The Scoring Apparatus.

Fig. 33. Mr. Ford shot another dozen arrows at 60 yards, scoring 80, and shows his score in the St. George's Hound to be 654 from 104 hits.

Any ordinary note-book fitted with a pencil is by far the best thing for keeping the correct record of an archer's score. Very convenient scoring-books are to be bought at the archery shops, and these contain usually the forms for York Rounds for gentlemen, and National Rounds for ladies, to be filled up with plain figures entered in the right places as the scores are made. The objection to these books is that the rounds shot are not invariably York and National rounds. That the ingenious may be saved the trouble of re-inventing the best scoring-apparatus of past times it is here described. A card 3-1/2 inches by 2-1/2 inches was slipped into a silver frame, which was much like the contrivance used for direction cards for luggage in travelling. Between the card and the back of the silver frame was a leather pad of the same size as the card. A pricker was used to record the score on the card, and the leather pad protected the point of the pricker from the silver back. The card had engraved upon it the form of the round usually shot. The form for a York Round is here given. The figures on the left-hand side indicate the twelve double ends of six arrows each—72 arrows shot at 100 yards; the middle figures indicate the eight double ends of six arrows each—48 arrows at 80 yards; and the figures on the right-hand side indicate the four double ends at 60 yards—24 arrows. This form is now filled up with the best York Round that Mr. H. A. Ford ever made, as recorded by himself, and here given in facsimile. It is believed that the wonderful score here recorded of 809, from 137 hits, in the York Round, was made at Cheltenham about September 4, 1855; but, through an unaccountable want of courtesy on the part of the Ford family, the accurate date of this score cannot be given as a fact. It is not entered in the way invented by the Rev. J. Bramhall, which indicates not only the hits made, but also the order in which the arrows were shot. Thus (see p. 69) say the first arrow, shot at 100 yards, hit the red; the second was a gold, and the third a miss; the fourth arrow was a red; the fifth was a black, and the sixth a gold. Each set of vertical spaces for whites, blacks, blues, reds, and golds is allotted to a double end of six arrows. The result of the first arrow is marked on the left-hand side at the top, the second on the left-hand side in the middle, and the third on the left-hand side at the bottom. The same is done with the next three arrows on the right-hand side. Of course, when an arrow misses the target, no mark is made, and the order of the misses is shown by the hits.

A translation into the modern method of Mr. Ford's best score is here given.

100 Yards HitsScore
 97973971731=1163
753755711973=1260
753 75973 53=1054
 75751953 97=1058
731 73977775=1163
551553733531=1246
——HitsScore
80 Yards 66344Totals
97797955973=1177
953993975975=1280
975973755755=1274
951775953955=1270
60 Yards ——47301Totals
995997995775=1290
977753775773=1274
——24164Totals
—–—–
Grand totals137809

The incurable fault of this method of scoring by prick-marks is that it is impossible to correct a mistake or to verify the accuracy of scores as recorded. (Is there not the Hibernian story of the archer who, in perfect good faith, believed that he made seventy-three hits with seventy-two arrows at sixty yards?) So much that was unpleasant transpired after the Crystal Palace Meeting in 1871, that in 1872 the system of scoring at the public meetings by means of these prick-marks in the different colours was finally abandoned, and the scoring by the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 introduced instead. This scoring by figures had then already been for some years in vogue amongst the West Kent archers, introduced by the hon. secretary, Mr. R. B. Martin, and the members of the Royal Toxophilite Society had mostly, for many years previously, kept their private scores in plain figures.

In this method no attempt is ever made to record the order in which the hits at any end fall; neither is it considered advisable to do so, though it would be equally easy to enter the figures in the same order, when known, as the hits are made; but this is a matter of no importance.