The Moon-Voyage | Page 2

The first man who invented a new cannon took into
partnership the first man who cast it and the first man that bored it.
Such was the nucleus of the Gun Club. One month after its formation it
numbered eighteen hundred and thirty-three effective members, and
thirty thousand five hundred and seventy-five corresponding members.
One condition was imposed as a _sine quâ non_ upon every one who
wished to become a member--that of having invented, or at least
perfected, a cannon; or, in default of a cannon, a firearm of some sort.
But, to tell the truth, mere inventors of fifteen-barrelled rifles, revolvers,
or sword-pistols did not enjoy much consideration. Artillerymen were
always preferred to them in every circumstance.
"The estimation in which they are held," said one day a learned orator
of the Gun Club, "is in proportion to the size of their cannon, and in
direct ratio to the square of distance attained by their projectiles!"
A little more and it would have been Newton's law of gravitation
applied to moral order.
Once the Gun Club founded, it can be easily imagined its effect upon
the inventive genius of the Americans. War-engines took colossal
proportions, and projectiles launched beyond permitted distances cut
inoffensive pedestrians to pieces. All these inventions left the timid
instruments of European artillery far behind them. This may be
estimated by the following figures:--
Formerly, "in the good old times," a thirty-six pounder, at a distance of
three hundred feet, would cut up thirty-six horses, attacked in flank,
and sixty-eight men. The art was then in its infancy. Projectiles have
since made their way. The Rodman gun that sent a projectile weighing
half a ton a distance of seven miles could easily have cut up a hundred
and fifty horses and three hundred men. There was some talk at the
Gun Club of making a solemn experiment with it. But if the horses
consented to play their part, the men unfortunately were wanting.
However that may be, the effect of these cannon was very deadly, and
at each discharge the combatants fell like ears before a scythe. After
such projectiles what signified the famous ball which, at Coutras, in

1587, disabled twenty-five men; and the one which, at Zorndorff, in
1758, killed forty fantassins; and in 1742, Kesseldorf's Austrian cannon,
of which every shot levelled seventy enemies with the ground? What
was the astonishing firing at Jena or Austerlitz, which decided the fate
of the battle? During the Federal war much more wonderful things had
been seen. At the battle of Gettysburg, a conical projectile thrown by a
rifle-barrel cut up a hundred and seventy-three Confederates, and at the
passage of the Potomac a Rodman ball sent two hundred and fifteen
Southerners into an evidently better world. A formidable mortar must
also be mentioned, invented by J.T. Maston, a distinguished member
and perpetual secretary of the Gun Club, the result of which was far
more deadly, seeing that, at its trial shot, it killed three hundred and
thirty-seven persons--by bursting, it is true.
What can be added to these figures, so eloquent in themselves? Nothing.
So the following calculation obtained by the statistician Pitcairn will be
admitted without contestation: by dividing the number of victims fallen
under the projectiles by that of the members of the Gun Club, he found
that each one of them had killed, on his own account, an average of two
thousand three hundred and seventy-five men and a fraction.
By considering such a result it will be seen that the single
preoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity
philanthropically, and the perfecting of firearms considered as
instruments of civilisation. It was a company of Exterminating Angels,
at bottom the best fellows in the world.
It must be added that these Yankees, brave as they have ever proved
themselves, did not confine themselves to formulae, but sacrificed
themselves to their theories. Amongst them might be counted officers
of every rank, those who had just made their _début_ in the profession
of arms, and those who had grown old on their gun-carriage. Many
whose names figured in the book of honour of the Gun Club remained
on the field of battle, and of those who came back the greater part bore
marks of their indisputable valour. Crutches, wooden legs, articulated
arms, hands with hooks, gutta-percha jaws, silver craniums, platinum
noses, nothing was wanting to the collection; and the above-mentioned
Pitcairn likewise calculated that in the Gun Club there was not quite
one arm amongst every four persons, and only two legs amongst six.
But these valiant artillerymen paid little heed to such small matters, and

felt justly proud when the report of a battle stated the number of
victims at tenfold the quantity of projectiles expended.
One day, however, a sad