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It matters little if ungrateful men have forgotten them, and lauded the makers of mowing-machines, the inventors of steam-boats, the patented proprietors of the telegraph, the torpedo, the needle-gun, the steam engine, the sewing-machine, etc.
"You can't do it: there ain't no notice up about trespassing." This view of the common law impressed me; and I said, "But these are private grounds." "Private h !" was all his response. You can't argue much with a man who has a gun in his hands, when you have none. Besides, it might be a needle-gun, for aught I knew. I gave it up, and we separated.
"You have my priest's dress let me have something of yours by way of exchange." "But what can I give?" said Talbot. "Anything, from a needle to a needle-gun. It would be better if portable an old ribbon, a portable pincushion, a bootlace." "I have something," said Talbot, suddenly, "if you will take it, Brooke; but perhaps you will think it only a bother."
Discipline and education are two potent adjuncts. This is favorable to Germany. In the Chassepot and needle-gun the two are equal. France has been a nation, while Germany has been divided, and therefore weak.
Prussian valor and discipline in handling the needle-gun had won on the field. Bismarck and diplomacy were soon to settle terms of peace, and change the map of Europe.
And is it not a significant fact that the terrible chassepot, which made its first bloody experiment upon the halfarmed Italian patriots without the walls of Rome, has failed in the hands of French republicans against the inferior needle-gun of Prussia? It was said of a fierce actor in the old French Revolution that he demoralized the guillotine. The massacre at Mentana demoralized the chassepot.
This was the memorable tapestry that hung the walls, and opposite glittered the waiting barrels and bayonets till one could almost believe them conscious, and burning to do as much as the flintlocks that won the standards. There was a needle-gun there or somewhere for every able-bodied man, and somewhere else uniform and equipments.
I felt confident that I had the advantage of Comstock in two things first, I had the best buffalo horse that ever made a track; and second, I was using what was known at that time as the needle-gun, a breech-loading Springfield rifle calibre 50, it was my favorite old "Lucretia," which has already been introduced to the notice of the reader; while Comstock was armed with a Henry rifle, and although he could fire a few shots quicker than I could, yet I was pretty certain that it did not carry powder and lead enough to do execution equal to my calibre 50.
In peace everything is kept ready for the mobilization of its army. In a wonderfully short time the organization was complete, and 260,000 men brought into the field in Bohemia. In arms, they had the advantage of the needle-gun.
"If every Frenchman felt as you do; if in this Paris of ours all hostilities of class may merge in the one thought of the common country; if in French hearts there yet thrills the same sentiment as that which, in the terrible days when all other ties were rent asunder, revered France as mother, and rallied her sons to her aid against the confederacy of Europe, why, then, we need not grow pale with dismay at the sight of a Prussian needle-gun.
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