open order in the firing line, men are taught to fire rapidly by means of exposing the targets for a second or two at a time, two shots or more to be got on the target at each exposure. In the musketry course of ten years ago there was very little rapid firing, but now it takes up more than half of the total of exercises on the range. Apart from the annual course of musketry which men are compelled to undergo, they are encouraged to practise shooting throughout the year by means of competitions, financed out of regimental funds, and offering prizes to be won in open competition. Competitors are graded into the respective classes in which their last course left them, and prizes are offered in each class, though why silver spoons should be offered to such an extent as they are is one of the mysteries that no man can explain. Certain it is that in nearly every shooting competition held, silver spoons are offered as prizes--and a soldier has little use for an ordinary teaspoon, silver or otherwise. The scores put on by men of the Army, taken in the average, go to prove that British soldiers have little to learn from those of other nations in the matter of shooting. The “marksman,” in order to win the right to wear crossed guns on his sleeve, has to put up a score which even a Bisley crack shot would not despise, and yet the number of men to be seen walking out with crossed guns on their sleeves is no inconsiderable one, while first-class shots are plentiful in all units of the cavalry and infantry. Artillerymen, of course, know little about the rifle and its use; their weapon both of offence and defence is the big gun, and in the matter of rifle-shooting they trust to their escort of cavalry or infantry--usually the latter, except in the case of Horse Artillery. Taken in the mass, the British soldier has every reason to congratulate himself on the way in which he uses his rifle, and the present Continental war has proved that he is every whit as good at using the rifle in the field as he is on the range, though, in shooting on active service, the range of the object has to be found, while in all shooting practice in time of peace it is known and the sights correctly adjusted before the man begins to fire.