‘TOUJOURS PERDR1X’ 3 
out of date in watching John Roberts, or any modern 
light of the billiard world, is very much ‘up to date’ 
in shooting. The shooter must stand well up to his 
gun, and it is a fact not generally known, that a 
powerful man who does this will cause a gun to shoot 
harder than a limp man who does not. 
The left hand, as we have been rightly told in the 
Badminton Library and elsewhere, should be well 
forward on the barrels ; but this is not all. It is the 
left arm, wrist and hand, which must do all the work 
of swinging and directing the gun. If you hold your 
gun as recommended in old books, the left hand on, 
or close to the trigger-guard, you will find that to 
swing it quickly you have to push from your right 
elbow, and that this will affect the whole inclination 
of your body. You will not succeed in swinging the 
gun rapidly or accurately, and you will inevitably twist 
the barrels over to the left; this is one of the most 
frequent sources of missing, and one the avoidance of 
which, though an essential point in the education of a 
trained rifle-shot, is usually lost sight of with reference 
to the shot gun. It is of the last importance that your 
gun should be Zeve/ to get acorrect aim. The left hand 
alone, with its strong forward grip of the barrel, can 
insure this result, while the bad habit of allowing the 
elbow of the right arm to be too high is distinctly 
I 
