FOREST AND STREAM 
11 
HANDLING GUNS AND RIFLES. 
Henderson, N. C., June 15. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Although the shooting and hunting season is 
over till next fall, I want to make a few re¬ 
marks on the handling of guns and rifles; and 
this because, although this is the close season 
for game birds and animals, the season for ac¬ 
cidentally shooting people is all the year round. 
My father was born and brought up in Eng¬ 
land, coming to this country just before I was 
born, in 1849. He was rather green as a sports¬ 
man. That is, he had shot but little and was 
a poor wing shot. But he was the most careful 
man with firearms I ever saw. He gave me 
my first lessons with the gun, and one of the 
very first was never to point a gun, empty or 
loaded, at any one or anything not intended to 
be shot; and this on pain of having the gun 
taken from me if I did. 
Next, never to cock my gun till ready to shoot 
my game; and so never was my gun cocked 
when my dog pointed, but only after the birds 
rose. And this was with the muzzle-loader. 
I found I could easily cock the right barrel as 
the gun came to my shoulder, shoot, take it 
down, cock the second barrel and bag my sec¬ 
ond bird easily inside forty yards, the birds all 
rising together—partidges (quail). I have killed 
three in three separate shots when all have not 
gotten up at once, but all getting up in a very 
few seconds; the latter with breech-loader. 
Many men shoot too quickly and pound their 
birds into a pulp, not fit to pick up. 
As an instance in proof that it is not neces¬ 
sary to cock the gun before the game is up and 
off, I remember walking through a heavy piece 
of forest with plenty of undergrowth with a 
friend. We had no dog. 
I had on a big-brim straw hat. We carried 
our guns on our right shoulders, and walked 
about eight or ten feet apart. An old cock 
grouse jumped just in front of us. In quickly 
bringing down my gun it knocked my hat over 
my eyes. With my left hand I got rid of m\ 
hat, and killed the grouse easily within forty 
yards, and this with an old muzzle-loader. 
I know of a gentleman who owned a very 
pretty gun, and is a good shot; yet he had the 
factory put a screw through the safety of his 
hammerless to keep it all the time full cocked. 
He is a very careful man, yet personally I think 
even the most careful of men may trip and fall; 
or some fool touch the trigger for him acci¬ 
dentally. 
Then I notice that quite a number of big 
game shooters, in writing their experiences, tell 
of stalking the animals with cocked rifle, and 
of others who hear the baying of the dog or 
dogs, and immediately cock rifle or gun as the 
case may be. 
I think with some writer I have recently read 
of, that every man (or woman either) who de¬ 
sires to hunt, should have a license, and I think 
it might not be a bad idea to have printed 
plainly on the license a death’s head and cross 
bones, as a gentle reminder of what a gun is 
supposed to do when it goes off, even should 
it go off by accident. 
The writer referred to suggested that an ex¬ 
tract from the state law be plainly printed on 
the license. Let the death’s head and cross 
bones be added and a few questions asked and 
properly answered before the issue of license. 
ERNEST L. EWBANK. 
GUNSHOT INJURIES. 
Works on gunshot wounds have been written 
by noted English, French and German surgeons, 
but Colonel LaGarde’s book is the first of the 
kind on this side of the water. Colonel LaGarde 
has been a recognized authority for many years 
on wounds and other injuries by firearms, con¬ 
cerning which he has been a frequent contribu¬ 
tor to our literature. He has been officially 
selected a number of times in the last 22 years 
to test the different kinds of projectiles that have 
been contemplated for use in various kinds of 
military rifles, pistols, revolvers, and the adoption 
of the present armament of our foot troops is 
largely due to his labors while serving on joint 
boards with the Ordnance Department of our 
army. 
The work is written on the lines of military 
surgery as a text-book for the Army and Navy 
Medical Schools at Washington,the medical offi¬ 
cers of the National Guard, and also with a view 
to interest 'the surgeons in civil communities 
where personal combat with firearms often fur¬ 
nishes an interesting class of wounds. Civil and 
military surgeons will welcome the chapter on 
the Medico-Legal Phases of Gunshot Wounds, a 
subject which is ably dealt with and which will 
be of great assistance to medical witnesses and 
members of the legal profession in Courts of 
Law. Again, to hunters after large game the 
description of the characteristic lesions by gun¬ 
shot from various firearms, and the effectiveness 
of different kinds of bullets on game will be 
very welcome to members of the sporting world. 
The first chapter on Firearms, Explosives, Pro¬ 
jectiles and Ballistics was carefully prepared. 
The three first divisions of the chapter were 
revised by Colonel John T. Thomson, Ordnance 
Department, U. S. Army, who entirely prepared 
the last division on ballistics, so that this chap¬ 
ter, which cannot fail to interest those interested 
in the important subject of firearms, emanates 
from recognized authority. 
The book has 160 illustrations, mostly from 
photographs and Roentgen-ray prints that have 
never before been published. They illustrate the 
lesions of different kinds of projectiles from 
firearms before and after the adoption of the 
new armament, from the time of our great Civil 
War, to the Spanish-American, Anglo-Boer, 
Russo-Japanese and Turko-Balkan Wars. The 
illustrations present at a glance the severity of 
the old time wounds, the humane wounds of the 
ogival headed bullets of reduced calibers, the 
characteristic lesions from all kinds of pistols 
and revolvers so extensively used in civil life, 
and lastly the severe lesions that are caused by 
the pointed or “Spitz” bullet lately adopted by 
some of the great nations, and which figure so 
extensively in the wounds of the Turko-Balkan 
War, when this destructive bullet was used for 
the first time in great battles. 
The last chapter in the book is devoted to 
Field X-ray Machines, the importance of radio¬ 
graphy in military surgery; and the particular 
kind of machine best adapted to field work. 
The work is profusely and beautifully illus¬ 
trated by diagrams and cuts, and by half-tone 
pictures of wounds and skiagrams. Numerous 
tables are included. Extra muslin, $4.00 net. Wih 
liam Wood and Company, New York. 
HAD A RIGHT TO SHOOT RABBITS—A SUG¬ 
GESTION SUGGESTED BY A RECENT 
SUGGESTION IN THIS JOURNAL. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The letter from C. E. Brisbin, published on 
page 544 of your issue for April 25, 1914, inter¬ 
ests me. It is one of the most occult- letters 
that has appeared in any sportsman’s journal in 
many a day, and needs to be read over several 
times before the true effect will “soak in,” as 
it were, and stir the mind to a contemplation of 
the serious nature of the writer’s charge. 
Officers Bradford Gun Club. 
