S62 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov, 10, 1900. 
In Bowery Shooting Galleries* 
If any of the Forest and Stream's reader's has th-c 
notion that he is some pumpkins with a rifle and wants to 
stand by that notion, let him try his skill -in the Bowery 
shooting galleries against a Bowery expert. Somebody 
is likely to be surprised if he does it. Seventy-five feet 
will be the longest range, a ^/^-inch mark the smallest 
target. From that down to 10 feet and 5-inch bullseyes 
may be chosen, and any rules, or no rules at all, selected 
to govern the match. There will be no flimflam game — 
just plain, straightforward shooting with .22-cal. repeating 
rifles of the best and most accurate makes. The would-be 
competitor can bring his own rifle if he wishes. He will 
find that "the man from just, around the corner" is no 
mean competitor to be shot out of sight at the first 
round. 
As a rule Bowery shooting does not foot up very high 
on the target. The run of shooters are satisfied to ring 
a bell inside an inch and a half hole: at 30 feet. Some 
of them feel tha,t they are doing well enough if they hit 
any part of the ' 12-inch whitewashed disks surrounding 
the black bullseye. It is a sad commentary on the average 
skill of gallery visitors that 'th'e- inch thick board backing 
of the half-dozen metal disks has to be replaced every 
three or four months because shooters can't come within 
7 inches of the bullseye at a 30-foot range. Neverthe- 
less there ai-e men, women and boys who can and do shoot 
well in Bowery galleries, though they would not know 
the diflference between a rufi:ed grouse and a hen hawk, 
and could call a chipmunk a "funny rat." 
M »?, 
Some of the gallery shots who were trained on the 
Bowery are at this minute traveling through the country 
wearing buckskin clothes, large sombreros, silver trim- 
mings and long hair, "the true sons (or daughters) of the 
West," claiming that they were trained by none less than 
mighty Indian chieftains who had scalped their beloved 
mothers, etc. Curiously enough they make higher scores 
on the targets than do the men who shoot game, and are 
able to pass, if not unchallenegd, at least unscathed and 
with credit through the West on the strength, o£ their 
ability to shoot thrown pennies, pencils and glass balls, 
play tunes with rifle balls (.22 cal.) and do other stunts, 
though they never saw a beaver meadow, and used Bowery 
salng before the Western accent was cultivated. 
This is not to say that the Bowery Indian expert would 
not be able to hit game at rest. Some of them do get to 
shooting game after a while, and do vastly better than 
the greenhorn could. Writers on sportsmen's topics fre- 
quently say that- gallery practice is better than no prac- 
tice at all, but that the . uncertain lights of the field 
make it impossible for gallery shots to get the hang of 
real hunting for some time. To one w^ho has shot in 
balsam swamps, in old burnings, and in leaved or leave- 
less hard-wood on all sorts of days from sleety snow to- 
ward night to brightest sunshine on a clearing crust, the 
theory of uncertain lights is not apt to appepal. The 
Bowery gallery lights are sufliciently uncertain. 
There is usually a large arc light suspended between 
the shooters and the targets, 6 or 8 feet above the level 
of the rifle sights. Cheese cloth is used to keep the 
worst of the glare out of the shooters' eyes. Some feeble 
gas fights off to the sides are good enough to light, the 
sights. Added to these, in one or two of the galleries 
is a gas engine to run the moving targets, which has 
a jet.of flame varying from the size of a match blaze to 
that of a house afire, more or less, as the wheel goes 
around. That' jigger flame is more confusing than all the 
rest put together. 
There are many varieties of targets besides the plain 
whitewashed metal disks, requiring more or less skill to 
locate cr annihilate with bullets. Clay pipes, iron mice 
and birds, circus poster men and women are the chief 
stationary fancy targets, none of. them requiring ex- 
traordinary luck or skill- to hit, though it is well to re- 
member that a' shot fired at the bowl of a pipe is less 
sure than one fired at the stem just below the- bowl, be- 
cause the perpendicular stem includes a line shot hit 
which a mere bowl shot does not. The "live targets" are 
•curious to see. There are thin plaster of paris birds' 
which "fly"- across the rear of the range on a 
wabbly string; rats that run along the top of -a board and 
squirrels that climb trees; a Mexican with a huge bowie 
(nicked and perforated with bullets) • who dodges out 
from beh'nd a convenient picture tree ; facing the Mexican 
is a cowboy raising a .12-gauge revolver to shoot the 
Mexican-; hetween the two men a tiger pursues a lion in ' 
a hurdle race, arid in the foreground jig three of the 
most deceptive short-range target^; ever shot at — glass 
Ijalls on streams of "water. The dignified "long range" 
has regulation (more or less) rjng targets on which one 
may make and oresei-ve scores at 50 or 75 feet. 'Some 
spe^^imens of these are . shown. 
