It may row be regarded, humanly speaking, as certain that
the year 1860 will be the date of the foundation of the Volunteer Army. The Shooting Festival on Wimbledon Common, inaugurated by Queen Victoria, and designed to be the first of a series, has passed off with complete success. Her Majesty aud the Prince Consogt have gladly given encouragement to the National Rifle Assoc* tion, whose object, to use the royal language, "it is to render permanent an armed force, limited exclusively to defensive pur- poses, and founded upon voluntary exertions." If the example set at Wimbledon be imitated in the ,country there can be little doubt that the rifle will become what the bow was in the days of the Plantagenets--" the familiar weapon of those who stand forth in defence of their country." The weather has favoured the competitors ; for at last summer has arrived.
