at Coutras, in 1587,
disabled twenty-five men; and the one which, at Zorndorff, in 1758,
killed forty fantassins; and in 1742, Kesseldorf's Austrian cannon, of
which every shot levelled seventy enemies with the ground? What was the
astonishing firing at Jena or Austerlitz, which decided the fate of the
battle? During the Federal war much more wonderful things had been seen.
At the battle of Gettysburg, a conical projectile thrown by a
rifle-barrel cut up a hundred and seventy-three Confederates, and at the
passage of the Potomac a Rodman ball sent two hundred and fifteen
Southerners into an evidently better world. A formidable mortar must
also be mentioned, invented by J.T. Maston, a distinguished member and
perpetual secretary of the Gun Club, the result of which was far more
deadly, seeing that, at its trial shot, it killed three hundred and
thirty-seven persons--by bursting, it is true.

What can be added to these figures, so eloquent in themselves? Nothing.
So the following calculation obtained by the statistician Pitcairn will
be admitted without contestation: by dividing the number of victims
fallen under the projectiles by that of the members of the Gun Club, he
found that each one of them had killed, on his own account, an average
of two thousand three hundred and seventy-five men and a fraction.

By considering such a result it will be seen that the single
preoccupation of this learned society was the destruction of humanity
philanthropically, and the perfecting of firearms considered as
instruments of civilisation. It was a company of Exterminating Angels,
at bottom the best fellows in the world.

It must be added that these Yankees, brave as they have ever proved
themselves, did not confine themselves to formulae, but sacrificed
themselves to their theories. Amongst them might be counted officers of
every rank, those who had just made their _debut_ in the profession of
arms, and those who had grown old on their gun-carriage. Many whose
names figured in the book of honour of the Gun Club remained on the
field of battle, and of those who came back the greater part bore marks
of their indisputable valour. Crutches, wooden legs, articulated arms,
hands with hooks, gutta-percha jaws, silver craniums, platinum noses,
nothing was wanting to the collection; and the above-mentioned Pitcairn
likewise calculated that in the Gun Club there was not quite one arm
amongst every four persons, and only two legs amongst six