The Modern Pistol and How to Shoot It

CHAPTER XXXVII

It would be very bad policy for A. to send a challenge to B. It would be equally bad policy for B. even if he does not want to fight, to refuse A.’s challenge, if he knows A. wants to kill him.

The reason A. makes a mistake in challenging is that B. when challenged, can choose swords as the weapons, which gives him the advantage.

If B. does not want to fight, having nothing to gain by killing A. and objecting to have A. try and kill him, refusing to fight avails him nothing. It puts him in a worse position. A. has merely to take the opportunity when B. is in a public place to insult B. and compel B. to challenge him else B. is publicly branded as a coward. A. now being the challenged can select weapons and chooses pistols, thus signing B.’s death-warrant.

The most important thing of all in a pistol duel, is not to lift the pistol before the word “feu.”

There is very little danger of shooting too late, each wishing to hit the other first prevents that, but there is a very serious risk of lifting the pistol before the word “feu.”

The best way to avoid this risk is to be determined, at whatever cost, never to lift too soon either in practice or competition, so that in case of having to fight a duel there is no risk of lifting too soon; it should become so mechanical to wait an appreciable interval before lifting the pistol after the word “feu,” that there can be no shadow of a doubt that the pistol has not been lifted too soon.

It is an unpardonable fault to get into the habit of lifting the pistol too soon in competition.

The best way to cure this fault if acquired (the most difficult of all faults to eradicate, it being one of nerves) is to lift just before the word “un,” not after the word “feu,” and get into the habit of treating the word “feu” as you do attention, as just an order to get prepared to lift, not as the order to lift.

In time you will entirely lose all desire to lift at the word “feu.” You may be a shade slower in your shots, but this is counterbalanced by the absence of the dread of being too soon.

A man who has been several times disqualified in competition for being too soon, may get very slow in lifting and wild in his shooting, as his whole attention is fixed on the words of command instead of on doing good shooting.

Some men adapt a slightly forward lean in shooting, like pigeon shots or a runner on the mark. I do not think there is any advantage in this as there is no recoil to stand up against in a duelling pistol as in a pigeon gun.

The objection to this position is that it does not give the appearance of absolute ease and confidence, so necessary in duelling. It looks like anxiety.

Now half the battle, as any one who has boxed knows, is to “get a healthy funk” in his adversary before the fight begins.

If you draw yourself up slowly to your full height, plant your feet firmly and look your opponent well over, it will have much more effect on his nerves, than if you stand in an eager excited attitude.

Carpentier has this gift to perfection, better than any other fighter I have seen. He has such an air of perfect reliance in himself and confidence and contempt for his adversary, that the latter seemed almost to quail before him.

When the pistol is handed to you, you are not allowed to test the trigger-pull, but you can make a shrewd guess of its strength as you cock it, if you lift the hammer high and let it drop clean back into the bend.

A heavy trigger-pull gives a much louder click in cocking than a light one. I bought Ira Paine’s hair trigger Smith & Wesson revolver, which he used for his dangerous feats on the stage, and I hardly hear any sound in cocking it,—the trigger-pull is so light.

Byron, speaking of duelling, in Don Juan, says:

It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
A moment more will bring the sights to bear
Upon your person, twelve yards off or so;
A gentlemanly distance, not too near
If you have got a former friend or foe;
But after being fired at once or twice,
The ear becomes more Irish, and less nice.
Canto IV.: Stanza XLI.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

He said he was sorry he had come to that conclusion, that the “world in general, as it was accepted in England was coming to think that it did not matter very much if one’s neighbour called one a liar or not.

“One would smile, meet him in society, go out and play golf with him, and shake hands with him.

“He wished people would resent more this imputation of being liars.”

“Vanoc” in the Referee newspaper said:

For some reasons the abolition of duelling is a mistake. Insolent and offensive language is now too frequently indulged in with impunity ... the best rule of all is never to take liberties yourself, and never to allow liberties to be taken with you, and to remember that self-defence is still the noble art.

Over the signature of “Les Armes de Combat,” a writer after referring to “the deplorable” inefficiency of the mass of English officers with the revolver, says:

Whilst duelling is allowed in one country and not in another, it puts an inhabitant of the latter country in a very unenviable position if he is insulted in the other country.

He cannot shield himself behind the plea that duelling is not customary in his own country, without laying himself open to be called a coward, and yet he must not fight.

At the actual time I was writing the above, an English officer was having to submit to the indignity of being tried for murder under circumstances in which, in a duelling country, he would have had a perfect right to kill the man.

