The Modern Pistol and How to Shoot It

CHAPTER XXVII

This is the ideal state of mind, the control of one’s temper all should have, and nothing trains for this like pistol shooting.

In the prone position with a rifle a man may be agitated but his brain still enables him to shoot well, but when standing up and having to depend on the muscles and nerves of his right hand and arm alone, self-control is all he has to rely on.

Self-control becomes second nature to a pistol-shot. Control of the temper and nerves is greatly hindered in cases where nicotine, alcohol, or other drugs are used. These drugs do not give the nerves and brain a fair chance.

Loss of temper is considered proper and a sign of authority by some, and loss of temper has even (most profanely) been considered by some as an attribute of their deities.

Formerly masters of hounds, if the Field did anything wrong, flew into an ungovernable rage and used disgusting language.

Nothing can be done properly when a man is in this state of mental unbalance, and many a fox has owed his life to the huntsman having lost his temper with his Field or his horse.

I am told certain games are very trying to the temper. Golf, for instance, has even led to the reprimand of a churchwarden by the committee of his golf club for using profane language.

I have seen very amiable people sit down to play bridge and after they have played for half an hour they exhibited the most vile tempers.

A pupil and coach after working hard all one morning decided to take a little relaxation in a game of croquet. The pupil lost his temper and hit the tutor with his mallet.

A prize fighter was in the habit of—in doubtful taste (to use a mild euphemism)—taunting his opponent during his fights in order to make him lose his temper and consequently his judgment.

These unpardonable tactics do not, however, always succeed. A man may feel angry without losing self-control. In fact “cold anger” braces up a man and his nerves become as iron and he becomes as implacable as Fate.

Some are extremely nervous and shy. They can shoot very well when by themselves, but if others are present they cannot do themselves justice, and they cannot shoot well in a competition. They are too flabby.

Nervous men should always have people present when practising, and vary their audiences as often as possible, so that they will not get “stage fright.”

The fault of others is extreme irritability. They shoot well till something annoying happens, a shot unexpectedly fired near them, a jamb of the pistol, the wind blowing the target down, or other trivial matters which do not trouble any one else.

This, however, starts them fuming and swearing (an oath is a sure sign of want of self-control). Everything that happens, the most trivial thing, adds to their énervement, as the French call it.

Their nerves get all in a jangle and they cannot shoot. Tobacco is often found to be the cause of the above state of mind. It takes a mere nothing to get a heavy smoker unbalanced.

The worst form of nerves, and almost impossible to overcome, is that when a man fancies people are “slighting” or “insulting” him.

He begins by shooting well and is in a good temper. Someone unfortunately makes a perfectly innocent remark or does something which seems quite innocuous to others.

But the man at once changes his manner, thinks he has been “purposely insulted” or “hampered,” but he says nothing. The man who flies out at others is easier to manage, as you know what he complains of. But this man nurses his wrong and broods over it without letting any one know his grievance. He sulks, frowns, does not answer when spoken to, and his shooting goes to pieces, and he ruins the pleasure of the others. After all we are shooting for mutual pleasure and sport.

There is the flabby man who can win when he has it all his own way, but cannot make an effort when tackled. He is what is called a “rogue,” not in the offensive sense but in racing language.

The man who surprises others is the quiet easy-going good-natured man who never wishes to hurt or annoy any one, but only wishes to be left in peace.

This is the Eastern or Russian temperament: “Nichevo” (never mind); “Sechas” (presently).

Some men get into the bad habit of saying what they imagine are “smart” things, but which are really impertinent and hurt others’ feelings.

This becomes such a habit with them that they do not notice that they are getting themselves hated as much as if they went about flicking people over the shins with a whip.

Some writers of plays which are supposed to be full of wit make their characters do nothing but say unkind things to each other. This is not wit but stupid, callous cowardice, which could not occur in countries where duelling is allowed.

To resume, the good-natured man who is not understood, whose good nature is mistaken for softness, sometimes surprises people.

His opponent, either because he is one of the sort who say “smart” things, or because he is losing his temper, says something which at last wakes up the good-natured man. The latter says nothing, does not change his expression of good nature. He merely begins to shoot like a machine, his arm rises like a steel rod, each shot goes into the middle of the bull’s-eye, there is no hesitation, dwelling on the aim, or doubtful bull’s-eye.

