Again, a tale is told of another gallant officer who shot five in succession, reserving the sixth for that arch-miscreant Nana Sahib; but unfortunately that sixth barrel missed fire. How many thousands of lives that shot might have saved had it been successfully fired! With all good, however, comes a certain amount of evil: no perfect weapon has ever yet been constructed; but this shows how desirable it is that a perfect revolver should be invented, if possible. There are but few manufacturers of revolvers who have reached any degree of eminence: Colt, Dean, Adams, Tranter, and Webley, comprise nearly all the distinguished men in this country. There are a multitude of second-rate makers in England, France, and Belgium; but the most celebrated makers in Europe are those I have enumerated; and in order to guide the reader as far as my knowledge will serve, I will impartially point out the advantages and defects belonging to each production. The construction of Colonel Colt’s repeating pistol is, according to his own description, a motion got by cocking the lock and rotating the cylinders; as described in the following quotation:-- “They differ from those formerly made, principally in the greater simplicity and the better proportions of the parts of the lock and the framework. Important additions and improvements have been made in the loading lever and rammer for forcing the balls firmly into the cylinder, the employment of the helical or spiral groove on the arbor on which the cylinder turns, whose sharp edges are intended to prevent fouling by scraping off any smoke or dirt accumulating in the cylinder from the lateral fire entering the centre opening, and the inclined plane leading to the recesses on the periphery of the cylinder, to direct the bolt below the opposite shoulder in the recesses; thus preventing the cylinder from being accidentally thrown too far by the sudden action of cocking. The lock is now composed of five working parts, instead of seventeen, as formerly; and it is obvious that if the several parts of the machinery are made proportionally strong for the work they have to do, so is the arm rendered more efficient by the greater simplicity of the general construction.