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Rh Lord Mayor of Belfast, and in 1898 the freedom of the city was conferred upon him. In 1906 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Pirrie, and was for a time comptroller of the household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and pro-chancellor of Queen's University, Belfast. Towards the close of the World War, in 1918, he was made controller-general of merchant shipping. In 1921, on the King's visit to Belfast to inaugurate the new Parliament of Northern Ireland, he was created a viscount.

PISSARRO, LUCIEN (1863- ), Anglo-French painter and engraver, was born in Paris on Feb. 20 1863, the son of the painter Camille Pissarro (see 21.652). He studied art under his father, and at the suggestion of Auguste Lepere took up wood engraving. In 1891 he came to England, and there began his studies in typography. In 1894 he started the Eragny Press and published a series of books, using until 1903 the Vale type de- signed by Charles Ricketts and afterwards the Brook type designed by himself. The initial letters, borders and illus- trations engraved on wood were throughout mainly from his own designs, and sometimes show very skilful and refined use of colour and gold. Among the most notable productions of his press are L'Histoire de Soliman Ben-Daoud (1907); Le Livre de Jade (1911) and La Charrue d'Erable (1912), with illustrations engraved in colour from drawings by Camille Pissarro, one of his son's few essays in reproductive engraving. He also pro- duced a considerable number of isolated woodcuts. As a painter, he uses the " spectral palette " of the impressionists, and works in a high key. He early devoted himself to the study of subtle gradations and variations in colour, and adopted a pointillist technique, afterwards modified into a broader method of han- dling, with more emphasis on design. His work is almost entirely English landscape, notable recent examples being " Coldharbour, Teatime " and " Crockhurst Lane, Coldharbour." He became a member of the New English Art Club, was a member of the Camden Town Group, and was the principal founder of the Monarro Group. He became a naturalized British subject in 1916. He is represented in the Tate Gallery, and in the art galleries of Leeds and Manchester.

PISTOL (see 21.654). During recent years the automatic pistol has been gradually perfected and adapted to replace the revolver as a military side arm, despite the fact that there are many who maintain that the revolver is the more dependable weapon. The automatic pistol, like all complicated mechanisms, occasionally malfunctions, usually due to a defective magazine or cartridge. This disadvantage is, however, offset by the fact that from the pistol about three times the number of shots per minute may be fired as from a revolver; its magazines are changed instantly, thus giving sustained fire while loaded maga- zines are at hand. This gives a great advantage to the user of a properly working pistol, as a revolver is often useless at close quarters, such as obtained in trench raids, after its six shots have been fired. In such positions the volume of fire from a group of pistols is much greater than that from an equal number of re- volvers even if a pistol is occasionally disabled by a jam.

Owing to its simpler mechanism, the revolver is more reliable for civilian self-defence where more than two or three shots are seldom required; the weapon then being unused and often neglected for long periods. The revolver is also considered superior to the automatic pistol in safety. In the latter, the loaded cartridge automatically inserted in the chamber after each shot is liable to be forgotten and left there when the maga- zine is taken out. To prevent accidental discharge from this source, some of the newer models have a " magazine safety," which prevents the pistol from being fired when the magazine is out. In addition, a " grip safety," which prevents discharge unless the rear part of the grip is pressed in at the same time the trigger is pulled; and a safety catch, which locks the slide and hammer, are often used. Recent models of revolvers show no improvements of note, and it is probable that with the attention now being given to the design of the automatic pistol, that weapon will eventually be made as reliable, safe, and quick to get into action as a good revolver.

In European armies previous to the World War, the pistol was used almost exclusively as an officer's side arm. Their weapons were of small calibre, ranging from 7-63 mm. to 9 mm., and lacked stopping power. During the war the use of the pistol and revolver was extended to include many branches of the service not armed with rifles, particularly by the United States, British and German armies. The large calibre weapons of the former armies gave them a great advantage in pistol fighting, and their use confirmed previous opinions that a large calibre heavy bullet of short range and low velocity is more effective in a pistol than a high velocity, small calibre bullet.

Automatic pistols have now been adopted by the armies of the United States, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The British navy has adopted the Webley automatic pistol. In the table on page 107, details are given.

COLT AurOMATtC PISTOL. FIG I.

Colt Automatic Pistol. The Colt automatic pistol, calibre .45 (fig. i), was adopted by the U. S. army in 1911. This pistol differs radically from older Colt models in that it has a sloping handle, grip safety (l), spiral mainspring (2), an improved method of locking the barrel and breech, also an improved slide action and magazine catch (3). The magazine (4) has a capacity of seven cartridges. The ammunition for this pistol has a muzzle velocity of 800 f.s. with a 230- grain bullet. The striking energy is 329 ft. lb., which gives a pene- tration of 6 in. of white pine at 25 yards. The pistol is capable of great rapidity of fire, 21 shots having been fired in 12 seconds beginning with the pistol empty.

The action of the .45-calibre pistol, assuming that it is cocked and ready to fire, is as follows: When the trigger (5) is pulled, the sear (6) is released, and the hammer (7), actuated by the mainspring (2), goes forward and strikes the firing-pin (8), which transmits the blow to the primer of the cartridge. The pressure of the gases generated in the barrel (9) by the explosion of the powder in the cartridge, is exerted in a forward direction against the bullet, and in a rearward direction through the cartridge case against the face of the slide (10), driving the slide and the barrel to the rear together. The link (ll), one end of which is fixed to the frame and the other to the barrel, causes a downward pull on the barrel when it recoils, which disengages the barrel lugs (12) from the slide, and the barrel is then stopped in its lowest position. The slide continues to move to the rear, opening the breech, and cocks the hammer (7) which moves the hammer strut (13) downward, compressing the mainspring (2). The sear (6) actuated by the sear spring (14) engages in the notch on the hammer (7). Extracting and ejecting of the empty shell are accomplished and the recoil spring (15) compressed until the slide reaches its rearmost position, when another cartridge is raised into loading position. The cartridge is forced into the chamber of the barrel by the return movement of the slide under pressure of the recoil spring. The slide during its forward motion encounters the rear extension of the barrel and forces the barrel forward ; the rear end of the barrel swings upward on the link (n) to the normal firing position. When the slide and barrel reach their forward position they are positively locked together by the locking lugs on the barrel and their joint forward movement is arrested by the barrel lug encountering the pin on the slide stop (16). The pistol is again ready for firing.

The inertia of the slide augmented by that of the barrel is so much greater than the inertia of the bullet that the latter has been driven from the muzzle of the barrel with its maximum velocity before the slide and the barrel have recoiled to the point where the barrel com- mences its unlocking movement. This construction delays the opening of the breech of the barrel until after the bullet has left the muzzle and therefore practically prevents the escape of any of the powder gases to the rear after the breech has been opened.