The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-03 00:00:00

THE RIFLE SHOOTING AT
IVIMBLEDOK.
_ _

The Grand Match of the Rifle Association was
opened by her Majesty yesterday in due state, in
the presence of au immense assemblage, and under
the first summer sky we have seen this year.
Nothing could be more anspicionz and it must have
struck everybody as a sort of discovery that it was
possible to have a Derby-day with a competition,
not of horses, but of men ; and that it was possible
for men to eempete with olher weapons than their
fists. The spectacle would be very novel to many
of our citizens, who may not be aware that there is
a similar ground, with similar arrangements, in the
outskirts of every town in Switzerland and Tyrol;
and that the people of those countries reckon on their
rifle practice for the preservation of their liberties,
as much as we do on our three-deckers, our sixty..
eight pounders, and all the rest, now costing us
about thiity millions a year. The Swiss say to
themselves that, so long as it is humanly certain
that every one of them willkill on the average half
a dozen inraders Were he is killed himself, the
most covetous neighbour will count the cost, ri.nd
think the Alps scarcely worth the sacrifice of half
a million good soldiers. They also consi ler that
when you have to defend yourself against odds
it is better to begin with long shots, and that, if
the enemy has numbers on his side, you must make
up as well as you can with position and skill. By
considerations such as these a few mountaineers,
surrounded by natural foes, without a fleet,
without a sea, with scarcely a standing army,
without a fortification. to stand an hour's siege,
with nothing, in fact, but themselves and their
rifles, enjoy not only an independence, but a sense
of security as perfect as we can pretend to. Ter-
rible examples have impressed on their neighbours
a serious conviction that an invading army of a
hundred thousand good soldiers might, indeed, do
a great deal of harm in Switzerland, but would not
go home to tell the tale of their atrocities. That is
the true sentiment of the performance we are wit-
nessing this week on Wimbledon-common. It is
the noble art of self-defence en the national scale.
That is all that is pretended. It is true that a na-
tion which can defend itself is agile to interfere with
more ease and security for the defence of her op-
pressed neighbours if the need should arise, but a
noble self-confidence is a feeling the very contrary
to the lust of dominion. We may aepend upon it
that no people ever sallied forth, or will ever sally
forth, to conquer the world with gocd shots.
It may seem mther strange that anything in the
shape of an apology should be necessary for the art
of national self-defence. But the old established
notions of warfare are all taken from a state of

things which may have been good, or may have
been bad, >iut has now passed away. We have no
food for powder left in these isles. We used to
have a good deal before our colonies, before the
gold discoveries, before cotton mills and model
farms, and before the Irish famine. Man was then
a weed, and a very troublesome weed, and few
could imagine the armaments we used to assem-
ble by land and by sea when our population end
revenue were not half what they now are. We
have to bid very high for the services of the sol-
dier, and in default of the professional soldier we
are now fain to accept the services of any private
person who will come forward and undertake the
defence of our hearths and our altars. This is the
reason of our Volunteers ; and the result is what
we witnessed in Hyde Park the other day. But
that result would be very incomplete and a most
miserable error without a training in proportion to
the value of the Volunteer. Whatever may have
been the value of life fifty years ago, we hold the
men reviewed in Hyde Park much too good to be
employed merely to use up an enemy's ammunition,
to fill a ditch, or divert the fire of a battery. It is
not to be thought of that the Chancery Bar shall
be decimated at a discharge, that the entire school
of British artists shall be pounded by round shot,
or our shopkeepers used up like a levy of raw con-
scripts. 'i hese men tender their services on the
condition of being made good soldiers. Every one
of them must be made as good as ten ordinary sol-
diers. Should the occasion ever arise for the em-
ployment of their services, it will bein a war of
rifles. They will Fo scanted to harrass an invading
army, and to defend houses and earthworks. Their
first use is to give a practical answer to the evil
suggestion which has found favour in some quar-
ters,—that London is indefensible, and that all it
can do is to yield with a good grace. If half a
million able-bodied men are not able to protect their
own homes against a third of their number of
strangers, they deserve to be slaves, and it is quite
time that they should accept a position in keeping
with the baseness of their natures. It is our belief

that the Londoners alone area match for any army
that could ever reach their suburbs; but they must
be well armed, and taught to use their arms. Now,
a shopman from Regent-street, or a clerk from
Cornhill, might not be able to carry his musket and
knapsack several hundred miles, to bivouac on the
bare ground, living on biscuit, salt pork, and green
coffee; but these aro only artificial privations, pro-
vided for our armies at incre3ible cost by the
Ministers of regular war, and our shopman is quite
as likely to be made a good shot, and to be quali-
fied in every respect to protect the metropolis, or
hold an earthwork, as a lad from the plough, or any
other fellow picked up by a recruiting-sergeant.
As her Majesty was yesterday reminded, the
English people have always exoelled as marksmen.
Their ancestors were famous and formidable with

the longbow. Their descendants in the United
States are not less so with the rifle. To this day
next to being a good horseman " cross country,"
there is nothing an Englishman is so proud of as
being a good shot. This capability of our race is so
thoroughly recognised as to be even encountered by
a systematic opposition. Law and custom conspire
to keep arms out of the hands of the ordinary Eng-
lishman, for the very reason that he is known to be
fond of the gun and apt at its use. Our squires know
full well that our village labourers could use the
rifle quite as well as Washington's troops, and that
our shopkeepers would fight as well behind breast-
works as the heroes of Bunker's-hill. Of course the

courage displayed in the open field is more a theme
for admiration, and nothing was ever more
glorious than the Cavalry charge at Balaklava.
But the present is a question of defence, and what
we have to learn is whether ordinary Englishmen,
generally engaged in other pursuits, can be taught
to defend their cities from invasion. It is a point
on which we have no doubt. At least one Eng-

lishman out of the two has the eye and the arm- ,
the nerve, the steadiness, and the courage, to ex-
change shots with an invader, and give as well as
take. Whatever jealousy there may have existed
in times gone by,:there can be now no reason against
teaching every man of good character how to de-
fend his country. Her Majesty yesterday inaugu-
rated the Rifle as our national weapon. Acts of
Parliament formerly enjoined the use and practice
of the bow, and the planting and preservation of
the yew for this purpose. Queen Victoria wishes
to reign over a nation of Riflemen. Why are we a
free people, and why do we govern ourselves, if we
may not be trusted ? Despotic Governments may
be afraid to see their people armed, but ours need
have no such fear. Our freedom is oar best re-
source, our great army o£ reserve our arsenal of
weapons. Our mechanical skill is wasted on us, if
we do not learn the use of the weapon we can make
so well. Her Majesty's own shot yesterday proved.
the perfection to which we have brought the na-
tional arm. At the distance of 400 yards the bullet
deviated only an inch and three-quarters in eleva-
tion, and four•fifths of an inch from the direst line.
We hare the weapon and the materials ; all that
is wanted is the skill, and this week will show our
progress in that respect.—Times.