Aug. lo, 1901,] 
FOREST . AND STREAM, 
107 
Joader. It is an extremely good specimen of the gun- 
maker's art. It was doubtless a high-cost weapon, and has 
had good care. The remarkable thing about it is that 
there is not a name, nor a date, nor a mark of any kind, to 
tell who made it, when, or where. I judge it was made to 
order for some target shooter of the New England States 
by a local gunmaker about 1840. It weighs 16 pounds. 
You would not want to lug it far, would you? And you 
would not be likely to, for the weight forward makes it 
to unwieldy to be used for a hunting rifle. In the days 
when this rifle was in use target shooting was a fad, and 
was carried to such an extreme as to make shooting no 
shooting, in one sense — that is, extreme accuracy at a 
known range was the sole object. To this end, ponderous 
weapons were used from a rest, and telescopic sighting 
was done with such deliberation as would make a modern 
rifleman nervous to see. A small powder charge was 
used, with a heavy bullet, giving extreme accuracy, but so 
high a trajectory that a difference of a few yards in the 
range made a great difference in the location of the bullet 
hole. 
This rifle has better lines than most of its kind that I 
have seen. The Kentucky-shaped stock is very graceful. 
It is cast off about ^ of an inch — that is, bent to the right 
— the better to present the rear sight to the eye. The 
fitting of parts is very good, and the engraving on the 
lock plate very free and firm of line. The oval on the 
check piece shows a deer running for his life across a 
forest gladc. The mountings appear to be solid silver, ex- 
cept the butt plate, which may be an imitation. The trig- 
ger has a set screw. The trigger guard is the celebrated 
Freeman design. The loading funnel on the muzzle is the 
design of Alvan Clark, the great telescope maker ; he was 
also an able rifleman. On its muzzle a circular recess, the 
size of the patch, insures centering the patch on the bore 
and on the bullet. To insure the removal of the loading 
funnel before shooting- — otherwise it would be blown 
away — a leaf blocks the sight. The Avoodwork has a 
handsome grain, and age has given it a beautifully rich 
color. The caliber of this rifle is .40. There are eight 
lands; the grooves are very shallow. There is no step 
rear sight or slot where one could go, as there would 
have been for a hunting rifle of its date. The shot in 
the barrel for the front sight takes either a telescope 
holder or a globe front sight. The elevating rear sight 
has a turn-table on top, on which is a cylinder, which 
serves at the same time as a telescope holder and a peep 
sight by adjusting a disk. The turn-table is also a crude 
wind gauge. 
Another time, when I was in the shop of the same gun- 
smith, he brought out from under the counter, with the 
remark, "Here is a sight good for sore eyes," a long sole- 
leather case. Unbuckling an end he slipped out a ma- 
hogany box, inlaid with brass at corners, locks and handle. 
Opening the box brought to view, in compartments lined 
with purple velvet, the finest muzzleloading shotgun I 
ever saw. In the same state of luxury lay a complete set 
of equipments^shot pouch, powder flask, jointed cleaning 
rod with slot tip, jagged tip, sponge wipers, greasing puff, 
wire brush and corkscrew wormer. There was also a 
, pocket field tool, conprising in one instrument a screw 
driver, nipple wrench, picking needle and a set of spare nip- 
ples, which were in the hollow ends of the handle. Besides 
j these were Eley's thick metal waterproof caps, and wire- 
wound cartridges for long-distance shooting — neither of 
which can be bought now — and Eley's grease-soaked 
pads (wads) and a wad cutter. Everything was in the 
' pink of condition. I slipped the barrels onto the stock; 
they assembled as quickly and smoothly as those of the 
' best breechloader. My heart went out to that gun. The 
market is full of antiques — miserable things when they 
were new; rusty, defaced and broken now. They catch 
the pennies of the unknowing, but not your money, I trust, 
and certainly not mine. On the other hand, a collector 
I may watch for years for a perfect antique and not find 
one then. This' gun, almost as new looking as the day 
il left its maker, is a beautiful specimen of the cap-lock 
mitzzleloader. The locks alone would tell a blindfolded 
expert a whole tale; the hammers move with the smooth- 
ness of two pieces of silk rubbed together; they are ab- 
.solutely without looseness ; the tumblers meet the scear 
with a clear, musical ring; they rise with absolutely the 
same strength, and yield to exactly the same trigger pull ; 
the yield of the trigger is instantaneous, without a trace 
of drag. I saw that the hammers struck the nipples in the 
center of the cups, and that they stood just alike at half 
and full cock. They are Purdy's pattern— the most beau- 
tiful, to my mind, of all hammer shapes. And the whole 
gitn is as' good as the locks. The outline is easy and 
' graceful, with refined curves. The stock and fore end, of 
' one piece, show the same color, grain and pattern in the 
grain; the grain runs with the top and bottom of the 
stock, converging toward the grip ; the wood is dense and 
hard. The fitting of all parts is simply perfection, and 
wood and metal join as if they grew that way. The en- 
praving was done by a workman so skilled he did not 
fudge; every curve was done right with one sweep of 
the tool — a clear, clean line. The checking of the wood is 
beyond any that I ever saw before, so regular and clear 
' cut ; even "the magnifying glass shows no imperfections. 
