Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1878-09-04
A MAGICAL MARKSxAN.
How Dir. Carver. .Astonished Philsdel.
Philadelphia Times.

Until DR.. w. +. Carver, the magical
western marksman, has match with
Bogardus the title Of the best shot in
the world belongs to two men. Carver
shoots either with rife or shotgun,
while the reputation Of the champion
pigeon shooter rests mostly upon his
performances with shotgun. AS the
negotiations now stand there is no inn
mediate prospect Of their coming to-
gether, and while matters are pending
Carver, giving exhibitions Of his skill,
has paid Philadelphia visit. Yester-
day afternoon he shot at Sanger Park,
in the presence of about five hundred
people, and in every particular he ver;-
fed the fame that came before him.
Glass balls, cents, a knife blade, peanuts,
apples, silver three-cent pieces, bits OF
wood and tin, everything that would be
hard for marksman to hit, were thrown
into the air and the unerring aim rarely
failed. 1t was about three o'clock when
the Doctor drove up in an elegantly APP
pointed clarence, and took his place be-
side a small table on which his guns
were placed. He stands six feet two
inches in height, is broad of shoulder,
trim in figure, has fine head, out Of
which shine bright, gray eyes, and over
which falls a mass of long hair. He
wore black frock coat over a rich,
black velvet hunting shirt, dark trous-
ers and Mexican sombrero jauntiy
over his right ear. His hands were
clad in undressed kids and his breast
was covered with gold medals, out of
some ofwhich diamonds sparkled. They
were the trophies of his skill.
A barrel Of glass balls stood about
twenty feet from him and lie shouted
"toss them up" boy began to throw
the globes in the air. Bang, bang, bang
went the rifle almost as fast as one could
say the word, and the fragments of the
flying targets came tumbling down. The
Doctor shot with Winchester rifle charg-
ed with sixteen cartridges, and OF the six
teen balls thrown he missed but one.
The sun shone fairly in his face, and of
of the next sixteen shots four went as
tray, when the marksman shifted his
position little and sixteen of the glass
globes fell broken under sixteen shots.
At this there was much applause, and
Carver, bowling, said: "Throw them
up quick, quick as you can" The balls
which are about the size ola door-knob,
went up as fast as a man could throw
them. The first ten we've broken, then
he missed two, fourteen fell in pieces
and he missed one, and so on until one
hundred were up. Eighty-nine Of the
hundred were broken. two of these were
miss-fires and one bad throw, so that
the score in the one hundred might have
been ninety-two. The distance was
about 10 yards. Somebody threw up a
lead pencil and called out ''hit it," The
Doctor was standing with his face half
turned away from the little piece of CO.
dar. Quicker than thought he laced
about, brought his piece to his shoulder,
and the rifle caught the pencil and sent
it flying into pieces. He did not APP
pear to take aim at all. In fact, in all
his shooting he brings the piece to his
shoulder and fires instantaneously.
for himself, he says that when
he takes deliberate aim he has time
to think of the possibility of missing,
and then he never hits.
Having fired away about two hundred
and fifty cartridges with his Winchester
rifle the Doctor took up a shotgun and
the ball-thrower moved away to a dis
lance of sixteen yards and threw two
balls, rs quickly as possible, one after
the other, from Carver. Two sharp re-
ports, so close together as to sound al
most as one shot, followed, and the fly
ing targets fell in pieces. The distance
to where the balls were struck was
fully forty yards. The feat was re-
peated dozen times without a miss.
"Shoot this" called out some one, as
the Doctor took up his rifle. 1t was a
quarter thrown in air whirling over and
over, twenty yards from the rifle man.
Just as it began to fall the ball reached
it, cutting the edge. "Throw something
else A three-cent piece went up out
of the crowd. The bullet demolished it
quite. Then silver pieces and pennies
went up in every direction and thu
marksman, laughing and chatting the
while, hit fifteen and missed one. Then
an assistant went twenty yards from
the Doctor and threw glass balls fair at
his head. Every sportsman knows there
is more difficult feat than to shoot a bird
on the wing coming towards the gun,
but out of eight balls thrown in nine sec
onds the Doctor, with the rife, broke
eight. Just to the right of where he
stood is Il tall tree, the upper branches
of which have lost their foliage. On the
topmost twig, however, dead leaf
hung fluttering in the wind. Bring
that down." said some one. The man
who snnl,n hnl harnly rccornrod ftonn