concept
Smith \& Wesson
also: Смит и Вессон, Смита и Вессон, системы Смит и Вессон
The real American firearms manufacturer, founded 1852 in Springfield, Massachusetts; its top-break revolvers were genuinely prestigious imports in 1880s Russia. In "The Avenger" the gun-shop clerk pitches it as the fashionable choice for killing an unfaithful wife and her lover, or for suicide.
Reading notes
- The Avenger §5 Smith \& Wesson
Smith \& Wesson, founded in 1852 in Springfield, Massachusetts, was and remains a real American firearms manufacturer; its top-break revolvers were exported to Russia and enjoyed genuine prestige there in the 1880s. The clerk's sales patter -- comparing it favorably against the cheaper Lefaucheux and Tula-made guns -- reflects a real hierarchy of firearms brands and prices of the period, which is what makes his glib pitch ("we sell a dozen a day for robbers, wolves, and lovers") land as satire: it is genuine period product marketing applied, without any change of register, to domestic murder.