Hythe School of Musketry, and we are glad to find that a number of Volunteers have undergone the musketry drill there with exemplary patience. Nine-tenths of the Volunteers are, however, perfectly guiltless of having gone through this preliminary instruction, and we cannot therefore expect that until they do, any large number of first-rate marksmen will issue from their ranks. But we want a large number of good shots rather than a few very first-rate ones, and somehow or other this we must have. The Volunteer Rifleman has entered upon a new exercise in which he cannot afford to take a second rank. He must be with his rifle what his forefathers were with the long-bow, and the only manner in which he can accomplish this is to make rifle-shooting as scientific a pastime throughout the land as cricket.
Every village and hamlet must have its butts as of old, and village must compete with village. Thus trained, our annual gathering on Wimbledon Common will soon set in the shade the Tir Fédéral of the Helvetian Republic. The one great quality necessary to form a rifleman, is eminently an English quality—steadiness. Strength is another quality, almost as indispensable. The weak-armed man has little chance, for his muscles will tremble before he can take deliberate aim. Look at the Swiss rifleman, his chest and arms are models of capacity and power, and we do not think that in these particulars we have to fear even the mountaineers. It is thought by some that our familiarity with the fowling-piece ought to give us a decided advantage over every other nation; but the experience of the Government School at Hythe appears to be altogether adverse to this notion. The best rifle shots declare that the mere sportsman has in fact a great deal to forget before he can handle the rifle properly; that the kind of instinctive aim taken at a flying bird is a very different thing from the deliberate aim required for target shooting, and that the best riflemen are invariably found among persons who had never previously fired a shot. That this dictum requires some little modification, however, will, we believe, be proved by the recent competition at Wimbledon Common, for to our own knowledge, some of the largest scores have been made by keen sportsmen. The opening of our first National Rifle Match, on July 2nd, by her Majesty, gave even the used-up sight seer quite a sensation. He witnessed something of which his former experience afforded him no inkling. It was neither a Derby Day, nor a Review Day, nor a Fair-day, and yet in a measure it partook of all three. The wide-extending heath almost prepared him for the Grand Stand, and the innumerable persons in uniform led him to expect a sham light. The line of streamers and flags of all nations, and the town of booths running right and left, seemed as though the old fair had been revived for his delectation. But what was the meaning of the long range of earthworks far away on the other side of the Common? Of the hundred thousand people who lined the vast enclosure, in carriages and on foot, possibly not a thousand persons could, of their own personal knowledge, have given an answer. That they were butts indeed they knew, but Englishmen must go back some three or four hundred years in order to associate such appliances with any national pastime; and, therefore, their appearance seemed in some measure to revive old times, and to link that vast multitude with old days that are long, long gone.
But whilst we look into the grey distance, and gather from the size of the target, six feet square, but not apparently larger than a sheet of note-paper, what a thousand yards’ range really is, there is a motion in the gay marquee on our right, the royal flag is run up, and shortly Her Majesty and Prince Albert are seen proceeding down the planked road which leads to the little pavilion. Here for upwards of an hour Mr. Whitworth, with the most nervous solicitude, has been laying a rifle on a rest, specially constructed for the occasion. But the sod is soddened, and the delicate instrument is constantly sinking with its own weight, and has to be continually re-adjusted. As Her Majesty approaches, however, all is prepared; and almost before the ringing cheer with which she is received has died away, she has fired the rifle, and hit the bull’s eye, and that only one inch above the two lines which bisect each other in the very centre—on the vertical line itself, and but one inch only above the horizontal one! Thus Her Majesty opened the proceedings by scoring three, the highest number that could be obtained at a single shot. Now along the whole line the firing commenced from little tents situated exactly opposite their respective targets; but, as might have been expected, the first day’s firing was not very satisfactory, and many a rifleman, the pride of his own local butt, found that in the flurry of the scene he had lost his usual cunning, and loud were the complaints we heard that the five shots—the regulation allowance to each gun—were not sufficient to bring out the real stuff in a man. But with the morning air of the second day shaken nerves were restored again, and Englishmen were not found to be behind the picked shots of Switzerland. It is certainly rather unfortunate that the latter should have failed to have rescued their rifles from the French Custom House authorities; but as they well knew that they could only shoot for some of the prizes with rifles not above ten pounds in weight, they have little to complain of, we apprehend.
The establishment of an open target at which all comers can fire without any restriction, is a very lucky hit; and is, in our opinion, well calculated to elicit some very good shots from the crowd. Englishmen have a certain individuality which is likely to display itself in rifle-shooting, as much as in other things, and a little “undress” shooting is sure to be very popular. As far as we have yet seen, the National Rifle Shooting Association has inaugurated among us a new sport, which will, we believe, rapidly take root, and place us in the foremost ranks as marksmen. It is a good sign when a nation takes to an exercise as a matter of sport, which it may be called upon to perform in grave earnest; and as long as we know how to snap the rifle, truly we may snap our fingers at the gentlemen across the water.
A. W.
