36: 



TJic Ai)icrican An([icr. 



Nor is it by any manner of means, 

 an unusual occurrence to see men pride 

 themselves on their field equipments, 

 who would not own a setter worth less 

 than a hundred dollars, or a horse 

 which could not do his mile in 2.50, 

 armed with a shooting iron of the most 

 miserable description, intrinsically 

 worth perhaps some four or five pounds 

 sterling-, sixteen or twent}' dollars; but 

 by dint of painting, varnishing, veneer- 

 ing, or the like, with the addition of 

 duties, importer's profits, etc., brought 

 up to the sum of thirty-five, or perhaps 

 fifty dollars — for which sum a very 

 sound plain gvm may be purchased by 

 a person who knows what he is about — 

 and having the name, if not of ]\Ianton, 

 Egg, Nock, Lancaster or Purdy, at 

 least of some respectable maker. An 

 article one shade better than this in 

 stocking and finish, though made of 

 the same worthless iron, set off with a 

 mahogany case, brass-mounted, velvet- 

 lined, is foisted on the public as a 

 respectable piece of work, and probably 

 believed by its infatuated purchaser to 

 be a -weapon worth from 80 to 120 

 dollars — for which a really good article 

 of English or American make may be 

 obtained by applying direct to any 

 foreign or native workman, not ware- 

 housemen. 



The pieces, however, of which I have 

 hitherto spoken, are as a Joe Manton is 

 to themselves, when compared with the 

 rubbish retailed at some ten or fifteen 

 dollars, or perhaps yet higher ; the real 

 value of which is precisely that of Mr. 

 Kossuth's famous muskets, two dollars 

 each, from the manufacturer's hands; 

 and which, like those celebrated arms, 

 if they can go off at all — and even that 

 is doubtful — will do so infinitely more 

 to the jeopardy of the shooter than of 

 the person shot at. 



These are the pieces that are inva- 

 riably found in the hands of all the 

 millions of mechanics, farmers, labor- 

 ers, and bordermen of the country ; not 

 including all the boys to whom these 

 truly wondrous weapons are entrusted 

 by their parents, owing to a degree of 

 ignorance, carelessness, or parsimony, 

 perfectly unaccountable and unintel- 

 ligible. 



These guns are sold, ninety-nine 

 hundredths of them, by hardware men 

 who frequently know the nature and 

 worthlessness of the article they are 

 vending — the exporters from abroad 

 invariably know this — who, therefore, 

 selling, of malice aforethought, what 

 they are well aware will, in all human 

 probability, cause a loss of life or limb, 

 should be in strict justice, held at least 

 as much responsible as the person 

 selling a deadly poison for a wholesome 

 beverage. 



H; ^ J^i ii; ^ ^ 



It is believed, as a general rule, 

 that the giuunakcr rarely, or never 

 1-ccoviviciids the purchase of these 

 suicidal weapons, since it is neither 

 for his credit nor for his interest to do 

 so; but it is lamentable, indeed, that 

 he should sanction it in the smallest 

 degree even by their presence in his 

 shop. 



The hardwaremen, then, throughout 

 the country, from the highest and 

 wealthiest firms in our great seaboard 

 cities to the meanest jobbing houses in 

 the pettiest villages of the land, are 

 those who are guilty of this atrocious 

 system of crime — I say the word crime 

 advisedly; for I can regard the whole- 

 sale dealer in cheap Birmingham or 

 German guns in no other light than 

 that of the wholesale murderer. 



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These are the men who injure the 



