THE MALLARD. 59 
Hawker’s ducking-powder, manufactured by Curtis and 
Harvey, is the best in the world, and can be procured 
of Mr. Brough, in Fulton Street, New York—will do its 
work satisfactorily and cleanly at sixty yards, or with 
Eley’s green, wire cartridges, which will permit the use 
of shot one size smaller, at thirty yards farther. The 
utility of these admirable projectiles can hardly be over- 
rated; next to the copper-cap, of which Starkey’s water- 
proof, central-fire, is the best form, I regard them as the 
greatest of modern inventions in the art of gunnery. 
Such a gun as I describe can be furnished of first-rate 
quality by Mr. John Krider of Philadelphia, Mr. John, 
or Patrick Mullin of New York, or My. Henry T. Cooper 
of the same city, ranging in price, according to finish, 
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars, of 
domestic manufacture ; and I would strongly recommend 
sportsmen, requiring such an implement, to apply to one 
of these excellent and conscientious makers, rather than 
even to import a London gun, much more than to pur- 
chase at a hazard the miserable and dangerous Birming- 
ham trash, manufactured -of three-penny skelp or sham- 
damn-iron, got up in handsome velvet-lined mahogany 
cases, and tricked out with varnish and gimcrackery ex- 
pressly for the American market, such as are offered for 
sale at every hardware shop in the country. 
The selling of such goods ought to be made by law a 
high misdemeanor, and a fatal accident occurring by 
