These balls are of conical shape, like those for
the Minié rifle, and are made of soft lead.
They are rather larger than the holes;
but a ramrod fixed on a hinge under the barrel,
being brought down by a handle, on the
lever principle, forces all the balls, in rapid
succession, into the holes. The charge being
now perfectly air-tight, requires no wadding.
At the back of this cylinder, are six nipples,
for percussion caps, carefully separated
from each other; and the marksman, taking
a few caps in his hand, puts one on each of
these nipples, upon which the six-shooter
is loaded. The caps being at the back,
and not at the top of the cylinder, will not
fall off in carrying: and, both charges and caps
being watertight, experiments have proved
that they will fire after some hours'
immersion in water. The top of the hammer
itself, in a line with a little spike on the end
of the barrel, gives the sight for aiming. On
pulling back the hammer with the thumb,
after firing, the cylinder revolves one-sixth
of its circumference, instantly bringing
another hole, with its charge, in a line with
the barrel. The barrel being rifled, and the
charges in the breech air-tight, none of the
force of the powder is lost; and the balls are
carried further, and with far greater precision
than from an ordinary musket.

This is the famous Revolver, of which
marvellous tales are told in the Western States, in
South America, and even in the Caucasus.
Superstitious legends circulate, among the
Russian soldiers, of a young Lesghien chief who
held many pursuers at bay, picking them off
one by one as they attempted to cross a plank
bridge, till the wondering Muscovites, having
seen six of their number drop into the abyss
below before the fire of a single pistol, turned
and fled. More authentic stories of American
colonels in the war in Mexico, engaging
greater odds than any British sailor in a
melodrama ever ventured upon, are told by
disbanded volunteers throughout the States.
Anecdotes, calculated to propitiate the Peace
Society, appear in Californian papers,
mentioning how large parties of Indians, beholding
those irresistible peacemakers in the hands of
a handful of gold carriers, have been seen to
drop their greedy eyes, and slink away. Our
own officers at the Cape of Good Hope, who
were graciously permitted to purchase Colt's
Revolvers for their own uses with their
own money, relate their marvellous achievements,
till Her Majesty's Board of Ordnance
begin to hear of them. When British and
Russian gunboats shall have come to hand-to-
hand fighting in the narrow and shallow
channels of the Finlandic Archipelago, we
may perhaps hear of them again.

We are on the threshold of Colonel Colt's
factory, in the sombre and smoky region
of Millbank. Under the roof of this low,
brickbuilt, barrack-looking building, we are
told that we may see what cannot be seen
under one roof elsewhere in all England
—the complete manufacture of a pistol, from
dirty pieces of timber and rough bars of cast
steel, till it is fit for the gunsmith's case. To
see the same thing in Birmingham and in other
places where firearms are made almost
entirely by hand labour, we should have to
walk about a whole day, visiting many shops
carrying on distinct branches of the manufacture;
not to speak of the toolmakers, the
little screw and pin makers; all of whose
work is done here. "We are independent
people," says my informant, "and are indebted
to no one, save the engine and fixed machine
makers." This little pistol which is just put
into my hand will pick into more than two
hundred parts, every one of which parts is made
by a machine. A little skill is required in
polishing the wood, in making cases, and in
guiding the machines; but mere strength of
muscle, which is so valuable in new societies,
would find no market here—for the steam-
engine indefatigably toiling in the hot,
suffocating smell of rank oil, down in the little
stone chamber below—performs nine-tenths of
all the work that is done here. Neat, delicate-
handed, little girls do the work that brawny
smiths still do in other gun-shops. Most of them
have been sempstresses and dressmakers,
unused to factory work, but have been induced
to conquer some little prejudice against it, by
the attraction of better pay than they could
hope to get by needlework. Even the men
have, with scarcely an exception, been hitherto
ignorant of gunmaking. No recruiting
sergeant ever brought a more miscellaneous
group into the barrack-yard, to be drilled
more rapidly to the same duty, than these two
hundred hands have been. Carpenters, cabinet-
makers, ex-policemen, butchers, cabmen,
hatters, gas-fitters, porters, or, at least, one
representative from each of those trades, are
steadily drilling and boring at lathes all day
in upper rooms. Political economists tell us
that the value of labour will find its level as
surely as the sea: and so, perhaps it will:
but it is a sort of sea that does not right
itself quickly enough to prevent a great deal
of misery; that is always recognised and
deplored; but for which the best mathematicians
of the school have not yet been able to find a
remedy. For Science, with her two centuries
of pedigree, has become a little aristocratic, and
does not bend her genius down to many
incidents of individual wretchedness which
humbler folks cannot shut their eyes to.
Perhaps if men who have learnt but one
trade, and have grown old in it, could be as
easily absorbed into another, when desirable,
as these new gunsmiths are, the working world
would go more smoothly than it does. The
girls here earn from two to three shillings
per day; the boys the same. The men
get from three to eight shillings per day of
ten hours; while one or two, being quick,
clever, and reliable, are paid regularly
twelve shillings per day. What is commonly
called piece-work is not the system usually