As I sat down to resume writing this morning, the morning papers were brought in. I picked up the nearest, which happened to be the Daily Mirror, and the first words my eyes fell on were:

With the verdict of “not guilty” the great love drama trial came to an end at the Old Bailey yesterday. Scarcely had the foreman of the jury uttered the words which set Lieut. X—— free, than frantic cheers rose in Court, and were taken up by the enormous crowd, which, seething with excitement, awaited the result in the street outside.

Can any one doubt what answer this crowd would have given, if asked if duelling should be made legal in England?

How the law at present stands, for citizens of the United States of America and for British subjects, will be found in the supplement of this book (reprinted from my Art of Revolver Shooting).

The American law does not apply to the case of a duel fought by a citizen of the United States outside the geographical limits of that country.

According to Mr. R. Newton Crane no offence is committed by the fact that an American citizen has participated in a duel beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. The citizenship of the combatant, is in such circumstances, immaterial.

On the other hand, sending, knowingly bearing, or accepting a challenge in England or America, renders the sender, bearer, or accepter, liable to punishment by the laws of England or America, as the case may be, whether the duel is subsequently fought or not, and whether it is fought in England or America or abroad, and whether the offending party is an Englishman, American, or a foreigner. Provoking a man to send a challenge is also an indictable offence.

The law applicable to the punishment for actually fighting the duel, is, on the other hand, the law of the place where the duel is fought, and that law only, applies to the offence.

Provocation, however great, is no excuse, although it might weigh with the court in fixing the punishment.

Under the English law the punishment for sending, bearing or accepting a challenge is fine or imprisonment without hard labour, or both.

Each of the States of the United States has penalties for the offence, which though differing in detail are practically the same in substance as those provided by the law of England.

It seems, therefore, that a citizen of the United States of America, can safely fight a duel in a country where duelling is permitted with a man of any nationality, provided he does not challenge, accept a challenge, or fight him on American or British soil.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Tell him he must be careful to keep the butt end of his pistol against his thigh, till he hears the word “un,” and that he must not fire after the word “trois”; in fact, he must not fire a poking shot.

On no account, unless he unfortunately knows it already, let him know the pistol may be raised after the word “feu.”

If he is a good snap shot with a gun, he is sure to shoot quickly enough.

Show him that keeping his arm straight corresponds to keeping the left arm well out in shotgun shooting.

Tell him that “attention, feu!” will first be said by the master of the duel, just as “Are you ready? pull!” are said in pigeon shooting, but that it will be a “no bird” if he lifts his pistol before the word “un,” or if he fires after “trois,” his adversary being considered “out of bounds” at the word “trois.”

Load the pistol and hand it to him, and tell him to cock it.

See that he is standing with the butt properly against his thigh.

Say “attention, feu!”—with a good interval apart, then sharply “un, deux, trois.”

He is almost certain to hit the figure, and well before the word “trois.”

Say, “I knew you would find it very easy,” and take him away at once: do not on any account let him have another shot.

This one successful shot is all that is necessary, even for an expert duellist before a duel.

If your pupil should miss, explain to him his fault, and chaff him as to his inability to hit a “sitter.” Above all do not let him get to aiming.

If he hits next shot, his lesson is finished.

In the very improbable event of his again missing, then you will have to continue your instruction as for one of the below class of pupil.

It is of vital importance to give him absolute confidence in his ability to hit his man.

He should on no account be allowed to see others pistol shooting.

The most difficult pupil to instruct in half an hour is the man who is an expert pistol shot at a stationary target, but who has never attempted to shoot rapid-firing or at a moving target.

If he has besides never used a shotgun, his is almost a hopeless case.

He is certain not to raise his pistol before the word “feu,” but it must be drummed into him that if he cannot let off his pistol before the word “trois” he must not shoot at all, or he will be hung for murder.

Then the half hour can be spent in trying to get him to squeeze and let off in time, but probably the only result will be terribly wild shots, and he will finish with a feeling of despair as to his ability to hit his opponent.

I think it is best with such men not to let them have any practice but merely to tell them that they must keep the butt of their pistol to their thigh, till the word “feu” and that they will be hung if they fire after the word “trois.”

In the actual duel, they will either miss or, what is more likely, lift the pistol well up to the sky, begin slowly to lower it, and that will be all, as they will not have fired before the word “trois” is spoken.

They will be fortunate if they do not let off involuntarily after the word “trois,” but if they are of the sort who keep their finger outside the trigger guard till they have had a ten seconds’ aim, there will be no danger of that.

I have just been reading a book in which the hero “aimed for well over thirty seconds before firing straight at the light”; he must have had an arm of steel to be able to fire “straight at” it after aiming for over thirty seconds.

Another type of pupil is one who has shot both shotgun and rifle, but both on entirely different principles.

