A MILITARY RIFLE MATCH. 213 



and says : " In Ladysmith we knocked tin pots out of 

 them. We beat them by 70 or 80 points I forget 

 which " *. The secret of the Boer failure in this 

 case is easily explained. None of these men understood 

 trajectory, and the moment they attempted to shoot 

 against British soldiers who had been carefully coached 

 up in the theory of rifle-shooting, and tried to shoot 

 at ranges beyond the 150 or 200 yards which they 

 were accustomed to fire at, they failed utterly. 



One man seems to have been so astonished at the 

 results, that he thought that there must have been some 

 trick or deception in the range, and stoutly maintained 

 that if any two of the British team would undertake 

 to shoot against him on his own ground, the matter 

 would end differently. His offer was promptly accepted 

 by the Hussars, and the match came off at his place, 

 the target being a stone with a bull's eye painted on 

 it, and the ranges 430, 500, and 700 yards; and he 

 was of course again easily beaten, f 



The truth is, target shooting (as commonly practised) 

 is an entirely distinct branch of rifle-shooting, mostly 

 carried on at long range whereas game shooting is 

 almost entirely done at short ranges; if a man can 

 shoot well up to 200 yards, that is enough for sporting 

 purposes, indeed sporting weapons are seldom sighted 

 for longer distances. Consequently (we trust we shall 

 be pardoned for saying it, though we do not desire 

 to include British officers in this assertion) soldiers are 

 generally exceedingly bad shots at game ; in the United 

 States army for instance, there are (or were) many 



* Letter of Sergeant Simmons, late of the 1 4th Hussars, of January 

 9, 1894, in London Times. 



\ See letter in London Times of January 25, 1894, from Major 

 Hamilton, I4th Hussars. 



