The Modern Pistol and How to Shoot It

CHAPTER LIV

A shelter to shoot from under in wet or windy weather has the disadvantage of the noise from the shooting when full charges are shot, as is invariably the case in England.

A corrugated roof gives a terrible echo. It is better to stand in the rain and wind rather than be deafened.

Six hits in four seconds is the best I know of with a revolver when shooting at life size figures taken one after the other at distances varying from about fifteen to thirty yards.

This can be beaten with an automatic pistol. With an automatic pistol it is a matter of finding the right speed to swing across the figures.

A good open air pistol range can be made behind a rifle butt.

Behind the big butt for a thousand yards’ rifle shooting makes a very big butt for twenty-five yards’ automatic pistol shooting and allows for swinging and moving targets on an ample scale.

In an open air range great care must be taken to be very strict as to rules of safety.

There becomes a tendency to walk down to the butt to examine a target without first giving warning; to walk about with some cartridges still in the pistol, etc.

Things which would not be done in an indoor range seem to come natural to some men when in an out-of-doors range.

Targets that can smash are the best. Plaster heads are much better to shoot at in rapid firing than to try and hit the six heads of wooden targets.

In the former case you see the débris of the smash as you pull the trigger and do not pause in your swing to the next target.

If there is no smash to the shot but only a bullet hole, one is apt to hesitate after each shot to look for the bullet hole.

It looks so much better and gives such a satisfactory feeling to instantly see the result of your shot.

A row of plates or bottles placed at various distances and smashed one after the other very rapidly is much more of an encouragement than, after having fired without visible result, to be told ten minutes later that you have made all hits.

There are small rubber balloons manufactured in France which can be filled with water.

The balloons when empty pack in very little space. A small pump is sold with them, it can be regulated to deliver a pre-arranged quantity of water into each balloon, and then a twist at the neck of the balloon closes it.

If the water is coloured with Condy’s Fluid a hit looks very conspicuous and pretty when the balloon bursts on being struck.

Have them thrown up to shoot at. Great care must be taken that the bullets go where they can do no harm.

A full charge automatic pistol should not be used for this—a duelling pistol, having a smooth bore barrel, and shooting No. 8 shot is good practice and can be shot where shooting a bullet would be dangerous. I have killed 44 out of 80 live pigeons in this way.

It is dangerous to shoot bullets at hard substances. To shoot at a stone thrown up, a ginger beer, or a soda water bottle, may cause very dangerous ricochets.

CHAPTER LV

This unique hero takes an even longer aim, later. He hears a horse galloping towards him and aims for ten minutes at a point two inches above where he expected the horse’s head to appear round a rock. I suppose he aimed two inches high so as to allow for the fatigue to his arm during the ten minutes’ aim, causing it to slightly sag down.

I expect the next novel I read, the hero, knowing his enemy will arrive in a month’s time, will keep an aim well above the railway station till he arrives.

Evidently the idea is the longer the aim the more accurate it is, forgetting that human muscles and eyesight tire, and that fast moving objects cannot be hit with a stationary aim.

I have known a stag turn and go the opposite direction whilst a man was aiming at a tree he expected it to pass.

It is amusing how, in a play, the hero after he has made the villain desist by pointing a revolver at him, contemptuously throws the revolver on the sofa and walks away.

It never occurs to the author of the play, or the actor, that the villain would instantly seize hold of the pistol and turn the tables on the hero.

After the hero has covered the villain with the pistol and has been applauded the “situation is over” so he throws away the revolver or puts it back in his pocket and there the incident ends.

In one play the hero gives a loaded .44 revolver as a keepsake to a small child.

This sort of thing is merely ridiculous and does no harm.

But harm is done if an actor through ignorance shoots another actor.

I have twice seen such an accident on the stage. Once a man blinded another in both eyes, and in the second case in one eye, by firing blank ammunition right into the other’s face at a few feet distance.

Men have been killed, one only a short time ago, by having the wad of blank ammunition shot into them. In one case the gun had several wads crimped hard into the shell so as to make a good loud bang when fired.

One man in this play was supposed to come across his enemy, and as the latter fled, to shoot him. The actor, who I believe said he had never shot a gun before, put the muzzle against the other man’s back when he fired and killed him.

He had been told that it was blank ammunition and he thought it could do no harm. This is the cause of all such accidents. Being blank ammunition it is considered to be harmless.