He is a splendid man with a shotgun, quick as lightning in snap-shooting, or a “tall” bird coming down wind.

He scorns to take advantage of a cantering hare, or a low bird. But the moment he has a pistol or rifle in his hands, he alters his method entirely.

Unless he is an officer who has had “field firing” practice, and a few rounds out of a revolver, he has only shot a rifle at a stationary bull’s-eye target, or at a stationary stag in Scotland, and all his shooting has been done in the prone position.

There is a convention in Scotland that a rifle shall not be fired at a deer unless the deer is absolutely stationary. A man shooting driven deer or deer galloping is according to this convention “not quite a sportsman,” though he may be a deadly shot at galloping deer.

It is called “not quite cricket.” That is not a happy simile; Cricketers do not, I am told, hit at a ball whilst it is stationary, but when at full speed.

“Not quite golf” seems to me more appropriate; in golf the poor little ball is treacherously hit whilst sitting on its little nest, basely built for it by the very hand that strikes it.

A man who is a crack shot with the gun, and who unfortunately is also a crack shot with the rifle in its restricted conventional sense, at slow deliberate aim, can perhaps be prepared for a duel by impressing on him to forget all he knows about rifle-shooting, and to imagine he is using a shotgun, but the moment he sees the back sight of his pistol in the actual duel, he will try to use it for deliberate aim and miss. The habit of a lifetime cannot be altered in half an hour.

The shotgun man who has never fired a rifle, has no need to be told not to “poke.”

Dwelling on the aim must be entirely drummed out of the target rifle shot, and he must be again reminded just before he shoots in his duel.

The “shotgun man” on the contrary has to be told—“Don’t pay any attention to the director of the duel, if he tells you you can fire after the word ‘feu.’ You fire after the word ‘un’; you do not need all day to hit a sitter; show them what snap-shooting is.”

It is hopeless to try to instruct in half an hour for a duel, the utter novice, the man who has never had firearms in his hands. He is either of those who are frightened at firearms; are sure “it will explode” when “examined,” or “when you do not know if it is loaded,” or is of the type who is “not the least afraid” of it. He cocks it pointing at you, turns to speak to you whilst familiarly poking you with the muzzle to emphasize the joke. He is of the type that rides at a five barred gate with spikes on top of it.

It is the courage of ignorance, to use the polite term, but to put it bluntly—it is because he is “a d—d fool.”

All that can be done with such men is to try to prevent their shooting the seconds or themselves, and “losing off” at unexpected and inopportune moments.

They may even in an excess of caution “fire into the air.”

People are very fond of doing this in crowded neighbourhoods “merely to frighten a man,” and are very much surprised when someone gets hit.

CHAPTER XL

For a pistol carried openly, the big army pistols are the best, my choice being the U. S. .45 Army Colt Automatic (see Plates 13 and 14).

Such pistols, it must be remembered, have great penetration, and if fired in a room the bullet can go through a closed door or a thick partition, as if they did not exist.

Hiding behind a door or closing and locking the door is no protection against a bullet from an automatic pistol, even the very smallest calibres having great penetration.

The only way in which closing a door may protect those on the other side is that the one shooting cannot actually aim at them.

As very few men can hit what they aim at with a pistol, this is not much advantage. In fact, the person shot at by a bad shot is safer than those at the sides. It is difficult to hit what is desired but something else is sure to be hit however badly the pistol is aimed.

A pistol intended to be carried concealed is more difficult to decide on than one to be kept by the bed.

Take the latter first.

The main object of a bedside pistol is to frighten the intruder, without having to shoot, the next most important point is, if it has to be fired, that no innocent person in another room should be hit.

For the first reason, to frighten the intruder, the pistol should be as big and formidable looking as possible. A big double-barrelled, pistol-shooting dust shot would probably answer best, and need not be loaded; its looks are enough.

It is more formidable than the largest automatic. It can be fired without aim; even in darkness it is almost sure to hit what it is intended to owing to its spread of shot.

If No. 8 or less size shot is used and a light charge of powder, it would not go through a door or partition.

It must be remembered that such a charge is very deadly at close range, more so than a bullet even, so should be fired only as a last resource, also it is of no use to fire at one of two people struggling together, it will hit them both.

For a burglar escaping, if care is taken to let him get well away, say thirty yards, before firing, it would mark him for identification. It is a very ticklish job to shoot at a man running away, as far as the law is concerned, and had better be avoided.

The other alternative for a bedside pistol is a .44 Smith and Wesson Russian model with gallery ammunition, and in the hands of a good shot this is the best of all, as he need not shoot to kill unless necessary. They are now no longer made, but can still be picked up occasionally.

