60 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
judging, and according to these, I have formed conclusions 
which I believe—as most men do of their own conclusions— 
to be correct and sound. These I proceed to give, some- 
times with reasons in brief, sometimes, where to reason 
would be too long, simply as conclusions, for the benefit 
of those who have either formed no opinions at all, or hold 
them in abeyance, subject to farther experience. 
I wish to interfere with no man’s notions, which are 
his own peculiar property; and with no man’s legitimate 
business—the sale of condemned and perilous fire-arms I 
do not esteem a legitimate business—and this I think it 
well here to state, because, some years since, I was assailed 
in a most ungentlemanly and unjust manner by anonymous 
scribblers, in various journals—most of them directly set 
on by persons who were interested in the sale of articles 
to which I did not choose to award praise; some doubtless 
actuated by mere prejudice in favor of some old gun of 
their own, and consequently of its maker—for presuming 
to recommend certain guns, made by a certain maker, all 
of which, by the way, have given the higiest satisfaction 
to their purchasers, and for recording my preference of 
London to provincial English makers. 
This preference, I again beg most distinctly, and if 
possible, more distinctly than before, to record. And I 
am fully aware and confident that no sportsman, who ever 
owned a first-class gun, made by a first-class London ma- 
ker, ever did or ever will exchange it for any other gun 
in the world. And that no sportsman, who has examined 
and tried the two articles, and whose pocket will afford 
the expense of the London maker’s gun, will ever order 
one from the best provincial. 