He has, in becoming angry, pulled himself together, his whole mind is concentrated on one sole object, making the best score and beating his insulter, and he shoots the best score of his life. To compete against him is like competing against Fate.

After such an incident, I saw a beaten competitor go up to the winner, and congratulate him.

He added, “I thought I had you beaten that time.” The other answered, “So you had, if you had not insulted me.”

If you make a man “see red” whilst still keeping his temper, that is the most dangerous man in the world to tackle. Sir Henry Irving portrayed this when acting in the Corsican Brothers. I have never seen another actor succeed in doing so.

In order not to hamper your adversary in a competition, it is of the utmost importance to study every one of your words and acts. What does not worry one man may entirely put another off his shooting. Moving about whilst he is shooting, leaving the firing point as he is firing, is enough to put him off his shot, and should be strictly avoided.

It is best to keep well away from him and only go up for your shot and not address a word to him or speak to any one within his hearing, until he beats you, then be the first to congratulate him.

CHAPTER XXVIII

If others would not drink with him, he had the utmost contempt for them. Called them “milksops,” “drinkers of slops,” “unsociable,” and “too proud.”

I always refused to go out shooting with such people. Besides being very dangerous, they never would do anything but drink. Sport was a mere excuse for going out “on the drink.” Every occasion was made the excuse for a drink. With such people drink was the great event of the day, and if a stag was shot, there was a ceremony to be gone through of everyone drinking whiskey neat to “more blood.”

At lunch, after an interminable time spent in drinking—they eat little—the forester who had been fidgeting to get off, would come up at last and timidly say, “I’m thinking the sooner we go the best, I am seeing a verra heavy beast in yon corrie, with the glass.”

The “sportsman” would answer, “Is there? open the other bottle of champagne and help yourself, it won’t hurt you, there is not a headache in a dozen bottles.”

Drink used to pose as the twin brother and boon companion of sport.

In these days drink is known as the sportsman’s deadliest enemy.

I consider even minute medicinal doses of alcohol are deleterious to shooting, entirely apart from drunkenness. Admiral Jellicoe, speaking at Gibraltar in 1911, quoted with approval a statement of Captain Ogilvy, the noted gunnery instructor, to the effect that carefully compiled statistics revealed the fact that the shooting efficiency of the men was thirty per cent. better before than after the issue of the grog ration ... one eighth of a pint of rum liberally diluted with water.

In Bavaria the Minister of War carried out tests as to the effect of alcohol on marksmanship during twenty days on twenty marksmen (shortly before the war), 80,000 shots were fired, and the trial showed according to the report of Professor D. R. Kraeplin, that the consumption of forty grammes of alcohol, corresponding to the amount contained in one and three quarters pints of beer, made an average reduction in marksmanship of three per cent. The effect was most perceptible twenty-five to thirty minutes after absorbing the alcohol.

Most of the marksmen shot even worse, some of them from eight to twelve per cent. worse.

The Professor continues: “An amusing feature of the tests was that some of the riflemen insisted not only that they could, but actually were shooting better after drinking the spirits, whilst in reality their marksmanship had fallen off as much as ten per cent.”

The late Sir Victor Horsley permitted me to quote the following from one of his lectures.

These facts bear out in every particular my own observations in watching others.

I find they are not so active in their movements, especially if they have to turn round suddenly to shoot, but at the same time they had more confidence in their ability to shoot.

Who has not seen (to go to the extreme case) when a large dose of alcohol has been swallowed and a man is “under the influence of liquor” that the “patient” is ready to fight all comers, although he cannot stand on his legs.

As Professor Kraeplin says, “the subject experimented on cannot judge—he thinks alcohol makes him shoot better although the actual facts are the other way about.”

At the Olympic Games which take place each four years, the members of the United States Rifle and Revolver Teams which compete are water-drinkers and non-smokers, and they are practically unbeaten to date.

Major Smith W. Brookhart of the Ordnance Department, United States National Guard, writing in Arms and the Man, May 4, 1918, says: “Civilization has advanced so much in the past decade, that it is now almost superfluous to write a caution against the use of stimulants. Every rifleman will admit that alcohol is an enemy. Total abstinence, bone dry, is the only safe rule. Tobacco or any other stimulants should also be avoided. They may not be so fatal as alcohol, but they all tend in the wrong direction. The man who wants to climb into the championship class and stay there must be a normal man. The proper attitude of mind will give every man more pleasure in conquering a habit than in submitting to it. To win over the smoking habit is an achievement of which to be proud and it improves the scores.”