Now as to a pocket pistol to be carried unobstrusively. It must be borne in mind that if any one is shot with a pistol the shooter may get into more trouble, and get less sympathy, than if he carried a pistol openly.

One sees advertisements giving illustrations of vest pocket automatic pistols of minute size, particular stress being laid on their small size.

This is not the most important feature to be desired in pocket pistols.

A smoker does not complain of the size of his cigarette case, therefore a pocket pistol need not be smaller than a cigarette case.

Even these smallest automatic pistols are thicker than a cigarette case and it is thickness which bulges out pockets, not superficial size.

As a rule, a very small automatic pistol means very small bore; small bore means inefficiency.

A pocket pistol of all pistols must have instant stopping power, as the shooting is done at a few feet or even inches off.

A pistol which does not instantly render the assailant harmless is worse than useless. It makes the assailant angry and desperate; he also knows that now if he kills his man he can claim self-defence, having been shot at first.

Very few wish to kill their man. He can be held off with a pistol which commands respect, but a little toy is only laughed at.

PLATE 11. COLT DERRINGER
.41 calibre, rim fire

These modern small size automatic pistols are built on a mistaken idea that they are the modern prototype of the old Derringer pistol, which was the most deadly pistol in existence, and the weapon used most frequently in old-time saloon shooting quarrels.

The Derringer was a vest pocket pistol smaller and more compact than most vest pocket automatic pistols, but it was not a small bore pistol. (See Plate 11).

It was just the essential parts of a big powerful pistol, shooting a big powerful cartridge.

The want it fulfilled was a pistol having great power in a small compass; one shot was all that was required, as the shot was fired at very close range.

Some Derringers had a second barrel below the other, but the typical Derringer was a one shot pistol.

Now if you take a big single shot pistol, how would you reduce it in size to fit the waistcoat pocket?

First you would cut off the barrel except the actual chamber in which the cartridge lies.

Then you would take off as much of the hammer as is compatible with leaving enough grip for the thumb in cocking.

Then you would whittle away all the stock till only the lock mechanism remained; and this was practically what the Derringer was.

This could be still further improved upon by making it “hammerless”; that is with an internal hammer.

The Derringer was a rim-shot fire cartridge. My pistol would shoot a central fire shot.

For those who desire to be able to shoot several shots rapidly and who do not care to carry two Derringers, an automatic pistol built on the Derringer principle might suit them.

The difficulty is that the reciprocating mechanism takes up room. It is attempted to overcome this by making the pistol shaped like a hammer, the stock coming at right angles out from under the middle of the barrel, but this is awkward to hold, and to shoot.

One good shot, well directed, is worth a whole pistol full of shots blazed away.

This is not the popular opinion, for, as long as a constant fire is kept up, and plenty of smoke and noise, people think great things are being done. It is only after all is over and there is no result that they begin to wonder what it was all about.

PLATE 12. COLT AUTOMATIC PISTOL .25

Capacity of magazine, 6 shots. Length of barrel, 2 inches. Finish, full blued, with case-hardened trigger, slide lock safety and grip safety, or full nickel plated; rubber stocks. Weight, 13 ounces. Length over all, 4½ inches. Cartridge, cal. .25, rimless; smokeless; metal patched bullet.

The typical Air Raid newspaper report says, “He fired at least three tray loads of cartridges, the stream of smoke could be distinctly noticed”; and the reporter is in ecstasies, and the unimportant detail that all this “losing off” resulted in nothing does not occur to him.

It is the noise, not the results of shooting, that impresses and frightens people.

If noiseless firearms were invented nobody would pay the least attention to an air raid except the people actually struck.

A woman was taken to an asylum a raving lunatic after an air raid. She was near some anti-aircraft guns which had been firing, no bombs were dropped near where she was. It was the mere noise of firing that frightened her.

It is the noise that frightens game; I have shot one bird after another out of a covey of black game on the ground. The rest did not fly off at the shots because I was hidden and was using a “.22 short” rifle and the noise of a waterfall drowned reports.

If I had fired a shotgun at one, the rest of the covey would have been off at once.

For actual protection in a house at night without endangering any one, a big pistol loaded with blank ammunition (black powder so as to make plenty of smoke and a little “red fire” powder added to make plenty of flash) would drive off almost any burglar.

I think this is the best house protection for a houseful of women to have by their beds at night. The only thing is to avoid burning peoples eyes or setting things on fire when “losing off.”

“A stern chaser” of coarse salt is a good man stopper without being fatal and the pain makes the victim think he is mortally wounded.

CHAPTER XLI

An Inverness cape, even if thrown or buttoned back, is also inadmissible; it hampers the right shoulder.

