THE NEW PASTIME.
ITO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—This year the Working Men's Club and Institute Union at their annual carnival at the Mildmay Club in London inaugurated a new attraction. The Committee asked for the loan of a portable rifle-shooting apparatus from the Society of Working Men's Rifle Clubs. The apparatus was lent without any special terms being exacted for its use, the Society, of which Earl Roberts is president, desiring to encourage evening rifle. shooting in club halls, so that any member of a club could have the opportunity of practising with miniature ammuni- tion and become accustomed to the use of a rifle, as far as the limits of a hall would allow. The desire to carry out this experiment was, no doubt, due to the establishment shortly before of a rifle club as part of the Bradlaugh Working Men's Club in Newington Green Road. This club had been prac- tising on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons, with Sergeant Reeves, an old Guardsman, as superintendent of the shooting, and I may now give a short description of the mode of working. A long box placed at the foot of the stage contains the portable apparatus. On shooting evenings two standards are taken out, set up at the back of the stage, and tied securely to rings in the wall. They are placed 11 ft. apart, and are connected by a steel-faced top rail: other rails are fastened to the standards by brackets. A set of steel plates are now placed on one rail and lean against another with a slight tilt so as to cast the splashes on to the floor. A standard is placed at the firing end of the hall, and an endless cord passes round a wheel on this, over a pulley, up to one of the target standards, across the stage, and back again. A couple of pairs of " travellers " are connected by a simple twist to this cord, and a card target suspended to each. The setting up take s1 about ten minutes. Then the wheel on the standard at the firing end is turned, and the targets travel down the hall, running round reels at the stage into posi- tion in front of the steel butt. Then the fun begins. Brown and Jones pay down their lid. or 3d. and have four or eight cartridges put into their magazine rifles, and go through the solemnity of steady aiming and firing at stationary targets. The binocular tells pretty well what has happened, but when they have finished the wheel is reversed, the targets travel back to the firing point, and the score is ascertained without any squabble as to indifferent marking. Smith and Robinson, desirous of practising rapid firing at a moving target, now follow. One of the targets appears from one screen and travels slowly across a space of exactly 8 ft. to another screen. A Challenge Star is given for the best gross score made in eight shots on a double run of sixteen seconds per run. This means four seconds per shot, and corresponds nearly to the conditions of Lord Roberts's new prize at Bisley. It takes skilful shooting to make a good score at 1 in. bulls'-eyes and in. cartons, for artificial light, even when carefully managed, is very different from daylight. The time of sixteen seconds allowed for the target to travel 8 ft. at a range of 60 ft. (an average length of hall) corresponds to the time that any object about 600 yards off travelling at the speed of 8 miles an hour would remain in view from the firing point in the hall. The rifles used are either Marlin or Winchester Repeaters (.22 bore), the ammunition is nearly smokeless, the report is very light, and there is scarcely any fouling. This ammunition costs 10s. a thousand, so there is a good margin for meeting expenses. The rifles cost from a to £3, and the portable apparatus £12.
This kind of rifle-shooting is the necessary successor of the worn-out rifle-shooting at stationary targets, which has produced plenty of so-called marksmen, but no one who can hit a moving mark. Sergeant Reeves and his assistant had their hands full for five evenings, and notwithstanding the disadvantages attaching to the ignorance of many of the shooters, there were no accidents. The convenience of the portable arrangement is shown by the fact that one evening when it came on to rain the people flocked in and stopped the shooting while a play was performed on the stage, the apparatus standing all the time at the back of the stage. About five thousand shots were fired in the five evenings, and there were no two opinions about the advantages of the new pastime for working men. They do not knock their halls to pieces, they can fire three shots for every two they could out of Morris tubes, and they learn what they could not from single-loading rifles. It is absurd, too, to suppose that a man accustomed to shoot with one rifle will not soon become familiar with the use of other and differently worked weapons.
And now, Sir, I should like to know that all who are off for their moor or forest or other recreation would think a little about this new recreation for working men and lads. I can scarcely imagine any single matter on which a rich man could more beneficially expend his wealth, or distinguish himself as a patriotic subject of King and State. I beg to conclude by saying that Lord Roberts is president of our Society, the Dukes of Norfolk and Westminster are our trustees, and a strong represents, tire Committee is doing its best with very limited means.—I am, Sir, &c., C. E. LIIARD, [We wish General Luard all possible success in his establishment of working men's rifle clubs, and heartily endorse his appeal to the rich to help the rifle club move- ment.—En. Spectator.]
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