In England, rifle and pistol shooting are conducted on lines different to Continental usage, owing to the entirely different point of view adopted.
In England big game has been practically exterminated. There are a few fallow deer left in parks, and a few red deer are wild in Devonshire and Somersetshire, and Scotland, but these deer are beyond the means of any but rich men to shoot, and the deer in Devon and Somerset are reserved for hunting with hounds.
There are a few roe deer in Scotland, but these are treated as vermin and killed off with shotguns.
Rooks and rabbits are shot with miniature rifles but the rooks are shot when young and unable to fly, sitting on the branches of the trees near their nests, and the rabbits also when sitting outside their holes.
In England the general public never shoot rifles in sport, except those who shoot sitting shots at rooks and rabbits.
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 a.n.a.logy 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 a.s.sociation 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 compet.i.tions were inst.i.tuted but had very little support; a few men shot, but half a dozen men do not const.i.tute a big enough crowd to warrant the keeping up of compet.i.tions 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.sed as vermin and exterminated with shotguns.
The roebuck is, to the middle cla.s.s 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 x.x.xI
DANGER OF LEAVING PISTOLS ABOUT
The brainless have one perennial joke. This is to take up a firearm, aim it at someone, say "I"ll shoot you," and then pull the trigger.