As having the body rather tightly buttoned up is an advantage, a tight fitting frock coat is permissible. It is better buttoned than open as otherwise the skirts are in the way.

A lamb’s wool vest, or a second waistcoat may be worn when shooting out-of-doors in cold weather. I prefer a thin leather Swedish sleeveless waistcoat under my coat instead of the usual waistcoat.

In wearing the leather waistcoat it need not show. The coat can be buttoned over it.

There is a shooting coat, I believe the invention of the late Mr. Cholmondely Pennell, which has a waistcoat of thick material to wear over, instead of under, a thin coat. This keeps the body warm whilst the arms are light and free.

Boots or shoes with corrugated rubber soles or nailed boots should be worn if the ground is heavy, wet, or slippery.

As nailed or rubber soled boots cannot be worn when in formal dress it is best to make sure of your foothold when wearing ordinary boots or shoes. The heel can be stamped into the ground a few times to get a firm stand or the soles rubbed on gritty sand.

Out-of-doors it is best to wear a hat, as one can see much better when the eyes are shaded. Have a hat that holds well on your head.

Do not wear the hats made of hard straw with low crowns and narrow brims. They fly off at the least provocation and the mere fact of your hat feeling like a partridge who is on tiptoes about to take wing will upset you and spoil your shooting.

I took a man who had never been to a shooting range before to see the finish for the King’s Prize at Bisley.

There was a puffy breeze blowing up the range.

He was wearing one of these hard flat straw hats with his college ribbon on it.

I told him he had better be careful that his hat did not blow off and interfere with the shooting.

We stood behind the two men who had tied for the Gold Medal, and were shooting off the tie.

He had just begun to say “my hat never blows off,”—when his hat soared off his head like a clay pigeon out of a trap, and landed just in front of the man who was aiming. My companion was a “hat worshipper,” one to whom his hat is everything. They hold it on when on a runaway horse. If it blows off they will dive under a train in motion after it, or do things to save their hat which would gain them the Victoria Cross in battle.

He at once started to jump over the prone shooter after the hat, but I held him back. All interest in the match was gone, he had eyes only to watch his hat.

I finally got him a little calmer by explaining that though the shooters were most probably wishing the hat in a place where straw would soon kindle, they would not shoot through his hat (I am not talking thus, only slightly exaggerating).

Men who worship their hats do not like trotters because they splash them.

There was one of the rare winters in England when one could get a few days’ sleigh driving.

A man had long worried me to let him take some photographs of my trotters in a sleigh. I telegraphed him to come at once and I would take him out in a sleigh and he could take snow photos.

I met him at the station with a pair of trotters, both able to trot below 2:18, hitched to a light two-man cutter sleigh.

He was delighted, got tucked in beside me with his camera and said he would take one or two photos of the horses from where he sat.

I told him not to begin before we got clear of the town, on to the big open straight road.

Now some men will go out in a cranky boat, or rush a motor car round a corner through a crowd of children without a tremor, but are frightened to death of a trotter, especially a keen one who takes hold.

Now my mares had often raced against each other and when together as a pair had racing in their minds.

They were fresh, the day cold, there had been a thaw and then a frost; the road was just right and the horses shod with new steel spikes, sharp as chisels.

I let them step along, the snow came back in a shower of balls on us, varied by a sharp sliver of ice, which cut like a knife. The horses and I were enjoying ourselves, and then I remembered my companion.

I called out “Take them now,” as the mares were squaring away racing against each other.

I only heard, “Wow—Oh” as each snowball hit him. Fortunately he was holding on to his “sacred” hat with one hand and to the side of the sleigh with the other, so he had no hand to spare to snatch a rein to upset the sleigh, he was only able to groan, “Stop, Stop!”

He scrambled out and took the photos from the safety of the side of the road, and said he preferred to walk back to the station, and the last I saw of him was with his camera in one hand holding on his sacred (in the French meaning of the word) hat with the other.

CHAPTER XLII

If he is behind a small tree the big bullet of a .45 Army Automatic would probably go through and hit him and, even if it did not go through, it would frighten him so that he would show himself and give you the opportunity to shoot him.

A big-game shooter knows of many dodges to induce a dangerous animal who has hidden, to show himself, or charge.

Calling to an imaginary person behind the attacker as “Look out Tom, he’s coming your way, shoot,” will perhaps make a man, expecting an attack from his rear, expose himself to you in front. Throwing something towards him may make him move. The great thing is to keep him moving and prevent his shooting back.

If attacked by several men at the same time, take a fresh one for every shot, hit or miss, and then you can begin to take only those not already hit.

This is the only way to keep the lot off and prevent being attacked by the rest while you are fighting one.

