POCKET PISTOLS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2738, 30 December 1881, Page 2

POCKET PISTOLS.

An American journal thus protests against the common practice in the States of carrying firearms:— Whether it be the climate, the ground swell of the war, or what, the propensity of the American citizen to draw his pistol at the slightest provocation sometimes with no provocation at all, is a national nuisance as well as a national crime and disgrace. A chance word, a fancied insult, an impertinent, but not dangerous, intrusion upon one’s rights, is often the signal for pulling out the pistol, and after shooting with more or less accuracy at the offender, killing or injuring innocent bystanders. In a sermon upon the President’s assassins* tion, the Rev. Robert Collyer, of New York last Sunday said: “ This is not a land of peace; it is a nation of armed men. The farmer has a revolver in his bed room, and the merest boy on the slightest provocation pulls out his pistol. Two hundred years have proved that in civil life, at least the Quaker is right. No Quaker ever shoots, and no Quaker ever is shot. There should be general disarmament, and we should guard the sale of pistols as we guard the sale of poisons. It is the brutality that comes from the possession of weapons that does the harm.” The same journal containing a report of this discourse furnished an illustration of its truth in their accounts of a gardener in the vicinity of New York who, being much annoyed by boys who were stealing his pears, drew his revolver and began firing at them. In the scuffle that ensued he missed his aim entirely, killed his daughter, and severely maimed one of bis employes who was standing near. Of what use such a weapon could possibly be to him, he has now the opportunity in the seclusion of a jail to figure out.