moved back as Gordon Lupton leant from the carriage-window and called to the undertaker.

"I'm exceedingly sorry, sir," said that functionary, "but it's perfectly true. I cannot conceive what ails the horses; never knew them behave in such a way before; but nothing will induce them to move." "What-what's to be done ?" asked Lupton, his face deadly pale, and his teeth chattering as he spoke.

"Look here, my friend," interrupted Mr. O'Lavey, putting his hands on Lupton's shoulder, and whispering in his ear. "Let us get quit of this business as quickly as possible. You know the feeling of an Irish crowd about such matters as these, and if any hitch occurs-eh? Here," to the undertaker, "it is but a short distance to the grave; let half a dozen of your strongest men carry the coffin there; we will follow."

But it was by no means an easy task to get together these men. The crowd had been muttering among themselves, and repeating all the old superstitions ever circulated about Mark Lupton; and even the undertaker's assistants did not seem to relish the new duty imposed upon them. At length, however, the requisite number was selected; the door of the hearse was opened, and the coffin brought out. Just as the men had got it on their shoulders, a gust of wind of extra violence howled down the street, catching up the pall, and whirling it round the heads of the two foremost bearers. Terrified beyond measure, these men, whose superstitions fears had already been roused to the highest pitch, made a vain effort to free themselves, and in so doing one of them lost his balance, and dragged his companion with him to the ground. The other men behind tried vainly to save themselves from a similar fate; but the equilibrium of their burden was lost, and the coffin was dashed heavily to the pavement and shattered in its fall. A wail of horror burst from the crowd, mingled with a piercing shriek from Gordon Lupton, who fell down, foaming at the mouth, in an epileptic fit. He never spoke again, and died that evening.

They buried him by the old man's side; and Mr. O'Lavey kept his counsel so well that the events herein narrated were not known until the death of that worthy usurer. Shortly afterwards they received curious confirmation; an improvement was about to be made in the graveyard where the bodies of the Luptons lay. In moving the coffin of the old man it again came to pieces (the original fracture had only been roughly repaired), and the skeleton was exposed to view. The sexton, who had been a child when Mark Lupton died, and on whose childish fancy the narration of the circumstance had made a great impression, took up the skull to examine it; when, from the orifice where the ear had been, there dropped a long pointed nail, rusted with blood.

A Nation of Marksmen.

AT a meeting of a proposed volunteer rifle corps, a short time since, the chairman, after the usual explanation of the causes which have led to the present volunteer movement among us, concluded by informing his hearers that its object was, "that the rifle may become in every Englishman's hand what the longbow was in the hands of his ancestors,-at once the pastime of his leisure and the defence of his home and country."

As this announcement was received with enthusiastic cheering, it was evident that the speaker and those he addressed were unanimous on this point, and it may therefore be interesting to inquire how far the volunteer movement in its present organisation is calculated to effect such a result.

The volunteer movement is of course a military one, and the rules and regulations for rifle practice are therefore wisely modelled upon the musketry instructions of the army-the object of which is, first to make good soldiers, and next to make them good shots; but however successful we may be in thus training our volunteers, it is evident that we have but advanced a step towards the establishment of rifle-shooting as a general pastime in England. It is true that this step is a most important one, and from the enthusiasm with which it has been welcomed we can hardly doubt that it is the beginning of a much deeper and wider movement. We hear on all hands that the volunteer organisation has increased the reputation and influence of England, and we are all beginning to feel a sense of security, very different from the alternations of alarm and apathy of a few years back. This cannot arise wholly from the mere fact that we have added so many thousands of men, more or less drilled, to the number of our forces. The true reason is, that every volunteer we now have represents ten who would be forthcoming at the first appearance of danger, and fifty who are beginning to take an interest in the subject, which, rightly directed, may prove of infinite service. But for this we require greater opportunities and facilities for practice, so that the shooting ground may become a place where Englishmen can meet and join in friendly rivalry, whether volunteers or civilians. If this can be effected, we may then claim to be a nation of riflemen, like the Swiss and Americans, or a nation of marksmen, like our ancestors the bowmen of 1361.

