RIFLE CLUBS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—After twenty-four years of South African life I returned to the Old Country in September, 1898. My goal is New Zealand. Target rifle-shooting should be, as you urge, a national pastime for all Englishmen, gentle or simple. With average eyes and nerves, it is easy to become "a shot" in a few scores of quiet "practices " ; but to suppose that target- shooting alone has made the fine South-African-born farmer (Dutch and English) such an adept on the veldt, is to quite miss the mark. It is generally springbuck-hunting which produces that universal bucolic marksmanship. This demands —after, perhaps, much rough riding—a rapid dismount, con- fident judgment of distance at hundreds of yards, and a steady aim "off the knee," or at best "prone," at a 12 in. mark.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN ENGLISH SOUTH AFRICAN OF FORTY-THREE.
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