GUNS ACCIDENTS POINTERS. 169 



Sweden, and the guns used by the gentlemen are often 

 of the worst German manufacture. I am certain that a 

 good working English gunsmith could get a very fair living 

 in Gothenburg. Some of the old Swedish barrels are excel- 

 lent ; but as every common smith can knock up a peasant's 

 gun for from 10 to 12 rqr., we cannot wonder that some 

 very curious tools are turned out. I recollect such a gun 

 bursting in the hands of a peasant near us, and when I 

 examined the barrel, the breech-plug was stuck in like a 

 cork, without the shadow of a screw. When this man was 

 taken to the surgeon at Carlstad, he said that it was the ninth 

 accident of the kind he had attended during the last six 

 weeks ; at least, so the peasant told me. In everything 

 relating to game, and shooting, the Swedes may be fairly said 

 to be at least fifty years behind the English. The sports- 

 men you generally meet out, are sadly careless with their 

 guns, and as every boy of ten years old, or thereabouts, 

 carries a gun, I only wonder that fatal and serious accidents 

 are not much more common. Strange to say, I could hardly 

 ever persuade a Swedish sportsman to adopt a real old- 

 fashioned English shooting-coat and highlows. A long 

 frock-coat and light Wellington boots drawn over the 

 trousers, and a leather game-bag to hold everything, indis- 

 criminately mixed, is the sporting dress in fashion out 

 here. 



But a very great improvement in all matters relating to 

 shooting, has been introduced into the North within the last 

 fifteen years. Still, although almost every man and boy 

 shoots a little, there is not much really enthusiastic sporting 

 feeling in any class, and few will go to expense in pre- 

 serving. 



Some very decent pointers and setters can be bought in 

 the south of Sweden, of English breed, and at about English 

 prices. They are all broken in the French language, and 

 one of the greatest faults they have, in my opinion, is that 

 they are for everlasting drawing on their game. Distemper 

 is as common among dogs here as in England, but it takes 

 a rather different form. Madness is, I fancy, rare; but the 