There is little doubt that the present movement will lead to this result if it be allowed to do so, but we have some fear that there still remains on the part of those in authority a trace of the old reluctance to encourage the use of arms among the people. Those who remember the Victoria Rifles in 1853 could tell of the difficulties encountered in the endeavour to obtain the recognition of Government; and the ghost of the Metropolitan Rifle Association, smothered by authority in 1852, rises to hint that things were not always so pleasant as they are now. Ungenerous as it may

seem, after the frank and hearty encouragement of late years, we doubt if the authorities would even now look with favour on a rifle-club the members of which did not commence proceedings by taking the oath of allegiance, and reporting themselves at the War Office. If such guarantees are considered necessary, there can be no objection to them; but without doubt these associations would prove a valuable auxiliary to the volunteer service, by attracting many who cannot spare the time for attending the long routine of drill, or to whom the expense of uniform and accoutrements is an obstacle, but who would nevertheless willingly take an interest in, and become proficient in, rifle-shooting, and who, having thus learnt beforehand the most essential and difficult part of a soldier's duties, would form a valuable reserve in case of actual necessity.

In considering the vastly increased range and accuracy of the modern improvements in rifles, we frequently speak as though the practice of rifleshooting had been entirely unknown in England up to the present time, and are apt to overlook the fact that our grandfathers the volunteers of 1805 had some skill in the use of the arms of precision of their day, and prided themselves upon it. Shooting-matches between the different corps were numerous and exciting. One match, in 1805, had six corps engaged in it, and lasted ten days. The Duke of Cumberland's Sharp-Shooters (now known as the Victoria Rifles) were considered the most expert marksmen among the volunteers. In 1810 the Nottinghamshire Riflemen challenged all England. The challenge was accepted by the Honourable Artillery Company and the Duke of Cumberland's Sharp-Shooters, who proved the victors. On one occasion, in Hyde Park, Major Barber, of this regiment, held the target for twelve of the best shots in the corps while they fired at it, at the distance of 150 yards-then considered a very long range. We should hardly advise any commandant of the present day to repeat this experiment.

But the habit of shooting-matches died out with the extinction of the former volunteer movement; and we are inclined to think for the very reason that the organisation of these societies being purely military, the bulk of the people took no interest in them. Only a few years later, and it became fashionable for the wits of the day to sneer at the "shopkeepers who left their business to study the profession of arms." Absit omen!

If we go back still further, we find that, "in days long ago, when our fathers were armed with the brown bill and bow," the practice of archery was enjoined by legislative enactments, of which it is said there are nearly sixty relating to the use of the bow between the time of Henry II. and Henry VIII. In the reign of Edward III. proclamation was made that all persons should practise archery on the holidays and Sundays during the hours not occupied by divine service. Every person having an annual income of more than one hundred pence was obliged to furnish himself with a serviceable bow and arrows, and every village was furnished with pricks, butts, and rovers for the competition of the people. The Act 33 Hen. VIII. c. 9, called "An Acte for Mayntenaunce of Artyllarie, and

debarring of Unlauful Games," ordains that "noe p'son above the saide age of xxiij yeres shall shoote at any marke of a leaven score yards or under with any prickshafte or fleight under the peyne to forfeyt for everie shoote vjs viijd." It is curious to notice, that while 150 yards is considered in 1805 as a long range for the rifle, in 1543 220 yards is fixed as the minimum distance to be allowed for the bow. In fact it may be said, that up to the beginning of the present century "those vile guns" were far inferior in range and accuracy to the English longbow. It was only the smoke caused by the " villainous saltpetre" which rendered the skill of the. archer useless, and caused the abandonment of his weapon in warfare.

But with the improvement of the new weapon the skill of the user becomes again a matter of the first importance; and we are told, in The Book of Musketry Instruction for the Army, page 10, that

"The rifle is placed in the soldier's hands for the destruction of his enemy; his own safety depends upon his efficient use of it: it cannot, therefore, be too strongly inculcated, that every man who has no defect in his eyes may be made a good shot, and that no degree of perfection he may have attained in the other parts of his drill can upon service remedy any want of proficiency in this; in fact, all his other instructions in marching and manoeuvring can do no more than place him in the best possible situation for using his weapon with effect. A soldier who cannot shoot is useless, and an encumbrance to the battalion."

