148 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



I handled rifled guns up to those known as one hundred- 

 pound "Parrots/' but now such a gun is only a toy, and 

 our ten-inch seacoast mortars with their smooth bores 

 are obsolete. This digression is not for the benefit of 

 the old fellows who know all this, but is intended for the 

 boys of to-day who have the cartridges for their breech- 

 loading shotguns filled for them before they go afield, 

 and whose machine-made magazine rifles are wonderful 

 pieces of mechanism. Remember, boys, in my shooting 

 days we went afield with powder flask on one shoulder, 

 shot pouch on the other, cap box and either cut wads or 

 newspapers for wadding in the pockets. If we shot the 

 rifle we moulded our own bullets, measured our powder 

 and carried greased linen patches to envelop the bullet, 

 a ramrod and box of caps. Such a thing as buying pre- 

 pared ammunition was not dreamed of. 



There was a little squad of rifle shooters from both 

 sides of the river which met in contests on the ice. There 

 was Billy Wish, the ferryboat engineer; William Tall- 

 man, Sr., a machinist; Steve Martin, and John Clark, a 

 printer, who, in spite of having but little color in his eyes, 

 was the best shot of all. It has been said that gray-eyed 

 men make the best rifle shots, but Clark's eyes were 

 lighter than gray. 



The shooting was counted by string measure, and 

 the targets were displayed nightly at Scott's. Such dis- 

 cussions over the wind in explanation of a bad shot, and 

 such arguments over the merits of rifle makers, would 

 fill volumes of Forest and Stream. The merits of Lewis 

 and James as makers of rifles was the main point. One 

 lived in Troy and the other in Syracuse, and they were 

 always going to shoot a match with rifles of their own 

 makes, but like some gladiators of to-day it ended in talk. 

 Billinghurst, of Rochester, was another famous maker; 