Those who make a moderate use of alcohol and tobacco are gradually reduced as to the quantity they use some weeks or even months before the actual Games, until all the members of the teams are non-smokers and water-drinkers.

There is this to be said of the smoker, as long as you do not try to prevent his stifling you with his smoke he does not pester you to imitate his example like a drinker does.

He merely pityingly informs you that “you do not know what you have missed.”

As the “joy” missed consists of chronic sore throat, palpitating heart, and shaky nerves, I cannot see that much is missed by the non-smoker.

The invariable answer to the question “what pleasure do you find in smoking” is “it soothes the nerves.”

Healthy normal nerves need no soothing.

When an automatic function of the body is normal and healthy, it does not indicate its presence.

A man does not feel his heart when it is healthy, only when it is diseased.

In the same way a man who has not injured his nerves by nicotine or alcohol does not know that he has any nerves, but on the other hand, nerves being destroyed by narcotics fight back, and make their agony known.

A man would fight against his headache being “soothed” by being clubbed over the head.

As well might one say a man half insensible from concussion needs “soothing” by being knocked completely out. If this soothing of the nerves is persisted in, a man sinks lower mentally than an animal.

A man in the last stage of nicotine poisoning, when told by his doctor, “you must either give up smoking or you will die” answered “then I prefer to die.”

What a glorious death! How true the dictum of Sir Oliver Lodge that the supreme outcome of 500,000 years of effort by the Universe has been, man!

The following appeared in the Daily Mail of September 25, 1917. It shows how men risk not only their own lives but hundreds of other lives rather than give up smoking. What a blessing if Dr. Furlong’s suggestion of nicotine tablets is adopted.

We non-smokers will no longer have to walk the streets, eat our meals, sit in theatres, and travel in railway trains breathing an atmosphere of tobacco, and burnt paper smoke.

The smoker does not see the selfishness of his behaviour. He looks on the non-smoker as selfish if he protests against being nauseated.

The nicotine tablets will enable the taker to poison himself without also poisoning others.

CHAPTER XXIX

A man practising with an automatic, unless he is very enthusiastic, soon gets tired of the labour and the time it takes to keep it in working order.

I shot with an automatic which had been at the front in the war over two years. It shot extremely well, the owner having taken great care of it during all its rough experiences, but it constantly failed to completely close.

It did not actually jam, but what came to the same thing, it occasionally did not quite close and could not be fired unless it had been closed by hand.

This shows that in the actual work of war there is a tendency for an automatic pistol to become weak in the closing spring, and there ought to be some simple device for increasing the tension of the spring, when necessary.

There may have been some such device on the pistol in question, which its owner and I did not discover.

To really know your automatic pistol, it is best to have a few hours with a gunmaker, taking it to pieces, and learning the use of each part, and how to correct any failure of the pistol to function properly. Otherwise you may, when in an out-of-the-way place, be rendered helpless by a simple fault which could be corrected in a few moments without the use of tools by someone who understands its mechanism.

I saw a man who actually buried a loaded automatic pistol deep in the ground, because it had a jam and he was afraid of it.

CHAPTER XXX

The idea has therefore arisen that the rifle and pistol are not weapons to use in sport but merely implements at the game of bull’s-eye shooting, and that the shotgun is the sporting firearm.

The idea is that a rifle or pistol can be used only at a stationary object.

When the above is realized, it is very easy to understand why in England all rifle and pistol clubs shoot only at stationary bull’s-eye targets at known distances.

The reason they adopted the black front sight probably arose because it is easier to make a small black spot in the middle of a white sheet of paper than to paint the whole sheet black and leave out a white bull’s-eye.

It was merely a matter of convenience in target-making.

Once however a black bull’s-eye on white paper was decided on; the colour of the front sight had to be black.

To shoot at a minute object, aim must be at the bottom edge of it “at six o’clock” (so called from the analogy of the face of a watch).

If the aim is taken in the middle of a small bull’s-eye, the front sight covers most of it and makes seeing the bull’s-eye difficult.

