Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — CHEAP GUNS. [ARTICLE]

CHEAP GUNS.

They Are os Untrustworthy as a Cheap and Nasty Watch. Things made to look like guns fire sold for as low a figure as $25, but I want no suoh “gas-pipes” at my shoulder. As the ohefip watch keeps time In a fashion, so does the cheap gun perform. It will kill birds fairly well for a time if held straight, but it will not stand continuous use, and It may contain a flaw or flaws in the barrels, which the owners of it may not detect until too late. When the cheap watch wears out and breaks no great harm can result; but when a shamdam gun concludes to spread itself it —well, that is another story! If I had a fair young son, full of promise and with a tew ounces of gray matter scattered through his intellect — if I took pride in the boy and dreamed of future Presidential candidature or high position In church or state for him—just about the last place on the Lord's earth where I’d want to see him stand would be before, behind, or alongside' of one of those infernal machines known as a cheap gun. He might load and fire it many times with no other result than a crack, n smoko, and perhaps a dead bird or animal, and he might also only fire a few times, but once too often, and go single sculling across the River Styx, in consequeneo of his-sup-posed-to-be-snne parent’s criminal folly in giving him a weapon to use which was liable to blow a head or arm or a few sections of hands off him at a most unexpected and unfavorable time.— Outing.