60 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



judging, and according to these, I have formed conclusions 

 which I believe as most men do of their own conclusions' 

 to be correct and sound. These I proceed to give, some- 

 times with reasons in brief, sometimes, where to reason 

 would be too long, simply as conclusions, for the benefit 

 of those who have either formed no opinions at all, or hold 

 them in abeyance, subject to farther experience. 



I wish to interfere with no man's notions, which are 

 his own peculiar property ; and with no man's legitimate 

 business the sale of condemned and perilous fire-arms I 

 do not esteem a legitimate business and this I think it 

 well here to state, because, some years since, I was assailed 

 in a most ungentlemanly and unjust manner by anonymous 

 scribblers, in various journals -most of them directly set 

 on by persons who were interested in the sale of articles 

 to which I did not choose to award praise ; some doubtless 

 actuated by mere prejudice in favor of some old gun of 

 their own, and consequently of its maker for presuming 

 to recommend certain guns, made by a certain maker, all 

 of which, by the way, have given the highest satisfaction 

 to their purchasers, and for recording my preference of 

 London to provincial English makers. 



This preference, I again beg most distinctly, and if 

 possible, more distinctly than before, to record. And I 

 am fully aware and confident that no sportsman, who ever 

 owned a first-class gun, made by a first-class London ma- 

 ker, ever did or ever will exchange it for any other gun 

 in the world. And that no sportsman, who has examined 

 and tried the two articles, and whose pocket will afford 

 the expense of the London maker's gun, will ever order 

 one from the best provincial. 