In order to see the front sight best on a white target below a black bull’s-eye, the front sight must be black; black against white being the strongest contrast. A white front sight on a white target would be lost.

As a result, all except big game rifles and English pistols are made with black front sights.

Shooters of big game abroad found a white front sight best, and hunting rifles are now made in England with silver or ivory front sights, but no English pistol has any but a black front sight.

Military rifles of every nation have this conventional black front sight.

Professional experts test military rifles but they test them on white targets with black bull’s-eyes, therefore a black front sight is necessary for this purpose, and as the experts are merely expert target shots and not big game shots, this black front sight is retained.

It being customary not to look on a rifle or pistol as of any use except to hit a stationary target, all English rifle and pistol clubs have been formed on this supposition.

At the English National Rifle Association Meetings at Wimbledon and later at Bisley, the “Running Deer” target has been in use from the beginning, but only a very few of us shoot at it.

The bulk of rifle shots have always fought most desperately against any but stationary targets. This is natural. A man who has worked hard all his life to become a “crack shot” at a stationary target is not going to risk his reputation by being beaten by a school boy at a moving target.

At the revolver ranges, moving, disappearing, and rapid-firing competitions were instituted but had very little support; a few men shot, but half a dozen men do not constitute a big enough crowd to warrant the keeping up of competitions which the bulk of shooters do not want.

On the Continent, shooting under practical conditions has always marked the shooting at rifle and pistol clubs.

Numerous Continental sportsmen, even in humble circumstances, are able to shoot bears, wolves, lynx, reindeer, elk, moufflon, chamois, wild boar, etc., and above all roe deer.

It is the roebuck who trains men to be practical rifle shots on the Continent.

In Scotland the roe is classed as vermin and exterminated with shotguns.

The roebuck is, to the middle class Continental sportsman, his highest sport in rifle shooting.

Few men in England, even if they have the means, care for deer-stalking as they know nothing of rifle shooting. They prefer small game shooting with the shotgun which they are more skilful with.

On the Continent the roe is strictly preserved and no does or fawns are ever allowed to be killed.

The roebuck must be shot only with a rifle and not during the close season.

There are societies which have yearly exhibitions of roebuck heads, shot by their members during the current year, and gold, silver, and bronze medals given for the best heads.

A good roe-head in a public place draws crowds who discuss its good and bad points.

I doubt if in England one person in a thousand would know what species of deer they belonged to, but all would know the difference between a tennis, cricket, or foot ball.

Rifle clubs are in existence all over the Continent to enable members to practice for game shooting.

The club members are sportsmen used to game shooting with the rifle, not men who have never fired a rifle except at a target or ever expect to shoot otherwise, and who therefore take no interest in rifle shooting except in seeing who can make the closest group of shots on a stationary target and to win spoons and cups.

The makers of targets on the Continent employ good animal painters to make the shooting as like the real thing as possible.

I know of a range where you climb steep rocks amongst bracken, and as you get near the top, you see a model of a chamois, life-size and colour above you, half hidden in foliage, which you shoot at.

At another range, there are stags, roe deer, wild boar, even hares, life-size and colour which rush past unexpectedly like clay pigeons in an English shotgun shooting school.

“Figure” targets in the United States and England are very badly drawn (the running deer at Wimbledon was an exception, being drawn by Sir Edwin Landseer).

The “figure” targets one sees in England and in the United States are drawn by artists of the cubist, futurist, and vorticist schools. Such drawings, over which the art critics go into ecstasies, are too difficult to identify and therefore not suitable for quick rifle shooting practice.

The shooter does not know when it is safe to shoot. What he thinks is meant for a wild boar, or possibly a lynx, is really meant to be the “portrait of Miss X., the beautiful Musical Comedy Actress,” put up as a target owing to the mistake of a workman ignorant of art.

It will be noticed that the bull’s-eye and concentric rings for scoring bear no relation to the object drawn on it. It is possible to miss what looks like a bottle stopper and score a bull’s-eye, or to hit the bottle stopper and score a miss.

I have shown a proof of this last paragraph to a friend who says he understands cubism, and he tells me the target referred to represents a soldier and is a very fine example by one of the founders of cubism and it ought to be purchased for the Chantry Bequest, but I am not sure if my friend is a reliable art critic.

