INTRICACIES OF MACHINE GUNS FULLY EXPLAINED

Mr. William Goodwin Renwick L.'11, commander of the Eighth Regiment Machine Gun Company, gave to Union members last night an illustrated lecture and demonstration of the Benet Mercier automatic machine gun. Nothing could be more fascinating, declared Mr. Renwick, than this mechanism which weighs but 30 pounds, yet does the work of 150 rifles. Last summer at Plattsburg one of these guns fired no less than 480 shots in one minute, and at the end of this time the barrel was a dull, glowing red. To care for this emergency an extra barrel is provided, which may be thrust into position in a few seconds.

Machine guns were first used in the Franco-Prussian War, but the English first proved their value in the Egyptian and Indian campaigns, the gun at that time consisting simply of a circular collection of barrels, turned by hand. The automatic received its first try-out in the Russo-Japanese War, and such terror did it inspire that the Japanese likened its fire to a continuous rod of iron thrust from the barrel. In the German trenches today there is one machine gun to every six men, while in the United States a whole company has but four guns.