2 DECEMBER 1916, Page 3

We regret to record the death on Friday week of

Sir Hiram Maxim the fertile and racy American inventor who became a naturalized Englishman. He was best known as the creator of the Maxim gun, the first of modern machine guns, in which the recoil from each explosion was used to fire the next shot. The idea of an automatic gun was not new when. Sir Hiram Maxim began to work on it, but he perfected it and made the gun thoroughly practical The Germans, after their manner, developed the idea to its logical conclusion and produced a machine-gun Army. We have certainly much to learn yet from German application ; but we have plenty of natural inventiveness here, and if we can add industry to talent we shall confront the Germans in future with a combination bad to beat.