Old ladies are laughed at when they scream and hold their ears when a man begins to “brandish” a revolver on the stage or poke about with a gun, with his finger on the trigger. But the old ladies are quite right to be alarmed.

There is no knowing what may happen when a man ignorant of firearms, has one in his hands, even if it only has blank ammunition.

A very favourite attitude with actors is to bang the butt of their rifle on the ground and then put both hands over the muzzle, but in this case if the rifle “explodes,” it is only their own hands that they injure.

For the safety of others this is the best thing they can do, before someone else gets hurt.

Before being allowed to fire blank ammunition on the stage, a man should be properly instructed in the safe handling of firearms.

Shooting blank ammunition on the stage is always a risky job. People are so huddled up, that it is difficult to appear to shoot at a man without shooting close enough to him to injure him.

If the gun is fired over the man’s head, it may set the flies on fire, burn the eyes of someone in a grand tier box, or the limelight man.

It is a case of “save me from my friends” when a writer who is ignorant of shooting matters tries to extol someone’s marksmanship.

We read “the anti-aircraft guns at once began to bellow forth defiance. The shooting was wonderful and it was only the hardest luck that they did not wing an enemy.”

As the number of shots is not mentioned and the element of luck introduced, it is not possible to analyse this shooting, but another writer is clearer. He says “he got within fifty yards, well within point blank range, and fired 117 shots and the enemy was then observed to be leaning forward, so it was apparent that he had been winged.”

Now here we have all the facts necessary to work out a simple rule of three problem.

As 117 shots are to one shot, so is fifty yards to X (the distance the adversary must be off to enable him to be winged, with a single shot).

This makes X equal 15.381 inches.

As to kill is about three times as difficult as to wing, divide by three, this gives 5.127 inches as the longest range at which it is possible to kill a man with a single shot, “which is absurd.” Q.E.D.

Another novel writer made use of one of my books very effectively to describe the duel, with all details correct, except that he made the distance between the duellists five yards, and they missed each other twice at this distance!

Allowing for each duellist three feet from where he stands to the end of the muzzle of his pistol they would have only three yards between the muzzles of their pistols. The writer must have either been unacquainted with French metric measures (I gave twenty-five meters as the duelling distance) or else he confused it with a sword duel.

CHAPTER LVI

Now these very men who found the normal stocks too small did not have abnormally large hands. It was that they held their pistols with much too rigid a grip.

Some men have special stocks made so that they “can get a firm grip.”

Some of them even go to the length of putting India rubber tennis racket grips over the pistol stocks. I have tried shooting one of their pistols so ornamented (?) and found it was like trying to shoot with a big potato held in my fist.

Others, in order to obtain this “firm grip,” smear the stock of their pistol over with wet modelling clay, take a grip of it and then have a plaster cast made of their finger prints in this clay and get a stock cast from this. When they hold this monstrosity with their fingers embedded in it, they claim to have a perfect hold.

The idea they are working for is an entirely wrong one. The pistol should be held as a fencing foil, lying in the palm of the hand. Because the left hand gets burnt when many shots are fired in rapid succession from a rifle or gun, a hand guard was invented which slips over to the fore end of the gun and protects the left hand from contact with the hot barrels.

It was also claimed that, having to hold this guard made the shooter always hold his hand in the same place, and that this was a great advantage.

The rigid grip on a fixed spot is, as a matter of fact, a disadvantage. It caused me to give up this hand guard and substitute an asbestos glove for the left hand.

In game shooting with a rifle, or gun, one shifts the left hand constantly, according to the angle of the rifle or gun to your shoulder. For a high shot the left hand is thrust forward, for a low shot the hand drawn back.

To sit down and shoot off the knees, the left hand is much further back on the rifle than if you stand up to shoot off hand.

If you find yourself shooting under, you shift the left hand forward for the next shot so as to shoot higher.

You cannot do all these niceties (which make all the difference between first class shooting, and merely good shooting) if your left hand is tied to one place. The same applies to pistol shooting.

The pistol should not be held in a “firm grip” as these inventors of potato-shaped stocks imagine.

A fencer does not keep a “firm grip,” nor does a shotgun man.

All have their weapons lying in the palms of the hands loosely and easily, the grip of the foil is only tightened momentarily for parrying or thrusting and the game shot handles a rifle or shotgun as lightly as a woman nursing a baby.

A pistol stock which has all the fingers embedded in it stops all wrist play. It may answer for a long aim at a stationery target but for any rapid shooting it is impossible.

