70 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



and expose the lower end of their calibre for the reception 

 of a cartridge containing, in itself, the percussion cap, the 

 powder, and the charge of shot, with a small brass pin, 

 impinging on the percussion powder, attached to it, which, 

 when the loaded barrels are again brought into their pro- 

 per position and connection, stands up in a notch between 

 them and the false breech made to receive it, and meeting 

 the blow of the striker, discharges the gun. 



Stonehenge speaks of this gun in terms of strong 

 praise, and states his opinion, that " if as good in practice 

 as it appears to him theoretically perfect, its invention 

 will be almost as great an era in gun making as that of 

 the detonator itself." 



This language and praise are to me alike inexplicable. 

 This gun has no nipple, no possibility of being loaded or 

 fired except with the identical cartridge prepared for it, 

 which is, and can be, only prepared at the shop which 

 supplies the gun. It is true, he says, that the cartridge 

 cases remain in the gun, and on withdrawal can be recapped 

 and reSharged many times; but, apart from the incon- 

 venience of lugging about on your person a hundred or 

 two, if you expect a good day's sport, of these cartridges 

 — since the idea of a sportsman sitting down in the middle 

 of a snipe-bog or a cook-brake, to recharge his cartridges 

 out of a powder-and-shot magazine, which he must also 

 carry about with him, is preposterous — what on earth is 

 the shooter to do, if he takes it into his head to visit the 

 Himalayas, or the Rocky Mountains, Canada or the Cape, 

 or any other distant shooting ground (by no means impos- 

 sible to, or unattempted by the British sportsman), where 