The barrels have two patterns of twist — Damascus was 
not in favor in those day — one pattern, like spirally wound 
fern leaves, for about 12 inches of the rear end, the other 
pattern like Jack Frost sometimes makes on the win- 
dow panes, for the rest. The ramrod is a piece of solid 
ebony, with a gunmetal rammer and a brass capped and 
fitted wormer on the tip. 
This outfit was made to order by Wm. Ellis, a London 
gunmaker, whose exact dates I do not know, except that 
I have seen one of his guns dated 1846. The barrels bear 
both Birmingham and London proof marks, from which I 
judge that Ellis did not make his barrels in bis London 
shop, He was one of the Avorld's great makers. The 
most fashionable makers of that time were probably 
• Purdy, Lancaster, Long, Moore and Ellis, in the order 
named. Of the last four, one's production was doubtless 
as good as the other's, the only difference in his fame 
being due to the amount of his patronage by the nobility. 
Later, about 1855 to 1861, Ellis made cheaper guns for the 
American trade — good, strong: serviceable pieces, but 
' plain. I have seen but one of Purdy's guns for 
sale. That was not in half as good condition as the Ellis 
gun, and the arnownt asked was $125, which seemed to me 
exorbitant. The original cost of the Ellis gun I do not 
know, but it was probably much in excess of 38 guineas 
($190), as that was the price of Long's cheapest gun in 
1852, while this was probably one of Ellis' high-grade 
guns. I bought the Ellis gun and outfit for a mere 
nothing, and can only say, in justification of the amount 
a.sked me for the Purdy, that it was a flintlock — not neces- 
sarily on that account much older than the Ellis — and that 
Purdy was the foremost maker of the world. 
The remarkably good condition of the Ellis gun is due 
to the fact that its owner was too old to use it much, and 
it was his custom to send any gun-^he had a whole bat- 
tery — immediately after use to a near-by gunsmith to be 
cleaned and put in condition. Since the owner's death, 
many years ago, the gun has lain unused. The executors 
of the estate disposed of the whole battery for anything 
they could get. I concluded to take this gun to the 
country with me last summer to see how it would shoot. 
The proper load, named on the case, is drams and t% 
ounces No. 6. It seems a ridiculous load to moderns for 
an ii-gauge gun. In old times little was known of choke 
boring, so a small powder charge in proportion to the 
shot used was needed to get a close pattern. The load 
named, at 40 yards, gave surprising penetration, but a 
very open pattern, though regular. By experimenting 
with powder and shot charges, kinds of powder and sizes 
of shot, and wads few and n^any and of various kinds. I 
finally got excellent results. The barrels are bored perfect 
cylinders, and they are so smooth and true that a wad 
cannot be forced down on top of a charge already covered 
by a wad. unless the wad has a nick in it to let the air 
pass. The Eley wads in the case have nicks, and the wad 
cutter has an idcntation to produce a nick. I used modern 
factory-made wads, and had to use my rifle on every 
one if I got it home. Of course after I got over the fun 
of trying wads, I one eve'ning nicked all I had to save 
time, I used the gun for a couple of weeks on partridges. 
Its shooting ability was all any one could ask. A few 
birds the first part of the time got away because I forgot 
about having to raise hammers before the gun could go 
off. It was necessary, too, to have both hammers con- 
stantly full cocked, because the size, shape and position 
of the hammers when down, although beautiful to the 
sight, are so awkward to the imtrained thumb that the 
gun must be removed from the shoulder to raise the 
hammer for a second shot, and partridges do not wait 
while one does all that. 
