Cullingworth is preparing for the issue of our new
paper. He has carried the matter through with his usual
energy, but he doesn't know enough about local affairs to
be able to write about them, and it is a question whether
he can interest the people here in anything else. At
present we are prepared to run the paper single-handed;
we are working seven hours a day at the practice; we are
building a stable; and in our odd hours we are practising
at our magnetic ship-protector, with which Cullingworth
is still well pleased, though he wants to get it more
perfect before submitting it to the Admiralty.
His mind runs rather on naval architecture at
present, and he has been devising an ingenious method of
preventing wooden-sided vessels from being crippled by
artillery fire. I did not think much of his
magnetic attractor, because it seemed to me that even if
it had all the success that he claimed for it, it would
merely have the effect of substituting some other metal
for steel in the manufacture of shells. This new project
has, however, more to recommend it. This is the idea, as
put in his own words; and, as he has been speaking of
little else for the last two days, I ought to remember
them.
"If you've got your armour there, laddie, it will be
pierced," says he. "Put up forty feet thick of steel;
and I'll build a gun that will knock it into tooth-
powder. It would blow away, and set the folk coughing
after I had one shot at it.
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