56 DIRECTIONS FOR 



unless this precaution had been counteracted by your 

 forgetting to load it while warm, or some other cir- 

 cumstance ; and I see nothing to justify your neglect 

 in this, except the incessant rising of birds, in which 

 case you may be permitted to await a leisure oppor- 

 tunity. Nothing is more absurd, if a gun has been 

 washed, than dirtying it, long before there is any 

 occasion for so doing, by what is called squibbing, 

 which answers the purpose only of alarming women 

 and poultry, putting your cattle into a gallop, and 

 your kennel full cry ; and, in short, making a general 

 disturbance among your domestic animals ! very ex- 

 cusable in a boy, who would desire no better fun ! 



If a gun, after your having probed the touchhole, 

 should ever flash in the pan, you had better draw the 

 shot ; and, in firing off the powder, hold the gun 

 sideways (that is, with the touchhole uppermost). I 

 have seen shooters plagued for half an hour with 

 their guns, which have gone off immediately on being 

 held in this manner. 



The proper, safest, and most certain way of ascer-, 

 taining that your gun be perfectly clean, is to hold 

 it to the light, and look through it (as before re- 

 commended) ; and to prove that neither oil nor damp 

 be left behind, put your charge of powder into the 

 barrel, and, before you add the wadding, see that the 

 few grains, which you can shake into the pan, are 

 quite dry ; and if so, prime, and finish loading ; but 

 observe, that in trying this with Mr. Joseph Manton's 

 original patent hammers (which are the best he ever 



