practice was carried on in Hyde Park or St. James’s Park at the most crowded time of the day.
I propose to erect a wall, of a concave form, twenty feet high, and about twenty-five to thirty feet in length. In the centre of this the target would be placed; and to prevent the possibility of any inexperienced beginner missing the wall, I would build another wall of nearly the same size, of woodwork, faced on the side nearest the marksman with mud or pisé, to prevent the rebound of the bullets.
This wall should be placed twenty-five yards from the rifleman, and should have in the centre a hole or doorway cut, six feet three inches high, by two feet abroad. If the marksman at twenty-five yards fired a bullet through this opening, it could not possibly diverge so much as to miss the distant butt. It would be almost impossible for any man, however awkward, to miss the near butt altogether, but even this chance of accident may be further provided against by the form of the shed which might be erected for the protection of the marksman from the weather.
These walls and the other erections might easily be built so as to be ornamental rather than otherwise.
The apparent objection which presents itself to this plan is, that the act of firing through a comparatively small opening at a distant object, would too much facilitate the aim, so that a marksman would soon become an adept with such assistance, and yet be unable to shoot well in open country. This, however, is not the fact as actual experience will prove.
Indeed, upon reflection, it must be obvious, that as not only the target, but nearly the whole of the distant butt will be visible through the opening, it will require quite as much care to aim successfully as if the target stood alone. Moreover, there would be no difficulty in giving the rifleman every opportunity of studying distance, and the comparative size of figures, and other objects. The target could be removed to any distance to vary the practice.S. R. L.
[This plan of forming, as it were, a sieve to sift aside the stray shots and render them harmless, is so simple and ingenious that we willingly make it public. But authorities must decide for themselves how far practice through such an orifice would educate for effective rifle-firing in the open field.— Ed. O. A. W.]
MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE.
IN MEMORIAM.
Every now and then a great man passes noiselessly away from amongst us, and the world takes no account of the loss. There are no loud lamentations; no turgid panegyrics; no ready-made obituary notices in the daily papers. People do not talk about it, or write about it, or care to inquire how it happened. The dead man may have done some great things in his time; but, if one would not pass out of the recollection of a community of busy men, and submit to a moral sepulture in the midst of one’s career, it is necessary to be always a-doing. The tranquil close of an active life is a fair thing to contemplate; but tranquillity is the grave of contemporary fame.
Such a man passed away from amongst us a few days ago, in a sheltered retreat on the Kentish border of the Surrey Hills. As you pass from Godstone in the one county to Westerham in the other, you skirt the little village of Limpsfield, and turning sharp down to the left, you soon come upon the lodge-gates of a little home park, in which stands a modest dwelling-house, scarcely exceeding the dimensions of a suburban villa. In this peaceful pleasant nook lived Mountstuart Elphinstone; and there, on Sun- day, the 20thbf November last, he died, at the ripe age of eighty years.
More than thirty years have gone by since he put off the harness from his back. In November, 1827, he handed over the government of Bombay to his friend Sir John Malcolm; and from that date, content to see others reap the fame and fortune freely offered to him, he lived a life of literary leisure. He was recognised during all this time as the highest living authority upon all questions of Indian government; but his counsel was given in secret, and it was known to few how frequently his advice was sought, and how reverently it was followed.
A younger son of a Scotch peer, he was sent out to India, as a boy, in the Civil Service of the East India Company. A great historical epoch lay before him — the reign of the two Wellesleys. Reputations in those days ripened apace. Oppor- tunities of distinction were not wanting, and the best men came to the front. In his noviciate yoimg Elphinstone chose the political department of the public service, and graduated in diplomacy under Barry Close at the Court of Poonah. In the early part of the first Mahratta war, John Malcolm had accompanied Arthur Wellesley as his political adviser; but severe illness having compelled him to leave the camp, Elphinstone took his place, and for a time carried on the political duties of the campaign, as the friend and adviser of the great Duke, who appreciated his courage no less than his genius; and who, struck by his military ardour at the siege of Gawilghur, told him that he ought to have been a soldier. From that time his professional advancement was rapid. In 1804 he was appointed Political Resident at Nagpore; and in 1808, when all India was frightened from its propriety by threatened invasion of Alexander of Russia and the great Napoleon, Elphinstone was one of the three officers selected to check-mate the imperial allies in the countries between India and Russia. Whilst Malcolm went to Persia, and Metcalfe to the Punjab, he conducted a British mission to the Court of the king of Cabul, and concluded a treaty with that luckless Suddozye prince, who thirty years afterwards involved the British nation in the last and worst of his disastrous failures. It was a splendid mission, lavish in its expenditure, making the mouths of the greedy Afghans water at the thought of an Englishman, until empty-handed Burnes destroyed the beautiful illusion. All that Elphinstone had to do, he did right well: and then he returned to India and wrote a book.
The book was, in truth, the best result of the mission. But never was any man less of a book-maker. What he wrote, he wrote for Govern-