1875 book: How to Use the Pistol for Defence

[FishyOne]

The attached book was e-mailed to me and I thought I'd share it here. It's a pdf file of almost 2MB. Part of the e-mail description follows:

"This is one of those little “Gems” one finds when perusing quaint, little out-of-the-way bookstores in equally small & quaint little towns. Many years ago, I discovered this little “gem” tucked away on a back shelf, its pages, while intact, had all been “rubber-banded” together with the cover(s).

Published by an anonymous author through “The Industrial Publishing Company” of New York, NY; in 1875; this little book speaks “volumes” about the art of self-defense with a pistol - amazingly enough, most of what the author says herein is very much duplicated in today’s self-defense books and magazine articles! When you read through these pages; assuming you know anything about the subject of lethal force and self-defense with a pistol, you quickly learn that over 137 years ago, not too much, other than technological advances in gun manufacturing techniques, etc; has changed.

An amazing book in that as you read through it, you’ll continually find yourself saying to yourself “Hey, that’s what my instructor used to tell me...!”

Enclosed in the back you’ll find some interesting Appendixes listed, as well."

[Martya]

The preface alone is worth the time to read. It should be stapled on the foreheads of every progressive liberal 'anti'.

Looking forward to reading it - I'll send it to my Kindle.

Nice find!

[TACC1]

Thanks for sharing! Now, with a day off looming up, I'll
have a good read. TACC1

[RSWMTB]

Very cool...


Thanks for sharing.



R

[Lost Lake]

Page 35, regarding proper care of your firearm "We always use oil, preferring good sperm for all ordinary occasions"

Is the author referring to whale oil??? Didn't we have regular oil in the late 1800's?

What a time to be alive. Things were changing so fast....

[pff]

Whale oil was still the preferred lubricant for fine mechanisms at that time.

Its only been recently that a synthetic sperm oil became available for certain applications where nothing else worked.

And thanks to the OP for the book!

Regards,

Pat

[Bat Guano]

I found a reference to that book sometime around 1980 in Ray Riling's firearms bibliography. From everything I could find it was the first book written on the subjecy in the US. Managed to borrow a copy via interlibrary loan, and read it. I was sufficiently impressed to send a copy off to Jeff Cooper via a friend. The word back was that it was a good read and deserving of a reprint.

Nothing further happened for years until I contacted Paladin Press who immediately expressed interest. They found a scannable copy to use and at my suggestion contacted Jeff Cooper to do a foreword. The book was republished about eight years ago. Don't know if it still available or not.

I used my "finders' fee" to finance a new 1911, which seemed to be appropriate.

Interesting to note that common sense was afoot in the land back then.