An Unpublished Manuscript of Frank Forester s. 



365 



Squire Biddle — "Hey! Verdant, 

 here's a pint ; toho! stop! stop!" Flip- 

 flap, up whirls a woodcock — Verdant 

 takes long, deliberate aim ; pulls trig- 

 ger. Bang! Bellow! Exit the Man- 

 ton into smoke — terrcs recessit in auras 

 — and like 



The cloud-capt tow ers, 

 The solemn temples, gorgeous palaces, 



leaves not a wreck behind, except the 

 wreck of Verdant's bran new castor, 

 through which the breech-pin of the 

 right barrel has been driven, and the 

 wreck of his left hand, which, grasping 

 the centre of the barrel, had been 

 horribly mangled by the explosion. 



Newspapers call it '■'■ sad accident by 

 fire-arms^'' instead of calling it '■'■cutting 

 and inainiing with intent to kill," on the 

 part of Muggins & Snob. 



That this is neither a fictitious case 

 nor an exaggeration, hundreds will bear 

 witness ; hundreds have realized by the 

 loss of limb or life, and hundreds more, 

 I fear, will realize before they learn 

 wisdom and buy of honest workmen, 

 whose credit is in truth staked on their 

 work (as their brand depends upon 

 their name), and not upon rascally im- 

 porting houses, who have always a 

 handy excuse at hand either that they 

 are indeed " astonished that Mr. Manton 

 should turn out such work," or " very 

 strange that their excellent correspond- 

 ents at Liverpool — not Birmingham, of 

 course — should have been so badly 

 deceived." 



* * * * ^Q^ is it the name of 

 Manton only that is thus counterfeited, 

 for those of Nock, Lancaster, Purdy, 

 the Moores, in fact all the leading 

 makers have been more or less ordi- 

 narily forged, though the unequalled 

 celebrity of Manton has caused him 

 to be most largely and unblushingly 

 sponged upon. So much has this prac- 



tice damaged the reputation of the 

 good men and clever artists, that it 

 is imquestionably one of the leading 

 causes of the growing opinion "any 

 sound gun is as good as a crack gun; " 

 so that numbers of persons will hon- 

 estly and in full conviction, assert that 

 such or such a gun, of I know not what 

 reputable Birmingham houses, has re- 

 peatedly beaten Manton's, Lancaster's, 

 Purdy's and the like, when in truth the 

 Birmingham gun has only beaten an 

 inferior Birmingham gun. 



The superiority of the genuine Lon- 

 don gun is thus destroyed, merged, 

 and lost in the worthlessness of its 

 counterfeits, and even good judges of 

 good pieces are deterred from pur- 

 chasing, by the veneered trumpery so 

 shamelessly palmed off upon them. 



I do not say that no good work is 

 not turned out at Birmingham, but I 

 do say, that with the exception of the 

 work of Mr. Greener and Mr. Westley 

 Richards— both of whom are beyond 

 suspicion, and the former a very fine, 

 the latter a very celebrated artist, 

 though personally I do not like his 

 work — all Birmingham work is more or 

 less liable to suspicion of this particular 

 kind of dishonesty. 



I know it, in a word, to be a fact, 

 that several houses, that hold them- 

 selves most highly reputable, which 

 would doubtless institute proceedings 

 were their respectability called in ques- 

 tion, are in the regular habit of 

 inquiring — as a business matter, of 

 course — of their wholesale customers 

 whose names they should wish en- 

 graved on such and such a lot; and I 

 am acquainted with more than one 

 American sportsman, who not possess- 

 ing the means to make himself master 

 of the genuine Simon Pure, has gone 

 to the expense of buying a really sound 



