BERENGER, Charles Random de (1772-1845). Helps and Hints How to Protect Life and Property. With Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, London, 1835, 8vo, 10 plates, 2 of which folding, original green publisher's pebbled cloth. FIRST EDITION.

BERENGER, Charles Random de (1772-1845).  Helps and Hints How to Protect Life and Property. With Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c. London: "Published for the Proprietor, by T. Hurst, 65, St. Paul's Church-Yard, and may be had at the Stadium, Chelsea," 1835. 8vo (224 x 142mm). Half title, folding lithographed frontispiece captioned "Members of the National Club, cultivating various skilful and manly exercises, at the Stadium at Chelsea, being a British Arena for such Pursuits," wood-engraved vignette on the title of an overturned horse-drawn Hansom cab, and 9 etched and lithographed plates, one of which folding, by George and Robert Cruikshank, Henry Alken and others, illustrations (some spotting and staining to the frontispiece and the other folding plate, some very light mainly marginal spotting and staining). Original green publisher's pebbled cloth, the spine lettered in gilt, yellow endpapers (corners lightly rubbed). Provenance: From the Collection of Wilfrid Ward. FIRST EDITION of this entertaining work which, taking the form of a series of letters to the author's son Augustus, recommends "manly and defensive exercises, equestrian, chivalric and aquatic games, and skilful and amusing pastimes." Some of the captions to the illustrations set its tone: "A careless way of leaving a Banking-house", "A Footpad attempting to Fell a Gentleman from behind, but who has watched his shadow", "An officer and his Friend defeating the extorting scheme of a fashionable Tailor" and "How to overcome the Attack of two Footpads, even when unarmed yourself." A "Footpad" was a highwayman operating on foot rather than on horseback. In 1830, the author purchased Lord Cremorne's Chelsea Farm which he transformed into a kind of sporting pleasure garden. The last part of the book is a description of, and advertisement for, its many attractions, with its own title page reading, "The Stadium, or, British National Arena for Manly and Defensive Exercises, Equestrian, Chivalric, and Aquatic Games, and Skilful and Amusing Pastimes; at the Residence of the Late Lord Cremorne, on a space of Twenty-Four Acres, extending from the King's Road, Chelsea, to the Thames, and distant less than 2 1/4 miles from Piccadilly." The distinctive publisher's binding is in unusually fine and original condition. Cohn George Cruikshank 70; Riling Guns and Shooting. A Bibliography 460; Schwerdt Hunting, Hawking, Shooting II, p.125.