Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1895 — INVENTIVE CRANKS IN FRANCE. [ARTICLE]

INVENTIVE CRANKS IN FRANCE.

Their Fuvorlte Idea Ie to Brins About Wholesale Destruction In War. Some amusing particulars of the inventions that have been offered to the French war office since 1871, says the London Court Journal, have recently been published in a French newspaper, the majority of which are about equal to the Laputnn scheme for plowing fields, namely, by sowing acorns in rows and then turning in pigs to root them up. One genius sought a patent for the training of squadrons of horseflies. These auxiliaries were to be fed exclusively on blood served up beneath the delicate epidermis of mechanical figures clothed in the uniforms of members of the triple alliance, so that when political relations in Europe were strained the flies might be given daily a little Of the juice of certain poisonous plants, and on actual declaration of war turned out in the path of the enemy. Another ingenious person proposed a scheme for educating war dogs. In time of peace he would teach French dogs to bite lay figures wearing Prussian helmets, iu order that on die outbreak of war the kennels of the whole country might be mobilized and let loose ou the enemy. Then there are numerous proposals for bridging rivers by means of ropes attached to cannon balls, and a photographer suggests a novel kind of captive shell, which, breaking over the fortified position of an enemy, would disclose a small cam era attached to a parachute. The enemy's fortifications would be instantaneously photographed and the apparatus hauled back by the string and the negatives developed at leisure. Two ideas are very inhuman. One is a scheme for sending large quantities of poisoned needles, as if iu charity, to the enemy’s generals, who would, of course, distribute them to their forces and so poison the unfortunate users; aud the other to charge explosive bullets with pepper. Two objects are pursued by the luventor of the pepper: its discharge would bliud the enemy, and the great demand for the condiment in war time w r ould stimulate the trade of the French colonies and increase the revenue of the country. There are also many other equally absurd propositions, such as suggestions for making soup by machinery, growing potatoes on barrack roofs in December, and killing whole army corps of Prussians by post—but they are far too numerous to be mentioned.