How can a man draw and shoot in one movement if he has to fit his fingers first into each hollow excavated in the stock? He might as well try to pull on a glove each time before he draws his pistol.

If he gets the hold the least wrong he will miss and probably also get his hand cut.

How can a man cock or slip on the safety bolt if he first has to take his thumb out of the “dug out” in which it has taken refuge? He will most likely fumble the whole thing and drop the pistol.

Very many pistol inventions are the result of a man who, shooting for the first time, discovers difficulties merely due to his own clumsiness and inexperience, and instead of consulting a pistol shot, invents something to overcome these imaginary difficulties.

I have actually seen such an inventor shooting in a competition with an iron rod up his sleeve attached to his pistol “to keep his arm steady.”

An inventor came to me with something he said would stop all runaway horses, and was very angry with me because I would not try it on one of mine, although I told him mine were properly broken horses, not runaways.

The invention consisted of two India rubber bags which, un-inflated, were to be put inside the nostrils of the horse.

If there was any difficulty in stopping the horse, a pair of bellows was worked, attached to a rubber tube connecting these bags to the driver.

This inflated the bags, and the horse, according to the inventor, “at once comes to a standstill.”

I told the inventor that a horse thus choked would throw himself about, and cause a fearful smash before he died. He probably thought, “what lack of imagination” horsemen have.

A wooden or vulcanite stock with a small clean-cut file pattern so as to give a non-slip hold is good.

A too small grip has the fault of driving the nails into the ball of the thumb; it should be just thick enough to avoid this, any thicker would be clumsy.

An ivory stock is heavy, but this may be an advantage if there is weight needed in the stock to counterbalance the barrel, otherwise ivory gives a good grip, if roughed.

The depth of the roughing depends on the tenderness of the hand of the shooter.

A roughing which would make one man’s hand sore is hardly enough of a non-slip hold for a man whose skin is harder.

Sometimes screw heads and pins are not quite flush with the stock and may chafe the hand.

They and any roughness left on screw heads by the unskilful use of the screw driver should be filed down smooth.

A sore hand which gets hurt at each shot is very detrimental to good shooting and the shooter is constantly trying to get a fresh grip in order to save his hand.

Automatic pistols have almost universally a projection over the hand between the thumb and the trigger finger for the slide to work on.

This turns the stock into a “saw handle” which used to be common on English duelling pistols.

I have tried such a stock with very good results on a revolver, but it is in the way of one-handed cocking.

An objection to a “saw handle” is that it compels the grip to be always taken in the same place, and as I said before, the grip should be movable higher or lower, according as you find you are shooting too low or too high.

A little rosin ground fine and rubbed on the stock and hand gives a good non-slip grip if the stock is greasy or slippery.

Do not shoot with gloves on. It destroys the sensitiveness of the hand, especially the trigger finger. I am always afraid of being shot by accident when a man shooting next me wears gloves, especially the slippery so-called “chamois skin” ones.

CHAPTER LVII

A steel skullcap fitting down to the eyebrows with a rod some four inches long projecting from the top is employed to hold the ball, the steel skullcap concealed under a wig with low fringe of hair to cover the forehead. This is worn by a woman assistant, her high piled up head serving to hide the rod.

There are several other reasons for employing a woman assistant instead of a man.

It looks so much more effective to shoot things off a woman’s head or fingers; and she can wear long gloves in evening dress without exciting suspicion that she has steel gauntlets concealed under them.

When well arranged, the ball, two inches in diameter, and the aim taken to graze the top of the ball, a miss must be fully eight inches too low to do any damage to the assistant when she wears a steel skullcap down to her eyebrows under her wig of piled up hair.

Some do not even risk that, but, by an arrangement of a steel plate connected with a lever below it, and the whole hidden behind the “back cloth,” the shot is fired at the plate a foot higher than the assistant’s head; this plate forces the bottom of the lever, armed with a spike, forward. The spike breaks the ball and immediately returns out of sight through the “back cloth.”

Some natural object is painted on the scene over this hidden target for the shooter to aim at.

I give below a few exhibition shoots, ranging from real shooting, through “assisted” shooting down to “trick” shooting, and simple conjuring tricks.

The reader, if asked to shoot for a charity bazaar or to amuse people at a village fête, can choose from this list, according to the rigidity or elasticity of his conscience “in the cause of charity.” And charity covers a multitude of sins.

It is curious how one never can tell what will be a success with the public.