Get your back against a wall or something if possible so that they can only get at you from in front.

Taking a fresh one for each shot is my experience in big-game shooting when you come on a lot which are all shootable.

If you pick out one and he does not drop to your shot and you pump several more shots into him till he does drop, you may find afterwards that you have wasted shots on an already dying animal, and let others within range escape.

As an instance of doing everything wrong and being praised for it, the following quotation from a daily paper is hard to beat.

The writer of the article evidently approves greatly of a woman firing at random into the darkness when she hears a suspicious noise.

Even if the noise was made by burglars outside, she was just in the best position in the lighted window, to get killed. An innocent man might plead he was shooting her in self-defence.

A pleasant neighbourhood to live in when a woman shoots at random into the night when she hears a noise!

Below is the article in question omitting names. The passers-by as well as the lady must have had an “exciting experience.”

And no wonder!

CHAPTER XLIII

It is important to protect the ears, perhaps even more important than the eyes. There is very little danger to the eyes but the ears are in very real danger when shooting.

Even the comparatively slight noise when shooting the gallery .44 ammunition or the short rifle .22, from constant pounding on the same note, affects the ears unless they are protected.

A concert pianist, one would think, by the noise he makes on the piano, would injure his ears even more than a pistol shot does, as the noise he makes is much louder.

Perhaps he does injure his ears and that is the reason he has to pound so hard and breaks the piano strings in his efforts to hear his own music.

Be that as it may, playing a variety of notes saves his ears as he does not have the constant hit on the one note and with the same intensity.

The ear is the least known of the various organs and is the one least successfully treated.

The usual medical man has the following treatment:

Pour warm oil into the ear, then wash out with warm water (a very successful way to introduce hurtful microbes into the ear).

When this fails the Eustachian tubes are blown out with a “Politzer Bag.”

When this also fails some have a little instrument which buzzes like a bumble bee or sings like a mosquito which the patient has to listen to.

If even this treatment fails then the patient is bowed out as incurable.

Prevention is better than non-cure, so protect your ears when shooting.

A pistol is unlikely to burst the ear drum unless fired with a full charge in a small room or close to the ear, but pistol-fire seems to have a worse effect on the ears than the louder report from a rifle or shotgun, owing probably to the shortness of the pistol barrel bringing the discharge nearer to the ear.

The worst of all for the ears is when a man shoots past another’s head from close behind.

Gout or catarrh aggravates this evil and a man who never shoots may get “hard of hearing” and have constant singing in his ears from these diseases alone.

There is the later stage of attacks of vertigo when the semicircular canals are involved. Few aurists are successful in curing this.

There is only one ear protector which I have found of any use and I have tried all that have come out.

It is called the Elliott Ear Protector and is made by J. A. R. Elliott, Box 201, New York City, U. S. A.

Savory & Moore of 143 New Bond Street, London and Gieve, Mathews & Seagrove, Portsmouth, England have them in stock.

Most other ear protectors act on the wrong principle and are painful to wear and they bring on giddiness.

To stuff the ears with cotton wool makes the pressure of air on the outside of the drum differ from the air coming through the Eustachian tube if this latter is blocked more or less by catarrh (as it is in nine out of ten persons, especially smokers or residents in damp climates). This inequality is increased and harm is done to the ear.

When a cold is supposed to be cured, it often is not but has gone from the early, through the acute, and on to the chronic stage. It then lies dormant, to wake up every time a fresh cold is caught, and then takes a deeper hold in the outer, middle, and inner ear. Often what is put down to gun deafness is really chronic catarrh and gout. People who have never fired a shot suffer from gun deafness and noises in the head.

As soon as a cold has ceased “to run” people think it is cured. They neglect to drive it entirely out of the system and it lies smouldering to take the earliest opportunity to flare up again, like a banked-up fire.

Some recommend wool mixture with modelling wax forced into the outer ear.

This not only has the defects of plain cotton wool but it is a compound impossible to fully take out again. The modelling composition sticks and remains in all the crevices of the ear and if forced repeatedly in dislocates the outer ear passage.

I use modelling wax for sculpture, and it is impossible to clean it out of the nails even with manicure instruments. It has to be dissolved with turpentine and peroxide which would ruin ears if used for them.

The Elliott Ear Protector acts on an entirely different principle and it reduces the noise of a heavy express rifle to a mere thump, like striking the fist on a wooden table. It takes all the sting out of the shot.

A man who was a gunner at the front during the war tells me that his ears are quite right owing to his having used the Elliott Ear Protectors, whereas a man standing next to him had an ear drum burst after a few shots.

