MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 65 
There are now some twenty or thirty of these 
guns in use among our sportsmen, and they have 
generally given satisfaction. Of course it requires a 
short time to accustom oneself to anew implement ; 
and a cheap piece, which it is natural to purchase 
on an experiment, is a poor affair, and especially so 
with a breech-loader; but the invention is steadily 
winning friends. In England, where the nature of 
the game is not so well calculated for its use as here, 
the highest authority on sporting gunnery, the edi- 
tor of the Field, who writes under the name of 
Stonehenge, speaking of the two guns, says: “ In- 
deed, so near is the performance of the two, that we 
cannot think for a moment that for general purposes 
there can be a doubt of the superiority of the breech- 
loader, when quickness of loading, safety, and clean- 
liness are taken into consideration.” 