A really difficult feat fails to impress the audience and a simple easy shot “brings down the house.” What must be constantly borne in mind is that you must never make a bad shot, that spoils the whole thing.

You can cover up your mistakes sometimes.

If you hit the ace of hearts, have it handed round to the audience and go on to the next item. If a shot is encored do not repeat, go on with your programme.

To do something well and then, trying to repeat it, to make a miss, is a fatal mistake.

If your first shot at the ace of hearts just misses the heart by a shade, this does not matter.

Keep on shooting and make a good group “all cutting into one hole” and hand it round to the audience, thus covering up the traces of the bad first shot.

Stop shooting as soon as the hole cuts well into the pip. If you try one shot too many and get it clear of the “all shots into one hole” then you have made a fearful blunder—a three shot group is ample.

Never attempt anything which you are not able to do easily. To make a lot of easy shots without a mistake is far preferable than to try difficult shots with one or two failures.

If you can trust your nerve it is as well to keep the most difficult shot to the last, so as not to have an anticlimax. As a climax (if your conscience will permit you), give one or two “assisted” shots, so as to end brilliantly.

Always practise on the actual stage and with the same lighting as you will have to shoot under, when giving the exhibition.

If you do not do this you may find the light different, or so bad that you will not be able to do yourself justice.

A stage open to the sky, is, on a calm day, best of all, but there is the risk of a wind springing up. Always shoot on a stage elevated above the spectators so that all can see, and have the sun at your back.

On an open air stage you can finish as follows:

Have an old-fashioned .44 Winchester, black powder, repeating rifle. These can still be picked up at second-hand gunmakers’ shops.

Get cartridges for it loaded with No. 10 shot.

Have a lot of the rubber balls filled with water.

It looks most effective if the water is of various colours for alternate balls.

Get an assistant to throw them straight up as high as he possibly can, and break them in succession.

With practice you can break them as fast as he can possibly throw them.

The higher and straighter up he throws them the easier they are to break and yet the more effective they look.

The stop butt should be an iron box with a back sloping downwards, away from you, at an angle of forty-five degrees, deflecting the bullets into a tray full of sand.

Some “numbers” for the programme (range fifteen feet) I give below.

Put a playing-card up edgewise horizontally and cut it in half.

Be sure the background is such that you can see the white edge of the card against it.

If you get your elevation just right, the card will be cut.

Use a .44 calibre bullet in all shooting, as that gives you more leeway in case you are a little wrong in your elevation.

This is the most difficult shot of all and should not be repeated.

The same shot with the card vertical.

This is slightly easier, as one is less apt to miss horizontally than vertically.

The “assistance” in this shot is to have the card as much out of dead edge on to you, as the audience will stand without detecting it.

Unless a spectator is absolutely behind the shooter and looking over his right shoulder he cannot see if the card is not absolutely dead edge on.

The duffer’s way of doing this shot is to fire dust shot instead of a bullet.

Hitting the ace of hearts I have already described.

To hit several pips on one card is very difficult. It takes really good shooting even at the five yards’ range to hit the six pips in succession on the six hearts.

Also this cannot be “assisted” in any way unless you fluke one pip when shooting at another with the .22 Colt target automatic pistol (or see Plate 4). When the “gallery ammunition” automatic pistol is invented air filled rubber balls can be put in a row and broken in quick succession. In “assisted” shooting they are made of dark rubber with a minute white bull’s-eye painted on each, and the balls stand in recesses in a screen of the same colour as themselves, so that all but the white spot is invisible.

To the uninitiated it looks as if it is the minute white bull’s-eyes which are hit.

If the air balls are large, the shooting is very easy. If shot is used instead of bullets any one can do this trick but the balls must be far enough apart to avoid breaking two or more balls at one shot.

To snuff a candle if the wick is aimed at requires quick shooting as more than a momentary aim at the wick dazzles the eyes.

It is better to put the candle in a candlestick and cut the candle to a predetermined length, and have the pistol sighted to shoot that much too high.

The aim is then taken at the bottom of the candle in order that the bullet hits the wick, and therefore there is no glare in the eyes from the flame.

The “assisted” way of doing this shot is to have a pair of bellows with nozzle curved at right angles, the side of the bellows towards you made of steel, the nozzle pointed at the candle wick, behind the candle, of course concealed so that when the background is struck the bellows blow the candle out.

