As the law provides no effectual remedy or punishment for such rascality, I now, in order to lessen it as much as possible, mark every gun leaving my manufactory with a “_private mark_” in addition to its number; and on reference to me, giving a description of the gun purchased “and its number,” information will be returned of the private mark, which will stamp the article as real or spurious. If the gun has no number reference is useless, as I number every gun that I send out, and the want is certain proof that it is a forgery. But with a view to lessen the evil as much as can be, I may here say that the best double gun, with case complete, that I can make will be freely given to any individual who will produce evidence which will enable me to expose all parties concerned in such nefarious dealing, and justify me in holding them up to public reprobation: which will be done as certainly as proof can be adduced. There are ample fields of commerce in gunnery yet to be developed, were articles produced suitable for use, not for show or deception. Inferiority of manufacture combined with deception is the worst course ever adopted by any community. If Birmingham would repudiate such a course, and refuse to make worthless articles, attending more to quality than cheapness, the gun trade would be more prosperous than it ever has been. Time is rapidly realising the recommendations I have put forth of the great benefit to be obtained, not only in steam boilers, but various other mechanical constructions, by the use of higher qualities of metals. We have now even “steel ships” as well as steel guns, giving double the strength, with half the weight; and if all manufacturers of high class machines adopted the same principles, an immense saving would be effected in the long run, from the absence of repairs alone, in addition to the greater durability of the machine. There ought to be no accidents from the breaking of railway carriage axles: such an occurrence as the breaking of an axle is an everlasting disgrace; for axles could be constructed that no known “fair application” of strain could possibly break. A simple combination of steel and iron faggoted in segments, as before described, and rolled hollow, would enable axles to last double the time of those at present in use: 40,000 miles travelling is stated to be the maximum distance an axle can be safely trusted; the destruction being mainly due to the heating in the journals, or to galvanic action changing the fibrous iron into crystalline in the immediate vicinity of the bearing. Axles constructed of different metals, as steel and iron in conjunction, would not be so affected; and might be rendered still less likely to be so by a small hollow in the centre of the axle. But this is a digression; though I may be pardoned for it, in consideration of the importance of the subject. [Illustration: _PLATE. II._ DAMASCUS BARRELED GUN FANCY STEEL BARRELED GUN]