In order to preserve this fine gun from rust and 
scratches, before using it I gave it a couple of coats of 
waterproof varnish over all metal. It seems to me very 
odd that I have never known varnish to be proposed 
before. Perhaps it is because a weapon so treated does 
not look gunified. But it is a very simple matter to wash 
the varnish off at close of shooting season with a sponge 
dipped in spirits of turpentine. Manocitin, rust prevent- 
ives, gun greases, oils, and other such, are all viscous, 
soft, or fluid. They come off at a touch, and the exposed 
metal is then as subject to erosion as if it had not been 
treated. The best waterproof varnish, I know by years of 
experience in shooting in the country and at the sea shore, 
to be a perfect preventive. It covers the joining of wood 
and metal, fills flush the engraving and barrel patterns, is 
smooth, hard and adhesive. It is proof against sultry 
heat, fog, rain and salt water, and wears like iron. 
To use the muzzleloader a good deal of paraphanalia 
was needed, so that no matter how warm the day, a shoot- 
ing coat had to be worn. There were the powder flask, 
shot pouch, wads of two kinds and caps. I^ugging all 
these, in sagging pockets. I could not help thinking what 
improvements in simplicity have been made in firearms in 
a few years. It is not so very long since the flintlock 
muzzleloader was in use. The flintlock musket, known as 
the Brown Bess, was issued to the British army as late 
as 1842. And what a hue and cry rose among the sporting 
gentry when the innovation was proposed of substituting 
caplock for flintlock! That was during the first quarter 
of 1800. At first they wouldn't have it. The flint-lock 
was good enough for their fathers, and it was good 
enough for them. But some sensible leaders among gun 
experts — Colonel Hawker was one of them — saw the ad- 
vantages of the new system, and then, slowl3\ the others 
got used to it. Then, about 185 1, came another hue and 
cry. Lang, gunmaker of London and Birmingham, placed 
on the market a breechloading shotgun using a cartridge. 
The sportsmen of the time couldn't find enough abuse for 
it. They called the principle an absurdity, the gun a 
gimcrack fit only for a dilettante, and the cartridge utter 
nonsense. Yet it was the prototype of what we of to-day 
consider perfection. It is curious, isn't it, that in each 
period of firearm development — primeval matchlock, 
wheel-lock, flintlock, caplock and cartridge breechloader — 
the people of the time considered that their arm had 
reached perfection. We of to-day. with our weapons built 
on the latest scientific principles, raised on high upon the 
mistakes, imperfections and crudities of those of our an- 
cestors, can see no radical improvement beyond. Yet we 
are not so obtuse as to believe that there will be no im- 
provement. Our grandchildren will no doubt use a very 
different weapon from ours. What it will be, none can 
foretell- Chas. Winthrop Sawyer. 
Rhode Island Notes* 
Providence, R. I., Aug. 4. — ^The farmers in many sec- 
tions of Rehoboth and Seekonk, Mass., and in East Provi- 
dence, say that they never saw the foxes so bold and plen- 
tiful as they are at the present time. They have become 
so numerous that they are a nuisance, and so bold that 
they sometimes steal chickens in broad daylight. Recently 
one farmer near Nayatt. R. I., lost 200 chickens from a 
flock of 263 in one night. 
F. S. Cole, who lives on the Blackstone Boulevard in 
this city, shot an albino blackbird Friday last. He saw the 
strange specimen from the window of his house. It was 
in an open field with a large flock, and conspicuous for 
its color, being a white specimen among 500 or more of 
crowy colors. The bird is to be mounted and an eft'ort 
will be made to obtain it for addition to the collection of 
Rhode Island birds at Roger Williams Park. 
Squiteaque are commencing to bite in goodly numbers 
in Narragansett Bay, the Warren River being an espe- 
cially good fishing ground: They are running of a larger 
size thau usual ' W. H. M. 
Pennsylvania Shooting. 
II.. " ■ / 
Depredating Hares. 
Office of the Board of Game Commissioner of Penn- 
sylvania, Harrisburg. — Editor Forest mid Stream : The 
last Legislature passed an act empowering the owners 
and lessees of real estate to kill hares or rabbits upon their 
own premises at all' times of the year. This act is in- 
tended to authorize the killing of these animals only 
where it is found necessary to kill them as a protection 
to growing crops and fruit trees, and for no other pur- 
poses. Now, as I understand it, the natural law of self- 
defense permits a man to defend his property as well as 
his person from injury of all kinds. Section 33 of the 
Game Law of 1878 (unrepealed) says, "Provided that 
nothing in this act shall prevent any person killing 
any wild animal or bird when found destroying grain or 
fruit on his or her lands." The right then existed last 
year, both by common law and by statute, to kill a rab- 
bit or any other wild animal or bird that was a menace 
to the interest of the farmer or the fruit grower, just 
as he may to-day kill a robin or catbird from his cherry 
tree. This bill was unnecessary and makes no change 
in the law of last year. 
