of cotton in the war may be had from the fact that 1,000 tons a day are required to supply the German and Austrian armies with powder.

The British cordite consists of two-thirds guncotton. The raw material is dipped into nitric acid, washed and dried, and the material thus supplied becomes the base of the explosive.

Guncotton can only be made from raw cotton. Woven cotton is of no use, and any attempt to use it would be dangerous. — Tid Bits.

As Straight Men See Him

1909

The Dead-Beat is Probably the Most Despised Creature That Walks the Earth

No man is wholly free from sin, but so many lesser evils are tolerated that a man should hesitate long before becoming a dead-beat.

Criminals are despised and abhorred, but to the dead-beat all that is coming, as well as the contempt of his fellow men. There is something at once so mean and so little in taking advantage of the confidence which comes with friendship that the hand of every man is turned against a dead-beat as soon as his reputation is well established.

The dead-beat may fondly imagine he is living easy and making money without work, and, of course, he takes no account of the confidence he violates and the hardships he inflicts on others. But, that aside, he really has a harder time than the man who is honest and fair. He is compelled to move a good deal, and peace of mind he knows not. Like other types of crooks, he doesn't prosper, and his finish is more unpleasant than the beginning. — Atchison Globe.


1900

Deadly Blunderbusses of Guatemala

Down in Guatemala the favorite weapon of the native bandits and desperadoes is a sawed-off muzzle-loading shotgun of the blunderbuss pattern, and when they run short of buckshot they sally out to the railroad and steal a few dozen seals, which are simply disks of soft lead about the size of quarters. Pounded into rough balls, they make projectiles by the side of which a Dumdum is an angel of mercy, and when one of their blunderbusses goes off it generally kills everything in sight except the man directly behind it.

Modern Bullets More Humane Than Those of Past

1915

Wounds Quicker to Heal — Soldiers Not Long Absent from the Front

The bullet covered with hard nickel now in use make the surgeon's task very simple, as a rule. Formerly, when large bullets of soft lead were used, the soldier's lot was not a very happy one. These often broke up inside the body, shattered bones, and frequently remained embedded in the muscles, bones and other parts.

The result was slow-healing, festering wounds which kept the soldier ill for a long time. The modern long slender bullet generally passes through the body without doing any vital injury. Even when it goes through the intestine, the stomach, the kidney, etc., the wound closes up without any very serious after-consequences. A good deal, however, depends on circumstances. If the soldier's stomach is empty — as it generally is in a battle — so much the better for him when he gets a bullet through it.

When he is tired and half starving, however, the shock is very great, and he may become utterly helpless from a slight wound. A curious fact, difficult to explain, is that a bullet fired at a range of 300 to 600 yards has more penetrating power than one fired at a range under or over that distance. In the former case it passes through the bone without doing very much damage; in the latter it shatters the bone and makes recovery slow. A ricocheting bullet causes a very bad wound as a rule. Small as it is, if a bullet strikes a large bone, like the hip, it gives a blow like that of a crowbar.

We are hearing a great deal about dum-dum bullets in this, as in all wars, both parties making charges against one another. The probability is that neither side is using them. The bullet now in use consists of a core of lead covered with a hard nickel case.