Stone Club To Space Explorer

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 21

Stone Club To Space Explorer

From his earliest days, man has looked for new and improved weapons, first to kill the animals so necessary to provide his food and clothing, but later, unfortunately, t o use also against his fellow men.

Regrettable though the constant striving for weapons for self-destruction may be, the story of the weapons makes a fascinating history. It is this story that the Canterbury Public Relations Office has set out to tell in its display at the Industries Fair.

With the help of the Canterbury] Museum, the Police Department, the armed forces and private collectors, the public relations officer (Mr E. G. Beckett) has assembled a comprehensive range of weapons from stone age to the space age. From the stone club, man progressed to a sling and stones for longer-range combat. Then, the display shows, he found that a barbed spear was a better weapon than the club and then came the throwing spear. But for closestill preferred and there are some wicked-looking maces, one far from blunt with its iron-spiked ball at the end of a chain. There is a fine collection of swords, ranging from gigantic two-handed weapon to fine duelling swords and ornate, graceful rapiers.

Then came the era of the pistol, and a big collection of muzzle loaders which were in vogue until the invention of the metallic cartridge in 1855. In those days, gunpowder was poured from a horn or flask down the muzzle, on which bird-shot, buck-shot or ball were placed and kept there by a wad. This was the way in which all firearms, including cannon, were fired from the earliest times until the breechloading metallic cartridge was invented. Duels ’

There ars some very good, and very effective looking, duelling pistols on display, including some presentation sets with silver handles and inscriptions. Cannons, wall guns and matchlock cannons which blasted their way through castle walls and wooden battleships are depicted in another bay of the big display.

Sabres and cutlasses vie for interest with Russian rifles and elongated matchlocks used on the North-West Frontier. Flintlocks used by Bedouins in the desert contrast with modern Tommy guns and heavy anti-tank rifles. A blunderbuss with its gaping mouth conjures up a picture of a highwayman with cocked pistol being repelled by a fusillade of -rusty nails, bolts and screws. Weapons used in Crimean, the two World Wars, the Korean conflict and then the Malayan jungle campaigns are on display.

A harmless looking walking stick turns out to be a rifle; a

■pearl-handled revolver which , could be concealed in a man’s j hand has a barrel showing that it » could inflict a nasty wound. ! Some of the firearms displayed : are those which were handed in 1 to the police during the recent arms amnesty and which will be ■ destroyed once the fair is over. Complementary with the display : of weapons is a tableau display of 1 toy soldiers from one of the best 1 private collections of such models f in New Zealand. On Parade

The toys are replicas of the soldiers of famous British regiments from the 1880’s down to the present time. A British Square of 1882, the famous British Army defensive stand, is depicted, as is the trooping of the regimental colour by the Grenadier Guards as the ceremony is performed in 1959.

Finally, the display moves into the space age. The centrepiece is a model of the United States Explorer I earth satellite which was put into orbit last year. The model is a replica of the Explorer I launched from Cape Canaveral on February 2 last year. Explorer I was a bullet-shaped case containing instruments to record cosmic activity, temperature and meteor impact. It was 6 inches in diameter and 80 inches long and weighed 30.81b5. It orbited the earth once every 113 minutes at altitudes ranging from 200 to 1000 miles at a speed of 19,400 miles ah hour. The model at the fair came direct to the Public Relations Office from the United States through the American Embassy in Wellington.