Aug. 13, 1904.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
180 
Comparison of Riiles. 
Rome, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: Being 
something of a rifle crank myself, I read with keen 
satisfaction the article by Mr. David E. Wheeler, bear- 
ing the caption, "A Comparison of Rifles," in Forest 
and Stream of August 6. While I do not presume to 
be so well posted on the scientific points as is Mr. 
Wheeler, much of what he wrote in said article is con- 
trary to what I believe and what I have observed. With- 
out doubt Mr. Wheeler can make it plainer by more elab- 
oration of the points in 'question. 
Under the sub-head, "The Kentucky Rifle," he states 
that "The Kentucky rifle was long enough and heavy 
enough to have burned 70 grains of black powder with- 
out giving much recoil or sacrificing accuracy. There 
seems to be no reason why this should not have been 
done, and I believe it was done. If this was so, and 
Davy Crockett's rifle shot a 219-grain bullet with a 
velocity high enough to give it a flat trajectory, its 
shooting qualities would have been not unlike those of 
the .30-40-220, the Krag-Jorgensoil." 
The Kentucky rifle, as I have been taught, was a 
short range rifle as compared to modern high power 
rifles. It shot a round ball, and therefore a ball which 
had but a slight bearing surface on the bore of the 
gun. This ball, as a rule, was seated on a linen patch, 
at thejnuzzle of the rifle and forced carefully down and 
seated on the powder. The linen patch serves a double 
purpose in holding the bullet to the grooves when 
discharged from the barrels and in forming a gas- 
tight check to prevent any gas escape around the 
bullet. Those rifles had a very slow twist, about one 
turn in twenty or twenty-four inches. Still, if over- 
loaded with powder, the round ball would strip, or 
go out of the barrel as if it were a smooth bore, when 
discharged, and fly wild. I fail to see how this kind 
of rifle was the precursor of the express rifle any more 
than the old flint lock was the precursor aside from 
the fact that they were rifles. 
I have been taught to believe that the precursor of 
the express was the long bullet, which gave a greater 
weight to the projectile, a much greater bearing surface 
to the lands and grooves, and permitted of a sharper 
twist, about one turn in sixteen inches on an average. 
This gave the bullet a greater spin, a higher velocity 
with a larger powder charge, and an incomparably 
truer flight on its axis. However, there was a limita- 
tion to the powder charge with the long conical bullet, 
for even when hardened with an alloy of tin, it would 
"strip" if the propelling power was too great. 
The next advance was in encasing the bullet with 
a tough metal "jacket," of steel, nickle or copper, 
a sharper twist, and a higher velocity. The tough 
metal jacket held the bullet to the grooves, the sharp 
twist of one in ten held it to a truer axis on a much 
further flight, and the increased velocity gave a very 
flat trajectory, which is of paramount importance in 
a military rifle. Mr. Wheeler says: "Flat trajectory 
was a secondary consideration." I have always been 
led to believe that it was of the highest value in any 
kind of rifle, military or sporting, and was the desider- 
atum sought by makers and users of rifles since rifles 
came into use. 
Mr. Wheeler further states as follows: 
"The jacketed bullet was not designed from humane 
motives, for experiments on the human cadaver seemed 
to show that the full mantled bullet would have the ex- 
plosive effect we now know is only produced on the 
live subject by some form of mushrooming bullet." In this 
he is in error. The experiments with the full jacketed 
bullet proved that it had no so-called "explosive" effect 
whatever. It made a clean, small hole, though it pro- 
duced variable results at different distances. The shock 
produced by it was so insignificant that it had no stop- 
ping power. Indeed, soldiers would oftentimes con- 
tinue fighting when hit, wholly unconscious of the fact 
that they had been hit. This was such a serious detri- 
ment to the jacketed bullet of small caliber that the 
British government was constrained to use a bullet 
which was only partially jacketed, the nose being left 
uncovered slightly at the point, and which was known 
as the "Dum-Dum." This had a limited mushrooming 
quality, but was found to be inefficient. The present 
service bullet of the British is known as "Mark IV.," 
and is much the same in size and shape as the "Dum- 
Dum," excepting that it has a hollow point, which in- 
sures to a certainty that on striking it will spread wide, 
communicate a powerful shock and wound or maim 
frightfully. 
I think that Mr. Wheeler is in error concerning the 
following: "In changing to the military rifles of to- 
day, smokeless powder was used, not to increase the 
power, for charges almost equivalent to the old black 
powder loads were employed, but to prevent undue 
fouling of the small bore." 
The smokeless powder was used to obtain several 
advantages, namely, to increase the power, to insure 
greater cleanliness, and to concea' the whereabouts of 
the riflemen from. their enemies. Concealment was im- 
possible when black powder, with its immense volumes 
of heavy smoke, was used. 
