Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1882 — Swords. [ARTICLE]

Swords.

One of the most clearly-marked differences between man and the brute beasts lies in the fact that with his own unaided strength man is seldom able to take the life of his fellow-beings. Consequently, when we wish to put ourselves upon a level with the tiger and the wolf, and to qualify ourselves for the shedding of blood and the taking of life, we are obliged to find some other weapons than those nature has given us. Here and there may be a man who can kill another man by the exertion of his unassisted strength, but it is very seldom indeed that human life is taken by human beings without the use of an artificial weapon. The first weapon used by man was probably a club; and it is also likely that in time this was made of very hard wood, and somewhat sharpened on one or more sides, so as to inflict a more deadly wound. Wooden weapons of this kind are now in use by some savage races. Then it was found that more effective weapons of the sort could be made of a harder substance, and short, unwieldy swords were hewn out of stone, very much as our Indians make their arrow-heads of flint. But a sword of this kind, although a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong man, was brittle and apt to break; and so, in time, when the use and value of metals came to be understood, swords were made of these substances. The early Romans, and some other nations, had strong, heavy swords made of bronze. But, when iron and steel came into use, it was quickly perceived that they were the metals of which offensive weapons should be made. By a careful study of the form ami use of the sword, from its first invention until the present time, we may get a good idea of the manner in which, in various ages, military operations were carried on. At first, men fought at close quarters, like the beasts they imitated. But as the arts of warfare began to be improved, and as civilization and enlightenment progressed, men seemed anxious to get farther and farther away from one another when they fought, and so the sword gradually became longer and longer, until, in the Middle Ages, a man’s sword was sometimes as long as himself. But there is a limit to this sort of thing, and when the use of projectiles which would kill at a great distance became general, it was found that a soldier was seldom near enough to his enemy to reach him with his sword, aud at the present day it is seldom used in actual warfare except by cavalrymen, and these frequently depend as much on the firearms they carry as upon their sabers.' It is Baid that cavalry charges, in which the swordff of the riders are depended upon to’rout the enemy, do not frequently occur in the warfare of the present day, and those naval battles of which we all have read, where tho opposing ships are run side by side, and the sailors of one, cutlass in hand, spring upon the deck of the other, and engage in a hand-to-hand fight, are now seldom heard of. Our ironclad ships fire at one another from a great distance, or one of them comes smashing into another with its terrible steel ram, and a sword would be a useless thing to a modern sailor. Our armies lie a mile or two apart, and pop at each other with long-range rifles and heavy cannon, and to the great body of the opposing forces swords would be only an incumbrance. —John Lewees, in St. Nicholas.