With regard to the time required to obtain the necessary proficiency, Colonel Wilford, of the School of Musketry at Hythe, says:

"If by a soldier is meant a man in red, who can march without treading down the shoe-heels of one in front, well and good; but if you mean to convey the idea of one skilled in the use of the rifle, perhaps three years would be nearer the mark."

J. R. Chapman, an American author, writing in 1848, says:

"An army of 50,000 men landed upon the Atlantic coast, intending to remain or penetrate into the interior, would inevitably be destroyed or captured in three months, and this would be effected principally with the rifle. A man accustomed to carry a rifle with as much care as an Old Countryman does a watch-educated, perhaps born, in the woods, accustomed to hang his life upon the certainty of a sure shot-is a tremendous overmatch for another, who knows his weapon only on drill, never saw a clump of trees larger than those in Hyde Park, and who, as a marksman, is likely to hit neither the tree nor the man behind it."

In short, every writer on the subject admits that the first thing to be learnt is the use of the weapon, and that all practice in drill and marching is but a secondary consideration. But how stands the case with our volunteers? A few months since they were described by a French writer as "assiduously practising every branch of their new profession, except the dangerous and expensive amusement of rifle-shooting." And the satire, such as it is, is nearly as applicable at the present time. Very few of the metropolitan rifle corps have any practice-grounds at all, and most of those which do exist are so situated that it takes an hour's journey to

reach them. How many days in the year can a member of one of the artisan corps, for example, be expected to lose half a day's work to go to rifle-practice, without some stronger inducement than at present exists?

The author of a work lately published, A Treatise on the Loop Formation for Rifle Volunteers, employs seventy-five pages to prove that the only two things a rifleman ought to learn are, first, to shoot; and secondly, to run away! Lest we should be suspected of misquotation, we give the passage entire, from p. 35:

"The whole are to understand that the single and simple principle of their mode of fighting is to be this, viz. that they are never individually, or collectively, to make any stand; never to engage in any reciprocating fire with the enemy in the nature of a skirmish; never to defend any position against an approaching attack of the enemy; always to recede as each man, at his own discretion, may think expedient from one point to another, without any orders; that the point of honour for each man is to bewilder, deceive, and avoid the enemy. Always to fire when he thinks himself sure of hitting an enemy, if he can do so at little or no risk to himself; never to fire unless he believes himself to have true aim at one; and throughout to consider himself bound, in honour to his neighbours and to his cause, never to expose himself to any risk that he can possibly avoid in performing these simple duties."

For the means by which this simple operation is made to confound and utterly exterminate an invading enemy, we must refer our readers to the work itself, which, it is but fair to say, demands a fuller and more careful consideration than this brief notice. In fact in the Times of December 13th there is a letter from Taranaki, in New Zealand, which, after giving an account of how the Maoris, by their pursuance of somewhat similar tactics, have managed, in one of the late skirmishes, to inflict upon our forces a loss of ten per cent of the numbers engaged, concludes by stating that "the military practice of drawing up men in full view of the enemy, and standing straight up in order like so many ninepins,—or, as the Maoris express it, 'all same as one target,'-is being gradually abandoned." Surely this is a curious commentary on the value of the company and battalion drill which we are taking such pains to teach our volunteers.

At all events, it seems to be admitted that marksmanship is to be the test of efficiency, and therefore actual practice in shooting is of the first importance. To insure this, the practice-grounds must be brought near to the residence of the volunteers, so that even a spare half-hour may be thus employed. This appears, at first sight, to offer come difficulty in the neighbourhood of large towns, where our volunteers are most numerous, but practically there is no difficulty except the space required, if we adopt the arrangement of screens and banks to intercept stray bullets and ricochet, in fact, shooting-galleries,-where open ranges are unsafe or objectionable. This plan is in general use in Switzerland, and though it is open to the objection that the screens form in some measure a guide to the eye in aiming, it is evident that we are compelled to some arrange