Some Mtmbledon fterocs 



66 7 



efforts of patriotic enthusiasts to teach the young 

 Englishman to shoot. I am only giving them a 

 hint not to make the Rifle Club too solemn an 

 tution, and suggesting the baits by which they may 

 lure the shy youngster to the butts. I should like to 

 sec rifle-shooting made a part of every boy's education. 

 It should be as essential a part of his physical training 

 as swimming. You will not make a great marksman 

 of him unless Nature has given him the necessary 

 qualifications, but you may teach him to take an 

 intelligent interest in rifle-shooting, and you may turn 

 him out a sufficiently good shot to prove dangerous to 

 an enemy in the field. It is something for a boy 

 to be able to swim well enough to save his life if he 

 be upset in a boat, even though he may never aspire 

 to the prowess of a Jarvis or a Holbein. 



I should like to see every athletic young Briton as 

 keen upon rifle-shooting as upon cricket or football. 

 I should like to see every lad as much at home with 

 a rifle in his hand as with a cricket-bat or a tennis- 

 racket. And if anyone can devise a scheme for 

 inoculating the manly youth of Britain with a passion 

 for marksmanship, I shall hail him as a national 

 benefactor. But you have got to make rifle-shooting 

 popular before you can realise that Utopian dream. 

 And it can never be popular so long as the pursuit 

 of it entails inconvenience and expense without any 

 compensating element of pleasure, excitement, or sport 