I confess I do not understand art criticism as I am merely a sculptor who exhibits at the London Royal Academy and Paris.

CHAPTER XXXI

There is a story of a man who wished to kill a monkey. When he noticed the monkey was looking at him, he took an empty gun, pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger. This he repeated many times, propping the butt of the heel plate against a tree and the muzzle against his forehead.

Then the man loaded the gun, put it to full cock, and laid it on the ground and went off.

As soon as he was out of sight, the monkey crept up to the gun and repeated what he had seen the man do.

Result—monkey’s head blown off.

This is the exact mentality of the “did not know it was loaded” fool.

The only difference is that, as soon as such people kill others on the “did not know it was loaded” principle, there are plenty of others to take their place.

As they are always acquitted when they say they “did not know it was loaded,” others imitate, knowing there is no danger of their being hung for this murder.

But if you shoot another man, even if you think he is going to murder you, unless you have let him first have a shot at you, you run the risk of being hung for it; if he turns to run away you must not shoot him in the back as he runs away or you get hung for it.

Parents encourage children in the criminal folly, aiming at people; they give them toy pistols and play themselves with the children pretending to be frightened when the child comes round the corner and fires the popgun or pistol with paper detonator at them.

When this child grows up, he always thinks that to point a firearm at any one and pull the trigger is “humour” and takes the first opportunity to pick up a firearm and point it at people. “Want of the sense of humour” is the unpardonable sin in the opinion of so-called “Humorous writers,” who consider any one not laughing at their obvious drivel is wanting in a sense of humour, and if he abuses mothers-in-law or throws bricks at a starving cat, he considers himself a humorist.

Surely any one pointing a firearm at others in play should be punished by two years’ hard labour. This would soon teach people that they must curb their “sense of humour.”

There are plenty of other “jokes” left such as pulling a chair from under any one about to sit down, or putting tin tacks in his boots; but of course they have the disadvantage of not actually killing him, and you may be prosecuted for damages, but the joke of shooting a man on the “did not know it was loaded” principle entails no unpleasant consequences on the shooter. He is always acquitted even as when a defendant said “I only pulled the trigger to frighten her, having forgotten to unload my rifle when I left the trenches in France to come back to England.” Imagine a soldier not unloading and cleaning his rifle when coming out of the trenches, but leaving it to rust during his leave home in England!!!

CHAPTER XXXII

I saw a man counting stamps at an hotel. He was wetting his finger to turn them over and got the whole lot into one sticky mass.

This latter man was perhaps so used to counting paper money by wetting his finger that he was doing it mechanically with these stamps whilst thinking of something else.

The former man looked an intelligent man and was so most probably in his business, but he cannot ever have used his brains in pistol shooting.

I put a man right once who was shooting at a black “man” figure in competition.

He shot very badly. I asked him what was the matter. Unlike most men who tell you to mind your own business, and make you chary of helping any one, this man asked me if I could assist him.

He said he could not see his front sight on the target and feared something was wrong with his eyes.

I showed him it was not his eyes but the black front sight of his pistol on the black target which was at fault.

I put a big blob of Chinese white on his front sight squeezed from a water colour tube.

He won first prize with a highest possible score.

Like the conventional man with his doctor who has cured him, he never even thanked me.

Getting into bad habits in shooting has constantly to be guarded against.

A horse is very apt to get carrying his head crooked, tongue lolling, hitching, etc., unless he is constantly corrected. So must a shooter watch and correct his own faults.

It is as well to get a good shot to watch you shooting occasionally and to point out to you undesirable tricks or habits you may be getting into, without noticing it.

Some men, when shotgun shooting, gradually get into the habit of carrying the muzzle too low so that they sweep others as they walk. This is the result of shooting much alone, and so getting out of the habit of noticing when they are swinging their guns across others.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Bull’s-eye right size for aiming at.

Possibility of judging an absolutely central shot.

Certainty and ease with which the scoring value of a shot can be ascertained.

Such a target exists and is illustrated herewith (see Plate 8).

It is the target in use at Gastinne-Renette’s Pistol Gallery, Paris, and is the invention, I believe, of the Founder of the firm, the grandfather of the present proprietor.

A perfectly placed bullet is one in the absolute centre of the bull’s-eye.

