If a foreign flag is hoisted on shore--as it often is in compliment to some distinguished stranger--it must have the staff to itself. In 1851, when the queen of Louis Philippe visited Oban, the proprietor of the Caledonian Hotel, at which she resided, in compliment to his visitor, and in ignorance, no doubt, of the proprieties of the case, hoisted the French flag over the Union. This excited the indignation of an old pensioner, John Campbell, who had been a sergeant in the 71st Highlanders--the regiment of Campbell of Lochnell--and he went to the innkeeper and demanded that matters should be put right. As no attention was paid to his remonstrance, he then and there cut down the French flag, and dared the innkeeper to hoist it again in that manner. The residents in Oban were so pleased with Campbell's spirited conduct that they presented him with a silver-headed stick. In gun practice it is also held to be an insult to take as a mark the flag of another nation, and sometimes unintentional offence has been given through mistakes about the flags in such circumstances. For the following I am indebted to a distinguished naval officer who was cognizant of the circumstances. Some twenty years ago, when the French had an army of occupation in Syria, and their fleet and ours were lying amicably together at Beyrout, some of the English ships having occasion to practise the men with their rifles, put out their respective targets--which generally consisted of bits of old flags fastened to a stick, and stuck in a small cask anchored off at the required distance--and commenced firing. Presently a boat with a superior officer was seen pulling in hot haste from the French flagship. It afterwards transpired that the boat was conveying a polite request that the English would refrain from firing on the French flag--the officer at the same time pointing to an exceedingly dirty piece of bunting which was being riddled by the bullets from one of her Majesty's ships. "That's not the French flag," was the answer of the English. "Yes, I assure you," the Frenchman replied, "we are nearer than you are, and can see the colours. And, pardon me," he added, "another of your ships is at the present moment, in this Turkish port, firing on the Turkish flag"--pointing at the same time to another target, consisting of a faded bit of red bunting. Inquiries were made, and what had been taken for the Tricolour was found to be a piece of an old condemned Union Jack, that had unfortunately been nailed on to the staff without due regard to the position of the colours, while the so-called Turkish flag was discovered to be a fragment of an old English red ensign.