3oe /IDantcm 93 



Flodden until the breech-loading rifle was introduced 

 into modern warfare forty years ago. 



One would like to know at what period the fowling- 

 piece became sufficiently light and handy to allow of 

 a sportsman shooting game upon the wing. But I can 

 find no data to enable me to fix the commencement 

 of this notable epoch in the history of sport. There 

 can, however, as I have said, be no doubt that Joe 

 Manton was the first gunmaker to make the double 

 barrel popular. Some of his flint-lock doubles which 

 I have seen are marvels of finished and elegant 

 workmanship, and come as readily to the shoulder as 

 any gun I have ever handled. But seventy guineas 

 seems a long price to have paid for them, good as 

 they are. Rich sportsmen, however, were willing to 

 give fancy prices for guns in those days, and Colonel 

 Thornton tells us that a gun which the Marquis of 

 Rockingham presented to him cost 450 guineas ! 

 Perhaps, like the rifle which the Duke of York once 

 ordered, the pan and touch-hole were of gold \ What 

 His Royal Highness paid for that costly toy I do not 

 know, but it fetched fifty guineas at the sale of his 

 effects. 



At what date Joe Manton started business in London 

 I have been unable to discover, but his first patent is 

 dated April, 1792, and he was then established at No. 25 

 Davies Street, Berkeley Square, where his shop, familiar 

 to every sportsman as the dome of St. Paul's, remained 

 till 1825, when he removed to 11, Hanover Square. 

 During this time his brother John, whom some good 

 judges considered little, if at all, inferior to Joseph, 