Apart from the impossibility of aiming at it, the mathematical “point” would be of no use as a bull’s-eye. If the bullet hits it, or hits a pin’s point (which is the smallest practical substitute for the mathematical point), the point disappears and there is no means of telling if the centre of the bullet struck that point or not.

M. Gastinne-Renette’s solution of this problem is extremely simple. It is to make the bull’s-eye of exactly the diameter of the bullet fired at it.

If a bullet hits a bull’s-eye which is exactly of the same diameter as itself, and no part of the bull’s-eye remains visible at an edge of the bullet hole, then that bullet has hit absolutely central in the bull’s-eye.

The next difficulty was that such a small bull’s-eye is difficult to aim at with a pistol.

This was overcome by enclosing this absolute bull’s-eye called the carton, in a larger bull’s-eye, called the aiming bull’s-eye.

The carton is left white and the aiming bull’s-eye printed black.

PLATE 8. THE GASTINNE-RENETTE 16 METRES TARGET

This target has a 1³⁄16 black. The ring is to facilitate judging

This aiming bull’s-eye is of the diameter of three bullet widths.

The target in question was designed for the .44 bullet. The carton is therefore .44 of an inch diameter, the black bull’s-eye 1.32 in diameter leaving a ring of black round the carton of exactly a bullet width, i. e., .44.

The reason for having the black bull’s-eye three bullet diameters in width is because this leaves a space of exactly one bullet width between the edge of the white carton and the outer edge of the black bull’s-eye.

This gives a black ring, a bullet width, surrounding the bullet diameter carton.

Therefore when a bullet strikes the black of the bull’s-eye it can do one of three things.

It can cut partly into the white of the carton, it can cut partly into the white of the target outside the black bull’s-eye, or cut the black without touching the white on either side of it.

To decide if the carton is cut into (which would score one point higher than if the black of the bull’s-eye only was cut) examine first the edge of the bullet hole nearest the carton.

If this is uncertain, examine the opposite edge of the bullet hole, next to the white of the rest of the target.

If this is cut, then you know the carton cannot be cut, as the bullet hole is the exact width of the black.

To make assurance doubly sure, there is a thin line on the target, just clear of the outer black of the bull’s-eye.

If the bullet hole touches this thin line, then it is an absolute certainty that it cannot also cut into the carton.

The rest of the target is divided into concentric rings exactly the width of a bullet hole.

The same bullet hole therefore cannot cut into two rings, and if it is doubtful that a certain ring is cut into, the opposite side of the bullet hole is examined, and if it cuts into the ring on that side, then the first ring cannot have been cut into.

The whole idea is merely having no divisions of the target either further apart or closer than the exact width of a bullet.

Then, given a target of thin, good cardboard, in which a bullet makes a clean cut hole, scoring is an absolutely simple and accurate matter.

From the above long, but necessary, explanation it will be seen that the Gastinne-Renette target fulfils all that a perfect target should.

The highest possible score which can be made on it is absolute perfection, and as such is not attainable either by man or the pistol (even if it is shot from a vise) the target never can “get beaten” as is the case in any other target.

The man who can make a highest possible on the Gastinne-Renette target, even when shooting at a range of one yard, does not and cannot ever exist. The target is made on the .44 calibre measurements because the .44 bullet is the standard for pistol and revolver at the Gastinne-Renette Gallery in competing for the Grand Medaille d’Or but this system can be applied to any size bore, for pistol or rifle or even cannon. I do not know if it was patented, but if so, the patent must have run out years ago.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In early times holy men did things which would land them in prison if they were alive in these days.

In the cruel ages when men knew no better, St. Francis of Assisi preached (like Buddha) kindness to every living thing, and called the birds “our little brothers.”

In the present superior age, St. Francis would spend his life in prison from inability to pay the fines imposed on him for feeding birds.

Kindness to animals was never a popular virtue. It is considered “soppy,” “sickly sentimentality.”

Men have always liked to bully horses to show what good riders they are, and what “control” they have over them. They think it draws forth admiration to be seen knocking a horse about. It shows their mental superiority over a mere brute.

Small men like to be seen lugging a big good-natured dog along by a chain, threatening him with a whip. It shows their great brain power over mere matter.

The feeding of starving birds in a hard winter and kindness to cats has always been merely tolerated, even before it became a crime to do so.

