He must be a good archer indeed who can dispense with this necessary addition to his equipment. The tassel is usually made of green worsted, and its primary use is to remove any dirt that may adhere to the arrow when it is drawn from the ground, but the head of it may be used for carrying a few pins, and concealed within the outer fringe may be kept a small piece of oiled flannel, to be applied to the arrow occasionally, so as to prevent the paint from sticking on to the shaft. The tassel should be of moderate dimensions—in fact, the smaller the better, provided it be big enough for use. It is usually hung on to a button of a gentleman's coat, but ladies usually wear it attached to their girdles.
The Belt, Quiver, etc.
In former days a leather belt was considered absolutely necessary, and some have been known to consider themselves more fully dressed for an archery contest with the green baize bag for the bow surrounding the waist. It was certainly useful, and kept together the various things then in use, namely, the glove, the quiver, the tassel, the grease-box, the tablets for scoring, the pricker for the same purpose, the armguard, &c. A well-appointed archer of the present day devotes a coat specially for the purposes of archery, and this is fitted with a long leather-lined pocket let into the back of the coat, to the left of the left back-button. This pocket holds his arrows, and becomes his quiver. The tassel is attached to a front button. Any suitable note-book with a pencil goes into a pocket, taking the place of the tablet and pricker. As a belt is not the most convenient receptacle for the rest of his equipment, no belt is carried. As ladies are not yet so well provided with pockets as gentlemen, they still find it almost absolutely necessary to carry a belt for their various requisites, and some will even voluntarily (or perhaps involuntarily, in the case of the Championess of the West) handicap themselves by carrying the whole apparatus in solid silver.
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.