THINGS THAT COME

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 1 May 1937, Page 11

THINGS THAT COME

BEN JONSON’S VISION [By Air Mail —From Our Own , Correspondent] LONDON, 25th March. Admirers , of Mr H. G. Wells boast that he anticipated in his works some of the most startling military novelties of the Great War, the tank amongst the number. Everybody who was a schoolboy forty years ago knows that Jules Verne foresaw both the submarine and the stratospheric balloon. But it does come as a bit of a shock to be reminded that Ben Jonson outlined the submarine in rough, but with screw propeller complete, as far back aS the year 1625. Ben Jonson’s play, “The Staple of News.” was performed before King Charles I a few months before he came to the throne that cost him his head. In that play one character talks of a Dutchman who had made “an invisible eel to swim the haven at Dunkirk and sink all the shipping there.” He adds: “It is an automaf runs under water, with a snug nose, and has a nimble tail . . . with which tail she wriggles.” Or is this vision more aptly described as that of pur modern'torpedo?

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