I give a number of other shots and other information on exhibition shooting in my Art of Revolver Shooting to which I refer the reader if interested in such shooting.

A most sensational looking shot is a purely “assisted” one.

It is to break two air balls simultaneously with a pistol in each hand. The balls are placed some two inches apart. One pistol is loaded with dust shot, the other with blank ammunition, or even, if the shot charge makes a lot of noise and smoke, the second pistol need not be loaded at all.

Holding the pistol loaded with shot in the right hand, the other in the left hand, aiming between the balls with the one loaded with shot and holding the other alongside it, pull both triggers together, breaking both balls with the pistol loaded with shot.

Tunes are played on a target so arranged that hitting plates either makes the plates ring, or else the plates drive back and strike bells.

These plates are large so as to be easily hit, but the exhibition is “assisted” by small bull’s-eyes on each plate and the audience think these latter are alone hit.

The tunes are usually played with several “pump” repeating .22 rifles, the rifles being changed at each pause in a bar in the tune that the band plays.

Winchester .22 Automatic rifles are better, though I have never seen a professional use them. The automatic needs only trigger pressure and turns and quick runs can be played with it.

When the gallery charge, automatic pistol arrives, it will be possible to use it in the same way for playing tunes. The clips can be dropped out and a fresh one inserted when the tune gives a pause of a bar, care being taken not to fire the last shot, but let it carry on the first cartridge of the new clip, as I have explained earlier.

The plates should be so arranged as to show the “black notes” like a piano does, otherwise it is difficult to play tunes having sharps, flats or accidentals, if all the notes look alike.

I saw a “bandmaster” (?) at a village horse-show overcome this difficulty of his drum and fife band by allowing the “band” to ignore the black notes and to substitute naturals for all sharps and flats; the effect was very fine and greatly applauded!

CHAPTER LVIII

I have had several painful grazes on the arm from these bullets going up my sleeve and I also shot out a piece of skin between the forefinger and thumb of the pistol hand of my opponent the first time I fired one of them.

PLATE 17. SHIELD ON DUELLING PISTOL
WITH GUARD FOR DEVILLIERS BULLET

He fired a shade sooner than I and was lowering his pistol when my bullet struck his hand, the skin being stretched tight on the stock of his pistol, the bullet cut a semicircular notch out of his hand.

Since then a thin steel shield is fixed on the pistol just in front of the trigger guard so that the hand is entirely protected when aiming (see Plate 17). I patented similar shield on a soldier’s rifle to protect his usually exposed left hand, and also to partially protect his head, when shooting.

Do not shoot at any one at a shorter range than twenty metres (twenty-one yards two feet); the blow from the bullet at twenty metres is not too severe if the shooter is properly protected.

It is useless for practice to shoot at a longer range than twenty metres as the bullet rapidly loses its accuracy beyond that distance.

Wear goggles fitted in a fencing mask, the goggles of thick strong pebble glass or of triplex safety glass (which is lighter).

The fencing mask fitted with heavy goggles is very cumbersome. I think an aviator’s cap and triplex glass goggles is ample protection except that the throat must also be well protected by a thick leather stock as strong as a saddle flap.

A blow on the throat may do serious damage.

I had a bullet come through a too thin leather stock and hit my throat.

I do not think the body need be protected except by a piece of leather low over the abdomen and this can be worn under the trousers.

It is as well to wear old clothes or a thin black blouse as the bullets leave greasy marks.

The object of having the blouse black is that the bullet marks should be more easily seen by the umpire, and scored.

Wear as tight fitting things as you can as long as your right arm is free, it gives your opponent a smaller target to score on. If he hits some flapping part of your blouse it scores him a hit even if it did not touch your body.

In shooting in a competition it may be as well to stand sideways so as to give the opponent as small a target as possible, but in a real duel standing sideways increases the risk of being killed if struck. Always have a doctor present, as a wound from this bullet may be septic if not properly dressed at once.

In a real duel a bullet, if the chest is hit when facing the adversary, only goes through one lung, whereas if the man struck is standing sideways the bullet will pierce both his lungs and so make recovery from the wound much more doubtful.

In winter be very careful that the bullets do not freeze, if frozen they penetrate deeply.

The bullets are loaded into the special cartridges as follows:

The cartridge must not contain any powder.

The bullet must not be squeezed into the cartridge, this would distort it as it is soft.

The bullet must be very lightly inserted in the cartridge.

Open the pistol, keeping the muzzle elevated, insert the cartridge in the breech, lower the muzzle, put on the cap and close the pistol.

