54 Spring 



While the latest invention in hammerless breech-loaders 

 hardly contents our English sportsmen, thousands of 

 rude hunters and warriors possess no deadlier weapon 

 than such a flint-lock gun as you may occasionally 

 find rusting in some loft of an old-fashioned farmhouse. 

 The knappers have not for a long time previously 

 been busier than during the last three years, and flints 

 have gone out of England by millions annually. 

 Exportation to Brazil and South America, on which 

 the greatest dependence used to be placed, has de- 

 creased, but that to South Africa has grown with its 

 recent development. Yet flint-knapping is less attrac- 

 tive as a survival than because it is an ancient pro- 

 bably the most ancient village industry, and is still 

 pursued with the simple tools and by the simple 

 methods used by the forefathers of those engaged in it. 

 Above all, it is a traditional and hereditary calling. 

 Take what branch you may, and it will invariably be 

 found that the craftsman of to-day learned the skill from 

 his father. There is a patriarch of over seventy still to 

 be seen on sunny days hanging about the chalk-pits, 

 though totally unfit to wield the spade or pick. Before 

 the fir-trees were planted that now overshadow some 

 of the white mounds, he remembers coming to help his 

 father and grandsire, while close at hand his son and 

 grandson are at work. 



So it is with the rest. The Brandon flint-knappers 

 form a little colony by themselves, differing alike in 

 character and sentiment from the rustics who sur- 



