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Show I .ttfflllle.1 llointx. After all, thcre'a no reason why wo shouldn't have quicker mall. What Is the matter with tho cannon ball pootl Tho miotic voloelty of a cannon can-non ball will bo better than 1.000 foot a second A great cannon will throw a ahell nine miles In about ono minute, min-ute, which beat railroad train, pneumatic pneu-matic tube, carrier pigeon or even any conceivable spied of an alrchlp Thcro'a nothing new In tho Idru.elther, though the cannon ball newt ha been moro ofun used In tbo liocr war than ever before. The besieged I.adysmlth gorrUon lent the Uocrs a Christmas card. Inclosed In n fifty-pounder, on the mornlnj or Dec. 2S last Not to be outdono In politeness, tho Uocrs on Now Year's Svo fired two plugged Pal-User Pal-User shells Into tho Ilrltlsh camp. On ono waa Inscribed tbo compliment of tho season The other contained a real English plum pudding, accompanied accompa-nied by a fir n Uocr facetiously Ironical letter nf greeting. It was, perhaps, the most deadly dead-ly mlasle ovc fired. It seems tu be agreed that (len Whlto auccii'dcd In tending now to (len Duller from Lad' smith by firing sheila containing meiuagcs to points Indicated Indi-cated by wig-wag signals. During tbo long slego of Mnfcklng many messages were fired Into and out ot tho bo-IcaguerM bo-IcaguerM town Toward tho end of tho tlcge many of the Bhclls fired by Uaden-I'owell wero marked "With the compliment of Cecil Hhodca." Similarly, Simi-larly, during tho Franco-Prussian war, the Ocrmana bombarded Strasburg with sheila Ironically marked "a Uer-lln" Uer-lln" "on to llerlln" having been tho cry ot the French at the outbreak of the war. Later, during the Invoatmcnt of Purl, hundreds of shells filled with 'etterB wero II red from tho city. Many wero captured by tho Ocrroans, omo neut astray and were lo.t, but eonio vera picked up by Trench peasant and reached those for whom they were Intended, Ihcsc letter-filled bombshells bomb-shells nro liable to bury themselves In tho ground by their own Impact. Ono suih waa unearthed not long since In a wood near Vlticcnne It contnlncd somo two hundrrd letters, the dates upon which nhoucd that tlio shell containing con-taining them hnd been fired during tho early days of the Blcge The earliest rvcordrd tnstnme of the use ot the letter-tlllnl bomb wan nt tho siege of Tourney, when tbo garrUun hit upon this expedient for opening communications communi-cations with the bmldo world, It was owing to one of their aerial postofilcea filled with plana and dispatches, tailing tail-ing short, nnd thereby coming Into llrltleh hands, that tho discovery was made ot tho position of that subterranean subter-ranean store of gunpowder afterward known as the "Great Mine" A portion por-tion of tbo camp was found to ba within with-in the danger zono, and wo removed to a safer locality The Dutch, however, how-ever, refused to tako warning, believing believ-ing the wholo affair to bo n riuo ot tho onorpy Tho rwiult was that over four hundred of them were .blown to pieces In tbo explosion which took pluco early In tho morning of the following fol-lowing day |