SPORTSMEN, FARMERS, &C. 141 



Now, gentlemen, I speak to you who 

 belong to the different rifle corps in this 

 metropolis. You will, I believe, acknow- otPowderuGw 



* ^ used, 



ledge, that some of you load your rifles 

 with one fourth of the weight of the ball in 



to make those rifles to carry balls which weighed tzoenty 

 to the pound. It was his wish lo make the barrels 

 heavier ; but, had he made the barrels proportionably 

 heavy to the size of the ball of twenty to the pound, 

 the gun would have been too heav}^ for the man to 

 carry : for, to load that gun, carrying twenty balls to 

 the pound, with half the weight of the ball in powder, 

 the barrel should weigh nine pounds at least, if not nine 

 pounds and a half, so that, when fired, it should not 

 affect the man's shoulder. The gun then would have 

 weighed, together, about fourteen pounds, — an immense 

 heavy weight ; — whereas the barrel of my gun, weighing 

 six pounds three ounces, and the whole gun, complete 

 for service, weighs only ten pounds five ounces, carries 

 a ball of thirty to the pound, and half the weight of 

 that ball in powder, and goes off without any recoil 

 whatever. Now the barrel of the gun used by the 95 th 

 regiment, weighs only four pounds, and carries a ball 

 twenty to the pound, and not more than 07ie third of 

 the weight of that ball in powder, (I doubt, if so much. ) 

 The difficulty of making a common soldier judge at 

 what distance an enemy is, on service, is amply ex- 

 plained in the treatise entitled a plan, published at the 

 end of this book, to which the reader is particularly/ 

 referred. 



