40 FIELD SHOOTING. 



fault of the gun. I liked that so well that 1 agreed 

 to shoot at one hundred birds every day for a 

 week against Paine ; each day's match to be inde- 

 pendent of the others a hundred birds each for five 

 hundred dollars. We shot the first of the six, but 

 as I killed eighty to Paine's sixty-two he paid 

 forfeit on the other matches. Since then I have 

 used breech-loaders altogether, whether for match- 

 shooting or in the field. Besides the superiority 

 of their shooting, the quickness of the shots when 

 you come upon birds in the field which lie well 

 is a very material advantage. The greater ease 

 with which the ammunition is carried is another; 

 and the cleanliness and complete absence of danger 

 in loading is a further great point. Many accidents 

 formerly occurred in the loading of muzzle-loaders. 

 And I must say this for the gunmakers, even 

 when cheap muzzle-loaders were in use, not one 

 accident in a hundred, in my experience, was ow- 

 ing to defects in the barrels of the guns. Of the 

 few which burst, nine out of ten were either im- 

 properly loaded or the charge had partly shifted 

 before the trigger was pulled. The fact is now 

 and always was, that the vast majority of acci- 

 dents with guns are not caused by bad guns, but 

 by bad handling of guns which are good enough 



