CRACK SHOTS 91 



probably wrongly, on the size of his bag. He, too, does not 

 perform in public. And all these sportsmen have to be left 

 out of count in such selections as the readers of Bailey have 

 made. Their verdicts, as a matter of course, have gone to 

 the men who can best deal with streams of game by means 

 of three ejector guns and a couple of loaders. It is not so 

 much a question of shooting straight as shooting straightish 

 and often. The man who kills two out of four in one unit of 

 time is better than he who kills three out of four in twice 

 the time. At the end of the day the former's bag will be the 

 bigger, he will have had more sport, and, as the late Prince 

 Duleep Singh advised his sons, " Cartridges are made to be 

 let off." 



There is good reason why the driving of all kinds of game 

 should be the most popular sport with the greatest numbers. The 

 days when the squire shot game every day in the week, and no 

 faster than he could eat it, have long ago departed ; this is not 

 because the " hunting " of a pheasant with gun and dog is not 

 as good sport as ever it was, for the pheasant is at least as inter- 

 esting to hunt to his lair before he is flushed and shot, as is the 

 hare to hunt until she can move no more. In both cases the 

 individual gives vastly more sport than when it is shot as one 

 amongst hundreds. But the "leisured class," as Americans 

 call it, are constantly finding more work to do, more that must 

 be done ; and we shall soon, like the Americans, have no leisured 

 class but the unemployed, just as they have none except the 

 telegraph-boys. That is the reason sport has to be taken in 

 junks. It does not make for a knowledge of woodcraft ; but 

 there is little woodcraft necessary in ordering the beating of 

 coverts crowded with pheasants. Then, although the single 

 driven bird may be a particularly easy shot to the shooter, 

 difficulty increases precisely in the same ratio as numbers. The 

 excellent shot who can kill 10 pheasants quickly and consecu- 

 tively cannot necessarily kill 30, much less 100, in three and 

 ten times the period. To do it, he must be in condition of the 

 best at least his arms must. There are crack shots like Lord 

 de Grey, who in his prime was in a class by himself in the butts, 