The principle of this protector is to let the sound strike the side of the tube of the outer ear, instead of directly on the ear drum. The protector closes the ear tube so that only a very minute, hair-like passage remains, through which a whisper can come, but any big volume of sound is checked, like a crowd trying to push through a narrow door and allowed only to dribble in one at a time.

Even the small amount of sound which does get through is impinged on to the sides of the outer ear passage. None reaches the drum of the ear direct, but indirectly by the action of a rubber diaphragm.

The result is arrived at as follows:

A short celluloid rod has a hair thin hole running down it, but not quite reaching the far end. It enters a hole of the same size running across the tube.

There is a soft India rubber disc at each end of the rod, the transverse hole being between the two discs.

In use this rod is inserted into the ear till the uppermost disc just closes the passage into the external ear, and the lower disc cuts off access to the ear drum.

Any sound reaching the ear can therefore only pass down this hair thin passage in the rod and into the space between these two rubber diaphragms.

The sound cannot reach the ear drum. It passes through the transverse hole into the space between the two discs.

No sound reaches the ear directly. It only hears the vibration of the inner rubber diaphragm and the diaphragm receives only a very minute part of the original sound which reaches the ear.

The minute hole in the rod allows of the entry and escape of the outer air. Thus each side of the ear drum receives an equal pressure of the external atmosphere.

When very heavy gunfire has to be withstood, care must be taken that the outer disc fits airtight into the tube of the ear. A little vaseline or other antiseptic ointment round the edge of this disc makes an airtight joint, or a third rubber disc is added, but the two discs are ample for pistol shooting.

The ear protector is easily kept clean and antiseptic by washing occasionally in a weak antiseptic solution.

There is no inconvenience in wearing these ear protectors and they are not very noticeable.

With some other forms of protectors, made of hard vulcanite which are forced in to make an airtight closure, pain and soreness arise if they are worn for any length of time and this unyielding vulcanite may displace the anvil and bones of the middle ear, or a sore may be caused and set up grave inflammation. Any ear plug which requires forcing or stretching the ear passage is dangerous or painful to wear.

CHAPTER XLIV

Most of them can read without glasses, in fact they take off their glasses if they want to examine anything minutely which they hold in their hands.

For seeing anything further off they wear glasses (but glasses are only a compromise). The glasses are made to enable them to see objects clearly across the street, or to see a motor car before it runs them down.

Anything further is more or less blurred, the further it is the more blurred it looks.

If their glasses were correct for one thousand yards they would butt their heads into everything at fifteen yards off.

It is always best when driving to treat any one wearing glasses very carefully, to remember he can only see in front of him; sideways of his direct vision he may be as blind as a bat or a horse with blinkers on.

It is on account of this that so many people wearing glasses are run over.

When in addition to this they cross a road holding an umbrella well before their glasses, it is best to stop the horse and wait till they are across.

This adjusting of a glass for a fixed distance can be seen with deer-stalking telescopes and Zeiss glasses.

When spying for a deer one makes a mark on the draw tube to suit one’s usual spying distance, which is about one thousand yards.

One can see deer clearly with this adjustment from the one thousand back to about three hundred yards, but for a closer view you have to readjust the focus.

If with the focus correct for the one thousand yards you attempt to look at an object only as far off as your back sight or even your front sight, you will see only an indistinct blur.

A near-sighted man, shooting a pistol full arm stretch, without his glasses, sees his back sight a blur and his front probably not at all, and the target like a post impressionist picture.

If he puts on glasses to see his hind sight properly, his front sight will not be distinct, and the target still more indistinct.

I think for a near-sighted man it is best to have glasses made so that he can see his front sight very clearly.

Then he would see the man target at twenty-five meters quite well enough to be able to hit it. It is not necessary for him to see his back sight distinctly.

A good pistol-shot does not focus his eyes on his back sight. That comes in line by itself when he gets into the mechanical lift of his arm.

As I have already mentioned a long-sighted man can continue pistol shooting without wearing glasses after he needs them for reading. But a long-sighted man is apt, when he finds he begins to see the hind sight of his rifle not as clearly as formerly, to use glasses. Then he has all the insurmountable imperfections of a glass which cannot accommodate itself to varying distances like the eye can.

Instead of wearing glasses all he needs to do is to shift his hind sight forward on the barrel till he can see it distinctly.

The long-sighted pistol-shot does not have this difficulty. He holds his pistol so far from the eye that the back sight is right for his long sight.

It is a most extraordinary thing that men who have such bad eyesight that they have to wear very strong glasses and even then blink and are half-blind in the sunlight, can shoot very well in those dark coal cellar shooting galleries.

