STRAY RIFLE BULLETS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 284, 21 March 1877, Page 4

STRAY RIFLE BULLETS.

The following remarks by the i\ttt Mmtl Gazette on stray ntfe bullets may nut be inappropriate in this Cotony : A letter in the Time* of November 9 mentions an inquest recently held upon o,u errand-boy in Manchester. The boy fell down dead suddenly on Saturday nigtit, November 4, anil the surgeon who made the pont-mot'tan examination t>f the fcotly reported that death had been caused by a bullet wliich had entered the skull exactly at the top. and a tittle to the left of tile centre. The bullet, which t: i e iritnefl» had extracted, antt whiclv he produced in court, had been rendered shapeless by contact wif.li the boats of the deceased's skull. Nevertheless, the Government mark was discernible upon it, from -which the witness cncluited that it had been shot into 1 the air from a Snider rUle, and, after describing a curve, had stmdc the deceased in failing to the ground. The rifle probably belonged to some VOhmteer; but whoever had fired the bullet must, the- witness thought, have been a considerable distance from the scene of the accident. The jury very property found a vertdet of " Manslaughter against some person unknown and the writer adds that in very large towns we have now a number of men armed wirt* Snider riff* 8> the tstrtmiw ra."".ge of which cannot be less than 1300 to 1400 yards, and it is not a pleasant ntkwtiou that ■when walking quietly in the streets one may be struck dead any day by a ball fired in the air by a thoughtless or ignorant volunteer a quarter or half a mile vtt. The writer then proceeds to point out that a tialli discharged into the air "at a convenient angle," and at a maximum height of 50© yards, will, when it again descends to the level of the rifle's muzzle, have a downward velocity exactly equal tt» the upward velocity of a I all of the lame weight shot perpendicularly up with force enough to enable it to reach a height of 500 yards. No doubt it is well that Volunteers should learn the exact velocity of their descending bullets, it will be sufficient if they lay to heart a more general observation of the writer, and " take note ©f the fact that whenever they discharge their rifles into* the air the bait falls to the ground somewhere," and that if that ** somewhere " happens to be the spot ors which a fellow-creature is steading he will be killed.