62 DETONATING SYSTEM. 



a flint-gun. I immediately took up the bet, told his 

 clerk to book it, and offered to double it if he chose. 

 He then fought off, and would not stand to what he 

 proposed. Soon after the sportsman left the shop, 

 and the gunmaker then said to me, " You are quite 

 right ; but if you had not taken me up I should have 

 got an order for a brace of detonating guns !" Let 

 this be a lesson, then, to gunmaker s, not to be so 

 ready in offering wagers to gentlemen. 



In short, it does not require a succession of ar- 

 guments and anecdotes to prove, that if guns on one 

 principle are sooner shook to pieces, and worn out, 

 than guns on another, it is the interest of the trade 

 not only to universally adopt them, but to employ 

 people, who will write any thing for so much a sheet, 

 to overrate them to the credulous, through the me- 

 dium of some publication or other. Let the reader, 

 however, put down all that I have said, or that 

 others, in argument against me, may say, as nothing ; 

 and only take a walk to some field with a few flint- 

 guns and detonaters, of equal sizes, and fairly try 

 them at two or three quires of paper, and then let 

 his opinion be guided \>y facts instead of words. 



In the mean time, I will proceed to repeat the 

 same trials that I gave in the earlier editions. 



" TRIAL on the 8th of November 1822, of a 

 171bs. Joseph Manton duck gun, at fifty yards, loaded 

 with four ounces of B. B. shot, and rather more than 



