EDITOR'S CORNER. 



YANKEE GUNNERS. 



No patriotic American can read the re- 

 ports from Matanzas and Manila without 

 feeling proud of the men who stood behind 

 the guns. The skill of these men is little 

 short of phenomenal. It has proven a sur- 

 prise to the whole civilized world. Amer- 

 icans are a nation of riflemen, and have 

 been ever since the pilgrims landed at 

 Plymouth Rock. In the early days of the 

 nation we were riflemen from necessity, 

 and a large percentage of our people still 

 are. Those of us who have not found it 

 necessary to kill our meat in the woods 

 have inherited more or less of the love of 

 gunpowder from our ancestors and this in- 

 nate skill in the use of small arms has 

 proven of inestimable value to our artil- 

 lerymen, both on land and at sea. 



Uncle Sam has always been liberal with 

 his soldiers and seamen, in the matter of 

 ammunition. The allowance to the navy, 

 for target practice, is especially liberal and 

 the men have strict orders to expend all 

 the ammunition issued to them each month. 

 The world has known little of this practice, 

 heretofore, but it now develops that every 

 gunner in the white squadron has, for years 

 past, been diligently and scientifically 

 trained for active service. This training 

 has been mainly on the high seas, where no 

 one save the officers and men of the fleet 

 has seen or heard it. Now it becomes 

 known that these naval gunners have been 

 doing wonderful shooting, almost every 

 day, for the past 10 years. 



And not only have these men been thus 

 trained, but those in the land fortifications, 

 as well. Mr. Wilmot Townsend, who lives 

 at Bay Ridge, L. I., tells me he has spent 

 many hours, during the past year, watch- 

 ing the target practice of the men sta- 

 tioned at Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth, 

 in New York Harbor. To watch the great 

 13 inch disappearing guns rise up, make 

 their bow over the ramparts, belch forth a 

 cloud of smoke and retire from view, is 

 deeply interesting. One has then ample 

 time to train his glass on the target 

 anchored 7^/2 miles away, off Coney Island, 

 before the projectile reaches it. A large 

 percentage of these shots are hits and so 

 accurate is the fire that not one in 20 would 

 miss a battleship. 



Another friend tells me he saw an old 

 sloop set adrift, 2 miles from Sandy Hook, 

 and that a gunner in the fort put 5 succes- 

 sive shots through it, at a distance of 2 

 miles. 



When we think of such deadly skill as 

 this, on the part of our men, we cease to 

 wonder that the forts at Matanzas crum- 

 bled, and that the Spanish ships took fire 

 or sunk, under the deadly aim of Sampson's 

 and Dewey's men. 



A great deal of interest is being man- 

 ifested in Recreation's rifle tournament. 

 A large number of entries have been made 

 and some good targets have been sent in. 

 It may be well to state, once more, that it 

 is not obligatory upon contestants to shoot 

 exactly 3 scores each month, or to send in 3 

 targets. I have simply provided that they 

 may do so. They may shoot as many 

 scores each month as they like, and may 

 send in 3 of their best targets, if they see 

 fit to do so. The object of the tournament 

 is to bring out the greatest possibilities of 

 the 22 calibre rifle and ammunition, at the 

 100 yards range. Contestants who enter 

 now, or even a month later, may win if they 

 do as good shooting as those who began 

 earlier. A man who starts even on the 1st 

 of September, may, if he does better work 

 than those who have been practising all 

 summer, win the first prize. It is hoped, 

 therefore, that no one will hesitate to enter 

 because he may not have known of the 

 tournament in time to start when it opened. 

 Every rifleman who desires to compete for 

 these prizes should go to work, and when 

 he thinks he has done his best, let him send 

 in 3 of his best targets and the judges will, 

 do the rest. 



The poetic tribute to admiral Dewey and 

 his men, printed on page 25 of this issue 

 of Recreation will take its place in litera- 

 ture as one of the grandest examples of 

 heroic verse ever written. In loftiness of 

 sentiment, in didactic purity, in fierceness 

 of expression, in vivid and picturesque por- 

 trayal of action it is equal to Tennyson's 

 " Charge of the Light Brigade " ; to Read's 

 " Sheridan's Ride" ; to Whittier's " Barbara 

 Fritchie " or to any other poem in the Eng- 

 lish language. 



" Dewey at Manilla " is the production 

 of Mr. H. Nelson, a man heretofore, but 

 not hereafter, unknown to fame. He wrote 

 this grand poem while lying in bed, a great 

 sufferer from a disease of long standing; 

 but the world will bless him for his noble 

 tribute, and recited from the rostrum his 

 lines will thrill hundreds of thousands of 

 souls yet unborn. 



Some of th,e Good Stories in August 

 Recreation are: 



"The Pacific Coast Cougar," by J. M. 

 Baltimore; "At Reelfoot Lake," H. M. 

 Brown; "A Buckboard Tour," Hon. B. 

 B. Brooks; "George; A Trout Idyl," 

 Jane Marlin; "A Three Cornered Fight 

 with a Grizzly," Wm. Jackson, etc. There 

 will be full page drawings by Carl Rungius 

 and Bert Cassady, poems by " Archer," 

 Richard Perry, G. W. Stevens and others. 

 The Departments will be chuck full of good 

 things, as usual. 



73 