In the year 1917, in London, a poor old woman went off crying bitterly, unable to pay the fine imposed on her for giving a few crumbs out of her own scanty meal to some birds. But even in less enlightened times, in the days when birds were pitied, such doubtful conduct was not much approved of except in the case of old maids or little girls. The former were also allowed to keep cats and parrots. Such kindness was “too mawkish” for men and boys to stoop to. Boys should only stoop to pick up stones to throw at birds and cats. “Boys will be boys” and it is a pity to spoil their spirit.

Such boys are in their element now.

A great wave has arisen against mawkish sentimentality. Formerly societies were formed to enforce close seasons for birds and animals, to give them a chance to live in peace during the breeding season, and to prevent the extinction of fast vanishing species, and the Clergy instructed their parishioners in kindness to animals and the “mawkish” protection of defenceless rodents during the breeding season.

But this is changed in the present superior age.

Rabbits and hares can now be killed all the year round. A doe rabbit, dying in a snare or steel trap with a broken leg held by sharp steel teeth, lies suckling her young which have come to her, and the young die of starvation when she has died in torture.

Committees are formed in villages, the Vicar as chairman, which give prizes to the boys who destroy the most birds’ nests and kill the parent birds and their young. Little girls are given prizes for killing the most butterflies.

Those children who are too young yet to be able to kill birds are not forgotten. They are given prizes, which they take home to their proud parents, for the greatest number of flies they can kill.

When I was a boy, in the cruel bad times, I was told I would go to a very unpleasant place when I died if I was so wicked and cruel as to kill flies or pull their wings and legs off whilst they were alive.

I understand this game of pulling wings and legs off is also now played by boys with young birds taken out of nests.

How otherwise can two boys fairly divide a nestful of young birds if they are of an uneven number?

I was at a village fête where such prizes were given and I expressed surprise that a boy did not get first prize for a very big heap of dead flies. I was told that he had collected the dead flies found on the window ledges the previous autumn, and added them to his heap of kills, so he was not eligible.

It is praiseworthy to kill flies, but wrong to collect those already dead.

I must apologize for this long digression, but it was necessary in order that my following analysis of what is conventionally right and wrong might be properly understood.

As right and wrong at present stand, a man in uniform, if he meets a man in a different uniform (a man, with whom he has no quarrel, and of whose existence he was ignorant up to that moment), and he is told to fight that man, and kills him, he becomes a hero. The more he kills, the greater hero he is.

If on the other hand, this man in uniform quarrels with a man in the same uniform as himself, or who is in civilian dress, or if he is himself in civilian dress, and if, as the result of this quarrel they fight (even if a fair fight, with friends of each man present to see that it is a fair fight) and he kills the man, then he is a murderer.

A murderer must be murdered; that is his punishment for murdering a man.

It might be imagined that if the man who murders another has to be murdered himself by another man, who thus also becomes a murderer, it would end by everyone being killed except the last man.

This is not so. When a civilian has murdered another in fair fight, the man appointed to murder this murderer does not become a murderer, he is an executioner, and is paid for murdering the other man, and the incident closes.

Whatever wrong a man receives from another, he must not fight him. He must not even slap his face. That is an assault and wrong.

He must accept a sum of money considered equivalent to the wrong done him.

Some men are not satisfied with this. They consider receiving money from their opponent a degradation, and even the suggestion of such a course, an insult.

In countries where duelling is still allowed, they have a solution—the duel.

CHAPTER XXXV

As he walks in with a despairing air, the audience shriek with laughter (because he is labelled as “comic” in their brains). The actor says in a pathetic way “my wife went out starving to beg for bread, and she found the child had fallen in the fire, and was burnt to death when she returned at length with food.”

The audience simply roll with laughter, and gasp “is he not killing?”

I merely make this digression to show how difficult it is to make people think for themselves, especially on the subject of duelling.

Duelling is a “comic subject” to them, and that is the end of it.

Just as war is necessary, so is duelling necessary. Duelling is to the individual, what war is to the nation.

The man who laughs at the word duel would not laugh if he were standing before another’s pistol, and knew that within a second of the word “fire,” he would have a bullet in his breast and be dead.

He does not differentiate between the “advertisement duels” which sometimes take place on the Continent, where neither combatant intends to shoot the other, but merely wants to get his name in the papers, and a real duel by which a wronged man seeks redress.