The inventor recommends that only the special cartridges of his invention be used, these have no cap but only a nipple, and you do not put the cap on till the cartridge is in the breech of the pistol.

Competitions take place with this bullet as in an actual duel, the shooting is in pairs until only one competitor remains, the one of each pair who hits his opponent first is the winner of that pair.

The bullets hit too hard for it to be an amusement suitable for ladies.

Great care must be taken to be sure to shoot Devilliers bullets and not lead bullets, by mistake.

They are useful for galloping practice on horseback, shooting at an air balloon fixed to posts, where lead bullets would be dangerous to use.

The cartridges can be reloaded and used many times.

When the cartridge has been fired there may be difficulty in removing the exploded cap. A wire pushed into the cap through the mouth of the cartridge dislodges the cap, but care must be taken that the cap is an exploded one.

These bullets are very apt to ricochet from walls so spectators must take care.

A canvas sheet hung loosely behind each shooter is the best stop-butt, as it gives to the blow of the bullet and stops ricochets. A bullet once fired is too distorted to use again.

CHAPTER LIX

Load both barrels of the shotgun and be ready to fire the second barrel instantly if the horse does not collapse at once at the first shot.

The head shot at a few yards off is the place to shoot a cat or dog with the shotgun but do not attempt to shoot them with a pistol unless you are a good shot, able to shoot into the ace of hearts at five yards’ distance, aim at the top of the head, or you may break the jaw instead of killing the animal.

People have sometimes been wrongly prosecuted and convicted for torturing a dog when they were trying to kill it instantly and painlessly, but lacked the skill and nerve.

When an animal is in pain, especially if it is crying out and struggling, a man is very apt to lose his nerve and be unable to kill it properly, but will strike wildly.

In killing an animal, in order to do it as painlessly as possible, it is necessary to treat the matter quite calmly and in what looks to be a cold-blooded manner, and to know the vital spots.

Decide the exact spot to shoot at, heart or brain, and hit it in that exact spot and be ready to repeat the shot, if the animal is not instantly dead.

With a horse I find it is best to put some hay or grass down in front of it, and when it puts its head down, with its forehead vertical, it gives a good chance to shoot. There is no use trying to pull the horse’s head into position and get struggling with it. To shoot a horse, do not use a pistol of smaller calibre than .44 with full charge.

If properly done the horse feels no pain.

If several horses have to be shot, do not let them see each other shot, or see the dead bodies or smell them.

A shotgun cannot be used in a crowd, nor for that matter can a pistol.

As soon as a horse is injured everyone runs up to enjoy the sight and they crowd round, so great care must be taken not to shoot until the people are cleared away from the line of fire.

If possible get the horse into a yard with a high wall round it before shooting and be sure boys are not perched on the wall.

I saw a man kill a small dog instantly as soon as it was run over by a motor car by picking it up and dislocating its neck by stretching, like wounded hares and rabbits are killed.

But this requires great skill, knack, and nerve.

Otherwise not only would the dog be further tortured but he would bite.

Nobody can understand his fellow creatures or be judged by them. Each human being from birth to death is absolutely alone, everyone is misunderstood as to his motives and thoughts, he is as separated from others, even when in a crowd, as if the Atlantic Ocean were between them.

He is praised for what does not deserve praise, and blamed for what he is not guilty of.

He cannot understand why another finds pleasure in what he himself hates.

One man likes to get soaking wet crawling all day to shoot a stag, which another thinks is folly, as a stag already shot, can so much easier and cheaper be bought at the poulterer’s shop.

I cannot understand the pleasure of sitting up all night playing cards, smoking and drinking, when it is much more comfortable to be sleeping in bed; another man thinks cards, drink, and gambling Heaven on earth.

To give an instance of how one’s motives can be misunderstood:

A poor old worn-out white horse, after struggling on slippery cobble-stones to pull a cart load of stones, fell and could not get up again.

An eager crowd at once collected watching the owner thrashing the horse over the head and kicking it.

The horse was struggling desperately to rise and kept falling and groaning and was bleeding at the mouth where the man was kicking it.

I rushed up to remonstrate. A man, a stranger to me, called out “I can’t stand this, let us buy the horse between us.”

The owner of the horse made us pay much more than the horse was worth.

We got a vet. who said the horse was so injured that it must be killed, so he killed it.

Next day a paragraph appeared in the local paper.