FIFTEEN HUNDRED A MINUTE.
By Y
GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER, who figured so conspicuously in the recent Spanish-American war has taken up his residence in Philadelphia for the purpose of organizing a company to build an immense plant to manufacture the McLean rifle. A number of the leading capitalists are interested in the scheme, and it is proposed to capitalize the new company at $6,000,000. Mr. O. N. McLean, the inventor of the new rifle, in describing it says:— The gun, at each pressure of the trigger, fires five shots through a single barrel, ejecting the cartridges one by one, ejects the cartridge-holder, and reloads the weapon, all without any recoil. A speed of twenty-five shots a second, or 1,500 a minute, can be attained through a single barrel. Edwin S. Cramp, of ship-building fame, says, “The gun is revolutionary.” And General Wheeler affirms that with one regiment armed with the new gun he could whip three regiments using any other rifle. Government inspectors have tested and approved of the gun, and the new company are pushing forward their plans so as to be supplying them as soon as possible. Forty years ago this country was engaged in a civil war. The men who were called into action at the beginning of that combat carried to the battlefield old muzzle-loading guns that required great dexterity with the “prepared” ammunition to enable the soldier to fire his rifle two or three times a minute. Then came the breech-loading gun that was thought to be the climax; the Gatling gun and also the machine gun were invented. But these are now all left behind by this new McLean gun. What will be the terrible scenes of slaughter when these modern weapons of warfare are brought into action on the great battle-field of Armageddon! And how impressive is the fact that the nations are now being marshaled for that great conflict! Have you read the clear prophecies of God’s Word that make it unmistakably plain that this unparalleled activity in the lines of war is one of the sure evidences that the “great day of the Lord” is right at hand?