In many sections the rabbit is a source of extensive 
food supply; especially is this so in our mining counties. 
To the poor man all over the State the rabbit means a 
nutritious, cheap meal, no matter whether he kills it or 
buys it in the market. He is prevented from securing it 
at pleasure by the game laws. The rabbit is classed as 
game, and as such belongs to the people of the State 
in their collective capacity, and not to the farmer or 
landlord upon whose premises it may be found. The 
Legislature as the representative of the people may say 
what disposition shall be made of the rabbit, or any 
other game, but it has no right, under the constitution, 
to say that the farmer or the fruit grower or land owner 
may kill game to the exclusion of the mmer, the man 
who lives in the city, or the man who is lucky enough to 
own no real estate. This, it seems to us, would be class 
legislation, and this act was intended to give no rights 
conflicting with the general game law of the State; and 
unless the rabbit be destroying the property of the man 
who kills it, it does not come within the provisions of 
this act; and no one in the State may kill a rabbit and use 
it for food except during the time allowed by said general 
<^ame law. There can be no objection to the farmer kill- 
mg a rabbit found destroying his property; but if he kills 
it for any other purpose or reason, I take it he exceeds 
the authority given by tliis bill, No. p, and is l>able to 
prosecution for violation of the provisions of the game 
law of 1897. 
Non-Resident Shooters. 
I also inclose an act requiring non-resident gunners 
to secure a license before hunting m Pennsylvania. This 
bill is not a Game Commission measure, and is of that 
kind that appears to a great many people to oe nntair 
aiS unjust,^imposing great hardship upon ""mbers of 
our people, for instance upon the man who is yisitmg 
his farmer friend or relative for a few days during the 
open season for game. . 
Especially does this law appear unjust when we con- 
sider that while the State owns the f^^'J\%.^^^^ 
farms of the State are individual property, and a license 
Iranted by the State gives no right to enter any of these 
fTrms witLut permission of the o^-er; and so a person 
possessing a license -under this act flight stfllb 
vpntpd from shooting n this State. To illustrate, otie 
;r he will recently^ signed by the Governor forbids 
hunting upon posted cultivated land without the consent 
o the ^owner, under a penalty ?l^''%^''i^'^,S^,Ts^ 
or, in default, imprisonment m jail. So that this license 
in reality gives no authority whatever to hunt or shoot 
S Sfs State Yet by the farmers, witli whom it origi- 
nated it was corildJed an absolute necessity (espeaally 
Fn th^ Uder counties) as a protection 
roads of the irresponsible gunner, ^ho as soon as the 
^ame season opens, swarms from the cities anQ larger 
fowns So"s the border shoots everytlung m sight w^th- 
,M,t Umit I'nrlndino- the farmer's stock and poultry, open 
his gn es' ea " down his fences, starts fires,, and commits 
o hfr depredations too numerous to mention swearing 
at and insulting the farmer when he dares to raise ms 
voi?e in protest^ then quickly slipping across the border 
[nto his own State, secure in the knowledge tha he is 
unknown and that even were his ^'^^tim so disposea n 
in all probability would refram f^'oi^^ P^^f .^^ S Wm- 
the consequent costs and trouble "e<^^^^\^'^^J.,f ™lSm 
Under this law non-resident gunners will /^f^i 
that thev are liable to arrest and Pumshment immediately 
upon beginning to hunt m this State unless they are in 
possession of the before-referred-to license^ Any ^^^^^^^^ 
stable or game warden can arrest without warrant upon 
J4tal to^isplay.th^aaithority.^^^^^^^^^ .^Te^n'madJ 
where the license is taken out a^ecoru 
drafted and supported by the Game Commissj^on tnat 
reached the Governor. Upon it I have ^o remarKs tp 
make, except that we look upon it a great str^e m 
the right direction, and which will greatly aid m the en 
forcement of the law. ^ , . ^ , thp Game 
For general information I desire to say that the Game 
Commfssion of Pennsylvania and t^e Fish Comm^^^^^^ 
are two entirely distinct and f^Pf ^'^.^Ji^^Jf/^^ ^^.e Fish 
inquirv relative to fish should be directed to the tish 
Comm'ission; letters on game subjects to the Game Com 
mission. If thi. is done much time will^be^ed^to 
Secretary of the Game Commission. 
[Bill 173 referred to by Secretary Kalbfus empowers 
game protectors to arrest without warrant, and to seize 
game and guns and shooting apphances.J 
All communications intended for Forest awb S*sbam should 
shvays be addressed to the Potest and Stream PubfelJWf Co.. ^4 
not to any individual connected yihh the jfaper. 