The smokeless military powder is much more power- 
ful than black powder. It generates enormous press- 
ures, about sixteen tons to the square inch at the 
breech, and as a consequence the barrels are made of 
a special steel, which is strong enough to resist the 
enormous strains and stresses. Rifle manufacturers 
warn their patrons against the use of nitro powders in 
rifles designed for the use of black powder, for that 
reason. So great is the latent force of smokeless 
powder, that, in rifles of different caliber, it performs 
differently, and special kinds have to be used for dif- 
ferent calibers. 
I may be wrong in all this, but if so I would be 
pleased if Mr. Wheeler will show why I am wrong. 
Darby. 
Minnesota Penalties Not Excessive. 
We reported last week the decision of the Minnesota 
Supreme Court in the appealed case of Poole and Kerr, 
who had been convicted of having wild ducks unlawfully 
in possession. Executive Agent Sam F. Fullerton sends 
us the text of the decision, and we give here that part of 
it which has to do with the question of the reasonableness 
of the scale of penalties imposed by the statute : 
The defendants were jointly indicted by the grand jury 
of the county of Jackson for having on September 28, 
1903, in their possession two thousand wild ducks with in- 
tent to sell them. They were tried together upon the in- 
dictment in the District Court of the county of Jackson, 
and each was found guilty by the jury of having in his 
possession two thousand ducks with intent to sell the 
same. Thereupon it was adjudged, in the case of de- 
fendant _ Poole, that he pay a fine of $20,000, and that he 
be imprisoned in the county jail until the fine is paid, not 
exceeding two hundred days. The judgment in the case 
of the defendant Kerr imposed a like fine with imprison- 
ment in the county jail until the fine is paid, not exceed- 
ing three hundred days. Each of the defendants appealed 
from the judgment against him. 
I. The statute for a violation of which the defendants 
were convicted is section 45 of Ch. 336, Laws 1903, which, 
so far as here material, reads as follows : 
No person shall * * * have in possession with intent to sell 
* * * at any time any * * * wild duck of any variety. 
Whoever shall offend against any of the provisions of" this sec- 
tion shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction 
thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars, 
or more than twenty-five dollars, or by imprisonment in the county 
jail for not less than ten days nor more than thirty days for each 
and every bird so * * * had in possession with intent to 
sell. * * * 
The defendants contend that if this statute be valid, 
then under the form of the indictment in this case only a 
single misdemeanor is charged, and the maximum penalty 
cannot exceed a fine of $25 or imprisonment for thirty 
days; and further, that if the State desired or intended 
to avail itself of the penalty for each bird charged to 
have been unlawfully in the defendants' possession, the in- 
dictment should have contained a separate count for each 
bird. _ It is obvious that the indictment charges one act, 
that is the possession by the defendants at a particular 
time and place of two thousand wild ducks with intent to 
sell them. 
It necessarily follows that the indictment charges only 
one offense, and that the act constituting the offense can- 
not be subdivided and made the basis for two thousand 
indictments. The punishment, however, for a single act 
is graded by the statute according to the number of birds 
unlawfully possessed, hence the fine imposed upon the 
defendants was authorized by the statute. Is the statute, 
So construed, constitutional? The defendants insist that 
it is not for the reason that it is in conflict with section 5 
of article 1 of the State Constitution, which provides : 
"Excessive bail shall not be required ; nor shall excessive 
fines be imposed, nor shall cruel or unusual punishments 
be inflicted.'' 
Although each of the defendants was fined $20,000, the 
trial court imposed the mildest punishment the statute 
would permit for the offense of which the defendants were 
convicted. It must be admitted that the penalties fixed by 
the statute are drastic, when imposed in cases where there 
has been a wholesale violation of the law. It is, however, 
clear that the purpose of the statute is to protect the wild 
game of the State, and that if the punishment were not 
graduated according to the number of birds unlawfully 
possessed this purpose would be defeated. If the penalty 
were not graduated so that the greater the offense the 
greater the punishment, the statute would invite its own 
defeat. It would be absurd to punish the unlawful pos- 
session of two thousand or more birds on the basis of one. 
It would have been competent for the Legislature to have 
provided that the unlawful possession of each bird should 
be a distinct offense punishable by a fine of not less than 
$10 nor more than $25, or by imprisonment in the county 
jail for not less than ten nor more than thirty days. If 
such were the statute it could not be fairly claimed that . 
the fine was excessive or the imprisonment cruel or un- 
usual, although separate indictments might be found for 
each offense, and in case of convictions cumulative sen- 
tences would be legal. Now the statute in question secures,- 
the same result by treating the unlawful possession of 
wild ducks, no matter how many, as one offense, and 
graduating the punishment according to the number of 
birds; that is, the number of offenses, if the possession 
of each were declared a separate offense, thereby avoiding 
separate indictments and cumulative sentences. So, in its 
last analysis, the fines imposed in this case are seemingly 
excessive, not by reason of the statute, but by reason of 
the magnitude of the offense or of its equivalent, the num- 
ber of offenses of which the defendants were convicted. 
