I hope that before long every eleven, whether football or cricket, will also make itself a good eleven for shooting and scouting and therefore useful for defence of our King and country when needed.
In the Colonies boys think more of their shooting than of their games, because the shooting is for their country, the games for themselves.
Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, writes:
"The qualities that make a good scout are, in large part, the qualities that make a good hunter. Most important of all is the ability to shift for one's self—the mixture of hardihood and resourcefulness which enables a man to tramp all day in the right direction, and, when night comes, to make the best of whatever opportunities for shelter and warmth may be at hand. Skill in the use of the rifle is another trait; quickness in seeing game, another; ability to take advantage of cover, yet another; while patience, endurance, keenness of observation, resolution, good nerves, and instant readiness in an emergency, are all indispensable to a really good hunter."
Roosevelt is not, like certain men I know of, a man who pays others to do his fighting for him, but, when America went to war with Spain about Cuba, he went to the front as a soldier—like many good Britons did in South Africa—and was of greatest value to his side because he had begun life as a scout.
So make yourselves good scouts and good rifle shots in order to protect the women and children of your country if it should ever become necessary.
MARKSMANSHIP.
Lord Roberts, who has seen more of war than almost anybody alive, knows how terrible a thing it would be if war came into England, and he urges everybody to join in preventing it by becoming a good marksman with the rifle. Thanks to him, all those who have patriotism in them are taking it up everywhere.
The value of non-smoking again comes in rifle shooting. I used to smoke myself as a youngster, but I had to do some rifle shooting, and when in training I found my eyesight was better when I did not smoke. So I gave up smoking altogether, and am very glad I did.
The boys of the International Anti-Cigarette League bind themselves not to smoke, in order to make themselves better men for their country—that is the best reason for doing it.