SPORTING RIFLES AND THEIR USE 345 



Extraordinary stories are told of the recoveries of 

 soldiers from apparently fatal wounds inflicted by 

 solid Mauser or Lee-Enfield rifle bullets in the Boer 

 War. I remember meeting the great physician, Sir 

 William McCormack, shortly after his return from 

 the front in 1900. His stories of men who recovered 

 after being shot through lungs, head even in one case 

 just over the heart and in other usually fatal places, 

 were simply marvellous. Had these things been told 

 us at second-hand, they might have appeared simply 

 incredible. 



My line of argument may here appear to be some- 

 what heartless and cold-blooded, but the above 

 marvellous recoveries, though altogether appropriate 

 in civilized warfare, are quite undesirable from the 

 hunter's point of view in the case of big-game. All 

 that the humane General wants is to incapacitate as 

 many of his foes as possible until victory is achieved. 

 The more of them that subsequently recover, the 

 better. But the hunter shoots to kill, and it is 

 obviously futile for him to use a weapon which does 

 not achieve his purpose. Therefore is the soft-nosed 

 or split-nosed bullet necessary in the latter case, 

 though rightly barred by the usage of civilized nations 

 in the former case. 



There is also this to be said, that the man is more 

 likely than the animal to recover when perforated by 

 a solid nickel bullet. For the man lies quiet and is 

 then medically attended to. The wounded animal, 

 on the other hand, runs and moves, and, needless to 

 say, has no medical attention. It may therefore be 

 argued that, for the hunter, the small-bore rifle with 

 solid bullet is not only an ineffective, but a cruel 

 weapon. 



