The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-02
THE JOY OF OWNING A GUN.
How it Thrills the Youth to Hold His First Rreech-Ioader.

How it Thrills the Youth to Hold HIS
 First Breech-Loader.
 It has to be a breech-loader now. don't know that a breech-loader imparts any thrills of possession that a muzzle- loader did not furnish thirty years ago, or that that weapon, with its powder flask, shot pouch and percussion caps, rejoiced the human heart any omre' effi- ciently than the f1int-lock did in it's day. But guns are expected to be up to the times. and nowadays the most beautiful muzzle-loader goes up on the wall. or up into the garret, or even to the junk shop, unless. indeed, its barrels are worth adjusting to a new breech. But a muzzle-loader might do for a boy to begin on. and that would be a noble service for an old gun to perform, for a boy gets out of owning gun all the joy there is in it. There are mighty few pleasures, anyway, that man can have that boy does not have on a smaller scale, but more intensely.
 Some boys are hungrier for guns than others-that is partly amatter of what there is handy to shoot-but l never knew a boy who did not want a gun, and did not delight in it when he got it. It is not because of any innate murder ousness in the boyish disposition, but merely because the gun means power, suggests the relaxation of apron strings and is an exceedingly important and in teresting-not to say oninous-piece of mechanism. Modern civilization may be said to rest upon guns. There is warrant enough for the boy to be con- cerned about them though they will in- terest him, as they do his sporting el- ders, not as a means of acquiring civli- zation, but of eluding it. If he has a gun he can go out in the fields and the woods somewhere and try to shoot something, and he will like that
 Do you think he ought not to? Do you think the inclination to kill birds ducks, bears, deer-any kind of game is barbarous and ought to be weeded out of boys and shamed out of grown ups? There is basis for that senti- ment. Indeed every good sportsman will admit that killing may be over done, and that there is a wantonness of slaughter that is brutal and hoggish.
 The man who goes after big game and kills more than he is reasonably en- titled to is not complacently regarded nowadays by his mates. The boy who kills song birds is earnestly discour- aged: and even the bagging of enor- ous quantities of tame game birds in a preserve is not considered so very much more sporty than shooting at pigeons as they fly from traps. The shooting of guides, too of which we hear so uch every fail. is justly regarded as repre- hensible. But still shooting holds out we'll as a sport, and there is no pros- pect of it's going out of fashion. The way to get cartridges, grouse, wood cock and quail inns to go out after them with gun and dog. They are worth get ting; man is fairly entitled to eat them if he can and if he gets an appetite, bet ters his health and cheers his spirit while he is getting them, it is no sin.
 As for the big gaem, it is certainly fair play to hunt big game under the rules. It means getting away from all enervating comforts, living out-of- doors, getting up before dawn, waiting, watching, enduring, working mighty hard for what you get, and coing home with redder blood in you and a spirit more equal to the labors and conflicts of life.
 Let the boy have the gun and, if pos sible. let him learn to handle it. The scuirrel that is eating the seeds out of the pears in the garden is fair game for him to start with. If he learns to shoot at the right thing in the right season, never minr if he also learns to hit what he shoots at. The boy who has learned to handle gun is the kind of a boy who knows when a gun is loaded, and does not shoot his little brother by mistake, nor get the 1oekjaw from toy pistols on the Fourth of July.-Illustrated Sport ing News.