MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 59 
This is the last of Dead Shots objections, and 
none of them merit the attention they have received, 
except from the fact that this book has been exten- 
sively circulated in our country, where the merits of 
breech-loaders are little known. The objections so 
manifestly arise from prejudice or ignorance, that 
they need no contradiction to any one acquainted 
with the true state of the case, and are worthy ofan 
author who, in his opening, says: “He only can be 
called a ‘ Dead Shot’? who can bring down with un- 
erring precision an October or November partridge, 
whenever it offers a fair chance, 7. e. rises within 
certain range ;” which range he afterwards, at page 
86, puts at forty yards, in the following words: 
*¢ With judicious loading and a regard to the princi- 
ples of deadly range, a partridge may be killed with 
certainty at forty yards.” The partridge resembles, 
in many points, our quail, and sportsmen can tell 
whether quail can be killed ‘‘ with certainty at forty 
yards,” or whether the best shot alive can kill them 
every time at any distance. 
In discussing the merits of any new invention, 
prejudice is one of the strongest grounds of opposi- 
tion to overcome ; and prejudice in favor of a weapon 
that we have tried and found trustworthy, that 
years of service have enabled us to use skilfully and 
have endeared to our affections, that has never, under 
all diversities of trial, failed to merit our confidence, 
is not merely a natural but praiseworthy fecling in 
the human mind. Prejudice, when at last driven to 
a corner and forced to give up as untenable the ob- 
