Boys - hunting and guns

The Salem Gunsmith

A desire to shoot his increasingly among us. If a master deliberately gives his journeyman time off for hunting he is doing him a real injury, for we have seen that gradually a man grows eager for hunting and neglects his regular work, and is difficult to bring him back to orderly ways. 

Masters must not put muskets into the hands of their boys nor go hunting with them, because of evil results. August 4, 1785 - Minutes of the Salem Board.