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Show i ; ; ; ; ; : : . . IIAXni'S LATEST INVENTION. At a dinner in New York the other night Hudson Maxim, the inventor of high, explosives, announced that he had perfected a new safety fuse, which he has completed after ten years of experiment, and which he declares has been the aim of inventors for years. He says that by it it is at last possible to send an armor-piercing shell through armor and cause it to explode at exactly the distance behind the armor desired by the gunner. It will not matter whether the armor is one inch or twelve inches in thickness. This marks another step forward in the art of war mechanics and means fiinal victory over armor, ar-mor, as it .is at present hardened, by armor-piercing shells. ' He 'says, too, he has perfected smokeless powder so that the danger attendant upon that explosive now is overcome. Ordinarily smokeless powder begins be-gins to dateriorate in from three months to two years and is liable to spontaneous combustionr and this he declares he has remedied. He closed, his speech by insisting that the coasts of our country are almost defenseless, and that the only way to be sure of peace is to be ready for war. He called to mind the fact that the Japanese have 750,000 trained veteran soldiers, while we have 50,-000; 50,-000; that our Pacific coast would be an easy prey for. Japan and that California could sustain the whole Japanese people. He believes the only real assurance against future wrs is to be so prepared for them that it will be discouraging work for any power to try to assail us. |