The Target.
A good target may be made of soft pine, circular or elliptical in shape. In the latter case a line-shot might count, even though it were farther from the centre. Pieces should be tacked to the back of this target at right angles to the grain of the wood. Differently-colored circles or rings, a little more than the width of an arrow, must be painted on this, with a centre twice the width of an arrow. The outer ring counts one, the next two, three, four and so on to the centre, which of course counts highest. By this plan one’s score could be told with perfect accuracy.
If an arrow struck on a line between number three and four it counts three and a half. Anything like this rarely happens. The target is fixed upon an easel formed of three pieces of wood fastened together by a string at the top, and it ought to lean back at the top slightly, away from the archer.
The three arrows count seven, nine, ten—twenty-six in all. In target-shooting you should use awl-pointed, wire-wrapped arrows, as they can be easily drawn out of even a wooden target.
XXII.—SIR WALTER SCOTT’S IDEA.
SOME years ago, while reading Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott, I came across a passage, in the autobiographical part, which struck me as so suggestive that I copied it; and here I copy it again, after which I will say my little say on the subject (it was when he was a youth, you know):