You're right, Ted. Apparently the safety was an optional feature through the lunette period and became standard in 1910 when the lunette passed out of production.
Keeping the gun unloaded till the dogs go on point certainly seems both safe and sportsmanlike. Not sure how to manage that with a flushing cocker, though. The broader point that no mechanism can substitute for the safety between the ears is well taken. I was just talking to an older Irish friend whose mother badgered her husband into getting rid of the family double after a local idjit blew away part of his brother in law's hip jumping over a ditch with a loaded gun. The double in question remains a mystery, but my friend says it was English, had engraving, and when presented to a dealer brought an instant offer of 1000 pounds--this in the 1960s! I'd love to know what it was.
