24 MARCH 1917, Page 16

The Ecok of the Pistol and llemlrer. By Captain Hugh

B. C. Pollard. (McBride and Nast. 10s. Cd.)—As a practical guide to the uEe of pistols this hook should find plenty of readers nowadays. Captain Pollard gives the novice many hints, and will also interest the expert with, fur instance, his account of the Fiench method of duelling practice with wax bullets. His chapters on the antiquities of the pistol, though not well written, contain much curious information. He describes, with the help of many photographs, the evolution of the weapon, through the stages of the matchlock, the wheel-leek, and the flint-lock, to the pistol fired by percussion, and the modern development of the revolver and the automatic pistoL The long wheel-lock pistol, known as a " eltagon.." from its fanciful mouth, gave its name to the Dragoons, who were originally mounted infantry. The author advances the ingenious litany that the Portuguese learnt the principle of the flint-lock from the Japantens tinder-boxes which they imported in the sixteenth century.