M'arthur Democrat

Sharpe's Rifles.

A box of these celebrated "shootin tools" was on exhibition at Adams' Express office yesterday. They are certainly a very convenient weapon, and if they shoot half as certainly and powerfully as it is said, they are far more terrible than a Minnie. Indeed the Sharpe gun is a Minie, shooting the peculiar ball in which all the advantage of that celebrated weapon consists. The ball is heavy, conical, and furrowed toward the bottom with two shallow channels which are filled with beeswax. What the advantage of this arrangement is, we don't know. The gun caps itself from a little reservoir under the hammer, and a single "twist of the wrist" suffices to open the breech ready for a cartridge to be put in at once. Another motion closes the breech, "bites" the cartridge, and leaves the rifle ready to fire. Unlike a revolver, there is no chamber of charges, which, when exhausted, must be filled again before any more firing can be done, but the shooter can keep ahead as long as he has cartridges, only stopping every thirty shots or so, so as to fill his "cap" cup. It is said that a skillful man can fire twenty or thirty times a minute with it. -Ind. Jour.