| OCR Text |
Show . Ilauarr I'l.tnl. "The new Mauser pistol, with which our cavalry is about to bo nrmed li a horrible-looking piece nt machinery ' j said an aesthetic New Orleans spuria roan. "It doesn't resemble a firearm at all, but looks llko some atrange sclen tlflc Instrument, such as one might see In i laboratory linaglno a cigar box, Jipmned black, with a handlo at one end and a short tube at the other, and there you have It. The box contains the mechanism nnd the tube spouts bullets The caialryman of tho past I tsi a dashing figure. He wore a ateel nilrmu and a helmet with nodding plumes, nnd while he carried n brace of pistols In hla holster, his real weapon weap-on was his trusty saber. Do you remember re-member tbe splendid fellows who ttro galloping past Napoleon In Mclssnn-nler's Mclssnn-nler's '1807'? Since then science has gradually sucked all tho poetry nut ot war, and tho Mauser pistol Is tho last work of brutal utilitarianism, The cavalryman tif the future will carry nothing hut a small black walnut box and will closely resemblo a surgeon go Ing out to npernto for appendicitis When he geta to the right spot, designated desig-nated by tho engineer corps, ho will dismount, open the box, tako out his hideous Mauser machine, hook the case to one end, so as to form a shoulder shoul-der rent, spray a tew quarts ot projectiles projec-tiles In a given direction, and go homo again to rest after the fatlguo of the fray. If the calculations of the range tinder are right, his bullets will perforate somebody a mile away That will ho war a la mode In aomo respects re-spects It Is a great Improvement on the old style, but It will Inspire no poets, Imagine Tennyson writing the 'Charge of the Mght Iliigade' about a cavalry regiment armed with Mauser automat Icsl" New Orleans Times-Democrat, |
