M. Randal Roberts

“ Hitherto dynamite shells have not come within the category of practical warfare, for the simple reason that they are as dangerous to those who fire them off as to the objects they are meant to destroy. ”

“ This horrible invention, if it ever passes into the region of practical politics, might prove a popular weapon in the hand of Anarchists, but for the damning fact that its use involves the destruction of the man in charge of the balloon as well as his victims. ”

“ However, theory and practice in the steering of torpedoes, as in other matters, do not always square. It is not east to describe on paper the true inwardness of this invention, but, put briefly, its distinctive feature is the transmitting of motor-power to a torpedo by means of X-rays. The course of an ordinary torpedo can, as everyone knows, be directed by telegraph wires from either the shore or a ship. But the Orling torpedo can be completely controlled without any material connection whatever between it and its controller. ”

“ Scientists have the reputation of being the most mild-mannered of men, yet the amount of ingenuity that has been expended by scientific men of every nation under the sun in devising implements for dealing death wholesale in time of war is almost past belief. ”

“ They cannot be fired with powder from an ordinary gun with any degree of safety, because the shock to the explosive is so violent that as a rule the dynamite goes off before it is clear of the gun, with disastrous results to everyone and everything surrounding it. ”

“ Certain politicians in this country are continually advocating public granaries for the storage of Wheat in case of our ports being blockaded. Doctor Cantle also urged the necessity for public storehouses, but these storehouses were not to contain wheat, but microbes. In time of war sundry air-tight vessels containing a carefully selected assortment of the most deadly microbes known to the faculty were to be conveyed in balloons to the neighbourhood of the enemy ”

“ To the mere man in the street the feats which Axel Orling claims for his torpedoes savours strongly of legerdemain, but scientific men declare that the theory of the working of this novel machine is perfectly sound. ”

“ Let us go out and kill something,” is defective in one important particular. It is not nearly comprehensive enough. The instinct of destruction is no more a peculiarly British characteristic than is the desire to eat and drink. ”