Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1879 — Most Marvelous Shooting on Record. [ARTICLE]

Most Marvelous Shooting on Record.

They had been talking about the remarkable shooting of Dr. Carver, th® marksman who shootsjwith a rifle glass balls which are sent into the air as fist a? a man can throw them. Presently Abner Bying. who was sitting by, said: “That’s nothing.” “What’s nothing?” “Why, that shooting. Did yon ever know Tom Potter?” “No? “Well Potter was the best hand with a rifle I ever saw; beat this man Carver all bollow. I’ll tell you what I’ve seen this man Potter do. Yq,u know, maybe, along there in the cherry season Mrs. Putter would want to preserve some cherries; so Tom would pick ’em for her, and how do yon think he’d stotre ’em?” “I don’t know. How?” “Why, he’d fill his gun with bird shot and get a b3y to drop half a bushel of cherries at one time from the roof of the house. As they came down he’d fire and take the stones clean out of every cherry in the lot! It’s a positive fact! he might occasionally miss one, but not often. But he did bigger shooting than that when he wanted to.“ “What did he do? ' “Why, Jim Miller—did you know him?* “No?”

“Well, Tom made a bet once with him that he could shoot the buttons off of his own coat tail by aiming in the opposite direction, and Jim took him up.” “Did he do it?“ “Do it! he fixed himself in position and aimed at the tree in front of him. The ball hit the tree, caromed, hit the corner of the house, caromed, struck a lamp post, caromed and flew behind Tom and nipped the buttons off slick as a whistle. You bet he did it.* “That was fine shooting.” “Yes, but 1 ve seen Tom Potter beat it. I’ve seen him stand under a flock of wild pidgeons, billions of them coming like wind and kill ;em so fast that the front of the flock never passed a given line but turned over and fell down, so that it looked like a kind of a brown and feathery Niagara.— Tom did it with twenty-three breechloading rifles and a boy to foad ’em. He always shot with that kind ” ’’You say yoa saw him do this soit of shooting?” “Yes, sir: and better than that too. Why I’ll tell you what I’ve seen Tom Potter do. I saw him once set up an India rubber target at three hundred feet and hit the bull’s eye twenty seven times a minute with the same ball! He wonld hit the target, and the ball would bounce back right into the rifle barrel just as Tom h,ad clapped in a fresh charge of powder, and so he kept her going backwaid and forward until at last he happened to move his gun and the bullet missed the muzzle of the barrel. It was the biggest thing I ever saw; the very biggest—except one.” "What was that?”

“Why, one day I was out with him when he was practicing and it came on to rain. Tom didn’t want to get wet, and wo had no umbrella, and what do you think he did?” “What?” “Now whatdo you chink that man did to keep dry?” “I ean’t imagine." “Well, sir, he got me to load his weapons for him, and I pledge you my word, although it begun to rain harl, he hit every <.rop that came down, so that the ground for about eightjj feet around us was as dry as punk. It was beautiful, sir—beautiful? And then the company rose up slowly ana passed out one by one, each man eyeing Abner and looking solemn as he went by; and when they had gone Abner looked queerly for a moment and said to me: ‘There’s nothing I hate so much as a liar. Give me a man who is the friend of the solid truth and I’ll tie to him.”—Camden (N. J.) Democrat,

Boots and shoes for almost nothing at S. Bass’ Boot and Shoe Store.