Evervthinpr m the gsillery that -^ill yield to a bullet is 
nerforated- The srreasv caroet on the counter is raked 
b-"- bullets; the ceiling, the sides and the floor all show the 
effects of wild shots. All the woodwork within 2. feet of a 
possiTlV marl^ is shot literally to pieces, The gallei'a' mat^ 
himself commonly has a finger or so scarred, and very like- 
ly has a little bullet or two in his anatomy (but he wouldn't 
admit it). Some galleries have the muzzles of the rifles 
chained to the counter, which prevents the customer 
pointing his gun at the .next man while watching fire 
engines go past in the -street. Where the rifles are not 
chained the attendant is seen to make some very catty 
movements, especially if the would-be shot wabbles, which 
many a shooter does. 
Because a man wabbles is no sign that he can't shoot. 
In fact the wabbliest frequenter of the galleries on the 
Bowery is one of the best shots at anything from the 
jigging fountain balls to the long range targets. He has 
the St. Vitus' dance bad. It is very natural for a stranger • 
who sees him fondling a gun to want to bet five to one 
that he couldn't hit the side of a house, till after the 
shooting. It looks like a sure win when the rifle starts 
up for the jerky shoulder by yanks and fits, but the shot 
is made th(^ instant the sights are in line. Then the gun 
goes kiting again, and the five bullet holes in a target 50 
feet away can usually be covered with a quarter, and, occa- 
sionally with a dime. 
H m. n 
Buff Rosenbaum is counted one of the best shots on 
the Bowery. He is ci^edited with putting 100 shots in a 
.^-inch circle at 50 feet without a break. A gallery man 
taught him how to hold a rifle when he was a boy, and 
ever since he has been at it. The man who loads the 
rifles is usually the best shot present, but he takes pains 
to tell the customer that 35 out of a possible 50 is pretty 
good shooting, and doesn't do any better to speak of 
when appeapled to. Still he is anxious that the shooter 
understand that better scores could probably be made by 
the shooter if he'd only practice a little. 
The gallery keepers are a class by themselves. Gordon, 
the pistol shot, keeps one place; the three O'Brien 
brothers, who do fancy rifle and pistol shooting, another ; 
Oklahoma Bill, the long-haired showman, hunter and trap- 
per, is there; Collins, noted as a gallery keeper, has a 
place among the rest, and Coney Island Dan is a way 
down Park row. Some of them have done game shooting 
and some of the attendants were pigeon shots years ago. 
All of them can tell stories, but they hear so many that 
they arc diffident about imposing their yarns on the casual 
visitor. 
"I wish I had the nerve of some that come here," one 
man remarked. "'Why, say ! If the elevated there were to 
begin to crawl I'd be able to face it with a .22. But 
they're not all nervy enough to shoot the eyes out of a 
1,200-pound grizzly. One fellow came in one night. 'Say,' 
he said, 'lemme have a gun, quick.' He grabbed one and 
put seventeen shots into the floor before I could grab 
him — thought he was shooting bugs and snakes. 
"I see some come here that are pretty good, shots. 
People from up town 'most all stop in some of the gal- 
leries — the bells outside remind 'em of fast shooting 
at the target — and try their hand for fun. Once in a while 
one of the quiet fellows says to another: 
" ' 'Tisn't like the gun I used last fall, eh?' 
" 'Hardly. Do you s'pose you'd been anywhere now if 
you'd had that little pop?' 
" 'Oh. I wouldn't be surprised — up a tree most likely.' 
Then there's a little laugh and maybe one of the women 
sort of shudders. When I hear that sort of talk I thinks 
— well, the others don't talk that way. They whoop 
around and bang all over— — . Oh, no, they ain't trying to 
shoot,, just banging around a bit for fun. Where they 
come from every shot has to count. Yoii'd be surprised 
to hear what lots of game gets killed right here on the 
Bowery. Let's see! I had seven tigers killed to-day by 
one man, and four or nine elephants, I've forgot which, 
and shiploads of deer. I told him how to work the grip. 
Another hadn't been to Afrike, but out West done a little 
shooting. Used to shoot prairie dogs while riding along 
on horseback — prairie dogs 'bout as big as one of them 
stray dogs on Madison street !" 
"Are soldiers pretty good shots?" -was asked. 
"Naw-W !" was the reply. "The poorest of the bunch, 
including sailors. See that target over there, the one 
with the 4-inch bullseye? That's the one they rig the 
bell -00 so much, and make people think they're dandies. 
They can't hit those mice up there once in five shots. They 
average .about as low as anybody comes in. Why, one 
night there was a boy come in that learned to shoot last 
spring, and there were nine or ten soldiers here — all 
sober, too — and one of them says to another : 
" 'You couldn't beat this Johnny here.' and they paid 
for Johnny's shots. Why. he beat them all at everything, 
and 3'ou could beat him and give him half the points." 
(Notice the sublety of that.) 
The gallery man, is a wanderer as a rule. He likes to 
see the length and breadth of the land, and so it happens 
that about the middle of the fall a number of shooting 
galleries are put in which last till the days of budding 
leaves, w^hen the thumoing gas engine finds its way to the 
curiosity shop junk dealers, the riddled circus posters 
and boards go into the Are and the targets and ^-inchi 
iron backing nr? iponntc4 in coverecl wngon.<;, or taken tn 
the seaside away from the hurly-burly of Bowery life. 
