86 SPORT. 



"battue" system, the unpopularity of which is, I 

 believe, principally derived from its French name, that 

 this conversion of the tame bird into the wild, this 

 creation of that most delectable of all shots to those 

 who know how to handle a gun, and the most 

 impossible to those who don't, the rocketer, can 

 be effected. The rocketer is the reverse of the 

 poet — he is not born, he is made. The gun cannot 

 drive him, he must be driven to the gun. To do 

 this there must be men to drive, and it is merely 

 the combination and due arrangement of men to 

 drive, game to be driven, and guns to shoot it, 

 that constitute the battue of such evil repute and 

 the subject of such violent execration among those 

 who never saw one, and don't know what it means. 

 Here is an example of cockney censure on the 

 thing as he, according to his cockney lights, 

 assumes it to be done, combined with cockney 

 advice as to how it should be done, which, in spite 

 of its Wonderland English, terse and concentrated 

 ignorance, soaring bathos, attempted sublime and 