In a sword duel a man, if young and active, can avoid being fatally injured. He can keep all but his right wrist and knee out of danger, and as soon as he gets a scratch on them, give up the fight on the plea of being “at a disadvantage.”

But with pistols it is different, provided the seconds have not (in order to prevent a fatal termination) altered the sights or reduced the powder charge. In fact, if he has an accurate and properly loaded pistol in his hands, a good shot can make certain of hitting his opponent.

When such a one misses his man or hits him in a non-vital part, it is because he has done so purposely, not wanting to kill the man.

Sometimes a man who feels he is in the wrong, stands up to be shot at, and either misses his opponent on purpose, or does not shoot at all.

On a recent occasion, when a duellist had not fired when the word was given, someone had the bad taste to ask him why he did not shoot. The answer was “I forgot.”

This was the occasion for a stream of jokes; the writers of these jokes did not of course appreciate the chivalry of not shooting, and the delicacy of the reply. They made all sorts of silly remarks about “absentmindedness,” only exposing their own empty-headedness thereby.

Having now cleared the ground, I will in the next chapter give details of how a pistol duel is conducted, and how to train for it.

In countries where duelling is allowed, the upper classes know how to fence, and to shoot the duelling pistol; they need no teaching if called out. Any one who has learnt to shoot from instructions given in this book needs no further teaching. He only needs to be told the rules. There are, however, a few points in which duelling differs from the rapid-fire practice I have given, one being the position the pistol is raised from, and when it is permissible to raise it.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The seconds should be taken into the challenger’s confidence, and he should tell them exactly what he really wants. He cannot interfere after they and the adversary’s seconds have arranged the terms, and he may find himself bound by his seconds to something quite different from what he had intended.

PLATE 9. ORNAMENTAL DUELLING PISTOLS BY GASTINNE-RENETTE
The property of the Author

He may be let into a fight to a finish over some trivial nonsense, and have to kill a man he does not want to kill, in order to save his own skin. Or, wishing to kill a man who has done him an unforgivable wrong, the duel may end with a flick of cloth cut out of his sleeve and his enemy unscathed.

Combatants are not allowed to use their own weapons. The pistols of the regulation pattern (muzzle-loaders shooting a regulation load of smokeless powder and round lead bullet, see Plate 9) are provided by a gunmaker, are loaded by the gunmaker in the presence of the seconds, and sealed up in their case. The seals are only broken and the pistols apportioned by lot to the combatants when on the duelling ground, by the director of the duel chosen by the seconds.

In Paris you are absolutely safe as to your pistols. M. Gastinne-Renette generally supplies the pistols, but in an out of the way place where you do not know the gunmaker, and do not trust your opponent or his seconds, it is advisable to instruct your seconds to be very careful what gunmaker is chosen, and if they are the least bit dubious to insist on M. Gastinne-Renette being telegraphed to, asking him to send a representative with pistols.

A doctor has to be present at the duel.

Lots are drawn by the seconds for position. It is very important to have at least one good practical shooting man as second or your seconds may give away advantages to your opponent’s seconds, and place you facing the sun.

The distance is twenty-five metres (26 yards 1 foot 2 inches). The opponents stand facing each other and holding the pistol with the butt touching their right thighs.

The director of the duel, after giving the caution attention, says “feu, un, deux, trois.” After the word “feu” the pistol may be raised and fired, but not fired later than the word “trois.”

PLATE 10. PISTOLS BY GASTINNE-RENETTE

1. Shooting Smith & Wesson, .44 cartridge. 2. Modified Ira Paine to shoot .44 or .22 ammunition. 3. Saloon pistol, .22 bore, weighing and balancing like a duelling pistol

To lift the pistol from touching the thigh before the word “feu” or to fire after the word “trois,” is a very grave offence, and if your opponent is killed, it is murder.

The seconds draw up a “Proces Verbal” or report, of the proceedings, which they and the doctor sign, and this is at once submitted to the police. If there is any irregularity reported in it, such as lifting the arm too soon or shooting too late, it is a very serious matter indeed to the guilty one.

If a duellist is killed, his adversary must stand by the body till the police arrive, and deliver himself up to them.

If all is in order, he will probably get off, or at the worst get two years’ imprisonment.

If he has infringed the regulations——??