The fault is theirs, not that of the statute. 
This method of fitting the punishment to the crime 
by graduating the penalty according to the number of ani- 
mals, birds or fish unlawfully killed, taken or possessed, 
has been adopted by the statutes of many of our sister 
States, and sustained as a proper exercise of legislative 
discretion. In this connection the case of State vs. Lubee, 
93 Me., 418, is an instructive one. The statute under con- 
sideration in that case made it unlawful to have in pos- 
sesion any short lobsters, and fixed the fine at five dollars 
for each lobster. The value of such lobsters was from 
one to two cents, and it was urged that the statute pro- 
vided for excessive fines. The court held otherwise, and 
sustained the law for the reason that: "If the law, as 
urged by the respondent's counsel, be onerous to those 
who, like the respondent, have large numbers of small 
lobsters in their possession, it is the fault, not of the law, 
but of the infractors." 
_ The question we are considering is settled by the de- 
cision of this court in the case of State vs. Rodman and 
Cobb, 58 Minn., 393. The statute considered in that case 
was Laws 1893, Ch. 124, S. 9, which provided for the 
punishment of any person who should have in his posses- 
sion during the closed season any variety of deer by a 
fine of not less than $50 nor more than $100, or by im- 
prisonment in the county jail for not less than sixty days 
nor more than ninety days for each animal in possession. 
Such punishment is relatively quite as severe as that pro- 
vided in the statute here in question. One of the defend- 
ants in that case was charged with having in his posses- 
sion parts of fifty-eight deer, the maximum punishment 
for which as provided by the statute was a fine of $5,800 
or imprisonment in the county jail for some sixteen years. 
It was, however, held that the statute was not a violation 
of the mandate of the constitution prohibiting the imposi- 
tion of excessive fines or the infliction of cruel or unusual 
punishments. The basis of the decision was that graduat- 
ing the penalty according to the number of animals un- 
lawfully possessed was in legal effect the same as making 
the unlawful possession of each animal a separate offense, 
so that the greater the offense committed the greater the 
punishment would be. We are unable to distinguish in 
principle this case from the one referred to, and following 
that case, we hold that the statute under which the de- 
fendants were convicted is not unconstitutional because it 
provides for the imposition of excessive fines and the in- 
fliction of cruel or unusual punishments. 
Squirrel Barking. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have been an interested reader of the discussion anent 
the_ barking of, squirrels, and trust I may" be pardoned for 
saying a few words on the subject after the editorial ver- 
dict in favor of the defendants has been pronounced. I 
know that squirrels can be barked with a rifle, for I have 
done the trick myself. I do not know whether they could 
be barked with a revolver or not, but imagine they could 
not; at least with revolvers like some of those I have 
used, which, owing to imperfect barrels, gave the bullets 
fired from them little or no rotary motion, which, in my 
opinion, is just the thing needed in this barking business. 
The fact that the squirrel which was shot through the 
body by Mr. Kelly with a .44 caliber revolver was not 
cut in two, or at least killed, is pretty good evidence that 
the bullet had little or no rotary motion, and that this re- 
volver was an unsuitable weapon with which to demon- 
strate the possibility or the impossibility of barking squir- 
rels. Mr. Kelly seems to be a candid, conservative man, 
and I think his statement of facts which have come under 
his personal observation should be accepted as truth, just 
as we accept as truth the statement of facts by Audubon. 
A. D. McCandless makes one of his friends say that 
"Marksmanship is a thing of the past, ' because all fixed 
ammuntion is overloaded." I do not agree with this' 
opinion. It is true that it was not necessary to exercise 
the care in holding the old-time heavy rifle with its light 
charge that is necessary with modern rifles and heavy 
charges. It made no difference with the flight of the 
bullet whether the old rifle was rested on hard or soft 
substances, whether the rest was at the muzzle, mid-way 
of the barrel, or at the breech, whether the rifle was held 
loosely or tightly in the hands of the shooter, or whether 
the position of the hands on the rifle were the same for 
each shot, simply because there was no recoil. With the 
comparatively light rifles and heavy charges of the present 
day, it is different. To insure greatest possible accuracy 
with the modern arm, it is necessary that the holding be 
uniform for each shot. A short chapter from my own 
experience will- illustrate the point which I wish to make 
clear. 
I began shooting at the long ranges — 800, 900, and 1,000 
