RECKLESSNESS WITH RIFLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 62, 13 March 1877, Page 4

RECKLESSNESS WITH RIFLES

[sr. Y. SUN.] Two brothers named Watson have, been giving remarkable exhibitions of fqolhardinoss and skill .a Tony Pastor's 1 Theatre. They are billed as " notedi Western scouts and sharpshooters,"!

and have She look of frontierineh: They bogi(j by displaying rifles, and shoot ing bullets through blocks of wood ,to prove that the ammunition and missiles Ate genuine. On both sides ; of the .stagei .close to tbe front, thick wooden/pads are placed for the bullets to lodge in* At the begining of the display bf markmanship, one man holds au apple in his fingers, and the other shoots a ball through it from across the stage and nest the man who risked his finger becomes the shooter io repetition of the feat. Each in turn hits the bull's eye of a target ten times without a miss, the bull's eye being just above the head of the brother who holds the apple. A potato is placed on one's head and shot off by the other, the pOjtato split to pieces and the bullet entering the pad in front of which the holder stands. This feat is repeated many times the brothers changing attitudes and holding the rifles in positions- seemingly awkward enough to increase the peril. The brothers wheel quickly and shoot potatoes simultaneously off each other's heads. Yesterday one potato was barely grazed, but a second trial was successful; A candle was snuffed with a bullet; and, as a] culmination, one held a lighted cigar in his mouth ancl the other shot off the ashes, the distance b r ing the entire width of tbe stage. Tho brothers, who profess to have acquired their skill by long practice on the plains, uee bretch-loading rifles, and handle them with wonderful quickness. The younger seems to be the best marksman — at least he fires quickest after gettiug his weapon up to aim, and rarely fails to hit. The older sometimes misses.