" We bombarded the fortress of Paris with long-range guns,"
said the laconic and matter-of-fact German reports of March 24th and 25th. Last Saturday twenty-four shells were lobbed into Paris, and last Sunday twenty-seven, apparently at a range of over seventy miles. This feat has both surprised and excited practical gunners and artillery experts. One theory is that the projectile achieves its long flight by carrying a propulsive as well as a bursting charge, so that at some point in its prodigious career through space it gets its " second wind " and is enabled to " carry on." It seems much more probable that the Germans have merely devised a gun which will heaves comparatively small projectile very much further than was deemed possible a -week ago. This means, according to M. PainlevO, that they have at least doubled the speed of the projectile at the gun's mouth. The shell is rela- tively small-9.5 inch—and it is rifled for almost its whole length. Of more immediate interest to Paris is that it carries only a small bursting charge, and is not highly destructive, and that the gun is used sparingly, no doubt because it will wear out quickly. It is trained evidently upon the moral of the French capital ; and Paris is undismayed. But while we may regard this latest example of German science and " frightfulness " as largely of the nature of " window dressing," it brings within the range of possibility a random bombardment of the Kentish coast from Ostend. The difference between Paris and Dover, as targets, is the difference between •a haystack and a half-crown.
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