CONVERSATIONAL HINTS FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS.
(By Mr. Punch's own Grouse in the Gun-room.)
Many manuals have been published for the edification of beginners in the art of shooting. If that art can indeed be acquired by reading, there is no reason why any youth, whose education has been properly attended to, should not be perfectly proficient in it without having fired a single shot. But, Mr. Punch has noticed in all these volumes a grave defect. In none of them is any instruction given which shall enable a man to obtain a conversational as well as a merely shooting success. Every pursuit has its proper conversational complement. The Farmer must know how to speak of crops and the weather in picturesque and inflammatory language; the Barrister must note, for use at the dinner-table, the subtle jests of his colleagues, the perplexity of stumbling witnesses, and the soul-stirring jokes of Judges; the Clergyman must babble of Sunday-schools and Choir-practices. Similarly, a Shooter must be able to speak of his sport and its varied incidents. To be merely a good shot is nothing. Many dull men can be that. The great thing, surely, is to be both a good shot and a cheerful light-hearted companion, with a fund of anecdotes and a rich store of allusions appropriate to every phase of shooting. Mr. Punch ventures to hope that the hints he has here put together, may be of value to all who propose to go out and "kill something" with a gun.