110 WADDING. 



ment will do) that has the effect, not only of cleaning 

 the gun, but, in a great degree, of removing that in- 

 crease of lead which is now occasioned by retarding 

 the charge, in order to make a detonater shoot equal 

 to a flint-gun. I received a sample of this wadding 

 from Mr. Lancaster, and it answered most beautifully; 

 because, with this, the gun kept clean, and shot equally 

 well through the whole day; and nothing could be more 

 pleasant to load with. Mr. Eley sent me a sample of 

 cork wadding ; but with this the gun sooner became 

 leaded. Then down came a batch of wadding, with a 

 request that I would try it, from Mr. Joyce. I then 

 underwent the operation of blazing away for a whole 

 morning, at quires of paper, with these waddings, against 

 Joe Manton's best pasteboard. (Nothing but a wish to 

 give correct information, in a work that has been so 

 kindly received, would have induced me to submit to 

 this insufferable " bore.") While the guns were clean, 

 the difference, among them all, was so trifling as scarcely 

 to be worth naming ; and indeed Joe's pasteboard was 

 rather the best. But the guns which were loaded with 

 cork and pasteboard soon began to " lead ;" while those 

 with the " patent" wadding kept clean, and free from 

 being, what Tom Fullerd calls, " choked up." There 

 is not a question, therefore, as to their merit. But it is 

 somewhat singular that, after all this exertion of their 

 brains, our artists never served us with one kind of 

 wadding for the powder, and another for the shot; 

 because, if there is any way of making a gun shoot 

 stronger into the bird, and easier against the shoulder, 

 than another, it is this. For, I must repeat that the 

 wadding which covers the powder should be thick and 

 air-tight ; while that which covers the shot should be 