There are many traveling galleries on the road. They 
stop at country villages and inland cities, and the boys 
and men take shots at the novel targets at the rate of three 
shots for five cents. If there are fields, the ranges are 
increased to 50 or 100 yards. If not, 15 or 20 feet, the 
length of the wagon box, serves. The gallery box is home 
as well as living, for the men sleep in it, and dream there, 
perhaps, of the Bowery when the teSii h6rses 'i-attle their 
chains or shoes. 
« «l 
The profits of the gallery are uncertain. Just n6.W there 
is a rush of shooting which began with the first rumors 
of war and will hang on for months yet, perhaps for 
years. Talk of war means talk of guns, and talk of gun's 
brought the young and old to "brush up a little." Thou- 
sands learned to shoot r the inspiration of the 
Spanish war ; more took to learning when England set 
out after the Boers. As high as 6,000 shots a day ha\^e 
been fired in a Bowery gallery from six rifles. Clay 
pipes, glass balls and other breakables are purchased bj' 
the thousands; cartridges by the 10,000 and 20,000, and 
even then there are unf orseen rushes which require the 
use of a telephone lest cartridges run out. 
The greatest number of shots are fired by parties of 
half a dozen or so. The impulse is almost irresistible to 
many of the viptown visitors, and five or six men and 
women fire a hundred or so shots before they know it. It 
is among these shooters that the practiced eye of the 
gallery man discerns the real hunter and sportsman. 
■'I can tell a snotgun user from a man who has always 
used a rifle," a gallery man said the other day. "There 
is a difference in the way they bring 'the- rifle up — you 
use a rifle, don't you? I thought so. A shotgun man 
has to hunt for his sights and almost always shoots too 
high and too quick. And there is a difference in the way 
the riflemen go about their business. The fellows that 
kn5w all about game shooting are three times as fast as 
the target shots. They seldom center, but never throw 
a bullet wild as some of the best target shots do because 
of nervousness. It's mighty pretty to see one of those 
old hunters come in — the way he fetches up the gun is 
easy and graceful. I like to hear them talk when I 
ain't too busy. I ff 
"There are some good women shots live over east of 
here — as good as the men, but 'most of them come, from 
uptown, parties doing the Bowery and seeing Chltia- 
town. They can do some good shooting, and many a 
time I've seen a fellow wish he hadn't, after trying to 
beat the hunting girl he's been trying. to get next with by 
telling her 'bout his shooting, because she shoots. I know 
one fellow that came here for a month every night so that 
he could shoot. Then one night he fetched a party 
down, and a five spot was itt my pocket. He shot all 
around eveiybody just beautifvilly, and Avhen the girl took 
up the rifle, it meant bxisiness, I tell you, but he was as 
good as she was, and it took too. I see him once in a 
while now, and one night she said: 
" And so you taught him to shoot, did you? Well ." 
K « 
The rifles on the counters are of well-known makes. 
They would hardly be selected by squirrel hunters, though 
they do shoot -well and -yv^ould carry 200 yards on a still 
day very accurately. The barrels are anywhere from 24 
to 29 inches long — the latter are made especially for 
galleries, and have to be purchased by the dozen. They 
are a handsome gun, and the best possible for the pi-ir- 
pose. 
There are many kinds of visitors of the galleries. The 
Chinese are occasional patrons, and some of them do 
rery good shooting — far better than the average. Men 
who cannot speak Enp-lish enter the places and shoot by 
the score of times. Small boys and old men meet and 
enter into friendly competition over the rifle sights. 
Hunters who have pursued game into its most distant 
retreats vie with the local celebriety for the fun of It, and 
Avomcn of every color take their turns at the rifle butts. 
Outside the bells jingle; inside the rifles pant — none are 
free from the charm of the rifle. 
Raymond S. Spe.\rs. 
Oklahoma Bill gives this advice to gallery shooters: 
"Stand straight up, and -when shooting in a gallery never 
lay down on the counter to rest your arm, for if you 
once get into that habit it is hard to break off. Stand 
erect, and place your right foot 6 inches behind the left 
foot, with the hoUoW of the right foot opposite the left 
heel ; in taking aim, be as qtiick as possible, catch the 
sight as soon as yon can, for the longer you hold the gun 
to your shoulder trying to get better aim, the more shakey 
your nerves will get, and your eye may become watery. 
The first sight is always the best, as -shooting is nothing 
more or less than good eyesight and steady nerves. 
"To do fancy shooting with the aid of the looking-glass, 
stand with j'our back toward the target, place the rifle on 
your right shoulder so that it will balance, grasp the small 
of the stock with your right hand, the thumb on the 
trigger, place the glass in the left hand, and between the 
thtitnb and forefinger. r?st tllQ l3fi"4 the stock of 