A clerk who, when writing, puts his nose right down on the paper, holding his head on one side, in fact a man semi-blind and suffering with extreme myopia made extraordinary good scores with a miniature rifle in a coal cellar shooting gallery, at a minute stationary bull’s-eye.

A cellar in which a normal-eyed man would not be able to shoot or to see his sights!

He is longing to get to the open air ranges with a full charge rifle, but I discourage him all I can as I know he will be painfully disillusioned of his skill in rifle shooting.

It is the abnormal conditions of a coal cellar gallery which suits his abnormal vision. A normal sighted person would only blind himself by trying to imitate him.

CHAPTER XLV

It is as if you were trying to draw a straight line whilst someone twitches at your sleeve.

No amount of practice will make you able to draw a straight line or shoot a pistol under such circumstances. It only discourages you and wastes time and ammunition. It gets you into timing and letting off wrong. If in a shooting competition there is a wind and you are shooting at deliberate aiming, then wait for lulls between gusts, and snap shoot during the lull.

If you are doing shooting “Au Commandmant,” or rapid-firing, you have to take the wind as it comes.

Bringing up with a very stiff arm, rapidly, is the best defence against your arm being blown about.

In England all open air pistol ranges have the firing points unprotected. From a financial point of view this is a mistake. It is better to spend money on making the range usable in all weathers. Otherwise it is often deserted as nobody cares to shoot in a high wind.

From the point of view of health it is not wise to shoot in the rain as there is no walking about to make the blood circulate.

If you keep moving and get into a perspiration and keep so all the time and take a hot bath and a change of clothing directly you get home, rain will not hurt you.

Getting chilled after perspiring, or sitting about having afternoon tea by a hot fire before changing your damp things, does the mischief. Even if there has been no rain it is much better to change your things at once and have afternoon tea afterwards. If you get wet and cannot change your things on the spot it is much better to walk home fast than drive home and feel cold all the way.

I broke through ice in intense frost when wild boar shooting at Couvain, Ardennes Belges, and got my boots full of icy cold water (long boots over the knee). I walked four miles to the lodge and felt all in a glow the whole way, took a hot bath, had dinner in bed, and felt none the worse for it.

The others being dry drove home, but if I had done so, I should most likely have had a dangerous illness.

It is a very great mistake, when overtaken in summer by a thunder shower, to take shelter when you are in a perspiration; you will get chilled for a certainty.

Walk home fast, even if you get wet to the skin in so doing. Keep on walking, or if you are on a horse, keep on trotting and cantering alternately, till you get home.

If your horse is tired after a hard day’s hunting and it is a cold wet evening, keep him moving for his own sake as well as your own.

I had ridden fifty miles during the day (a run with stag hounds which had taken me twenty-seven miles from home). The mare was getting leg weary, so I unwisely stopped at an inn, six miles from home, and put her in the stable to give her warm gruel with beer in it.

When I started half an hour later to lead her home she was unable to move. I had to leave her for the night at the inn and after making her as comfortable as possible and rubbing her legs with brandy I walked home by myself.

If I had taken her straight home without stopping to gruel her she would have reached home all right, and had her gruel there and laid down comfortably.

Keep moving when cold and wet, take a hot bath and change the moment you get home. If you feel at all as if you had a chill, go to bed after the bath, put a hot bottle to your feet, pile the eider-down on top of you, drink dried raspberry tea, go to sleep, and perspire. Dried raspberries, a Russian peasant’s remedy, are the best sudorific I know. The raspberries are dried and then used just as if they were tea leaves, and the tea thus made drunk very hot, with sugar to taste.

The leather Swedish waistcoat which I mentioned in my chapter on dress should always be worn if there is the least wind when pistol shooting. It can be worn on the hottest day as it keeps the sun out also and as long as one stands still it does not make one perspire, and wind or rain cannot get through.

A thin mackintosh does not hamper much in pistol shooting.

An umbrella is worse than useless against rain but may be used to keep the sun off. Of course a hat worshipper invariably carries an umbrella.

In rain an umbrella protects only the hat and it drops the water on your shoulders, the worst place you could get wet. People run into others and drip the water onto other people, in fact there ought to be a tax on umbrellas like there is on pistols.

As to snow, I cannot understand any one wanting to hold up an umbrella when it snows. One never sees people do that in a country where snow lies half the year any more than does one see people turn up their collars in really cold countries.

They have their coats fit properly up to the neck, not with lapels turned back exposing the chest.

It always amuses me to see a man with a big fur coat turned far back on the chest so as to show the rabbit skin, dyed to represent sable.

A Russian has his fur “Shuba” double-breasted and buttoned up right under his chin. His deep collar protects his shoulders, but he does not turn up his collar about his ears at the least zephyr of air.