70 MANUAL FOR 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 recharged 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 cock-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 
