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THORMANBYS STORY OF FAMOUS SHOTS Prowess of Captain Horatio Ross and His Relatives Scores with Men as Targets I was a practical rillcshot before the Wimble ¬ don meetings and the National Rifle Association came Into existence writes Tlionnanby in the London Sportsman Hanging on the wall Jn front of me as I write re two old muzzleloailin rifles the one a fourgrooved the other a two Kroovod which wore made i supiwso seventy years ago and have seen service nil over the world These venerable weapons would excite the derision of the crack shot accustomed to put on strings of trails eyes at 1000 yards with his beautifully accurate match rille When these two old rilles first came into mv possession each was fitted with a ponderous steel ramrod with a large broad round top and you had to hammer the bullet down with a mallet Yet for all that I can testify they were deadly weapons in skillful hands up to 200 yards I have seen some Rood shooting done with the old Brown Boss too tin to the same range tliougli perhaps Jt was only one in a hundred of those weapons that could be trusted to carry straight for 100 yards and with an old Spanish smoothbore gun of about 18gauge converted from a flint into a percussion I have frequently beaten ritles at 150 yards I well remember watching a detachment of the Twenty third Welsh Fusiliers practicing with the Miuie rltle just before the Crimean war and hearing mili ¬ tary men KO into ecstacies over its wonderful power as an arm of precision and destruction Up to 200 yards 1 daresay it would have held its own fairly well at any rate against the KnliehV and the Snider but beyond that range it would have taken a goo l shot to make an average of outers outersIn In those days 4he Yankees were supposed to be the crack shots of the universe and marvelous tales were told of the prowess of the riflemen of Ken ¬ tucky witli their sixfoot rilles carrying a bullet of about thirtytwo to the pound Headers of James Feniniore Coopers novels will remember that the target for a Christmas prize shooting was the head of a turkey at 100 yards The whole body of the bird was buried in the snow leaving nothing but the head and an inch of the neck visible Yet the immortal Leather Stocking never failed to cut the turkeys head clean off tit the first shot Though this after all was but a triile compared with the hammering in of an ordinary nail with a single bullet at 100 yards nothing but the head of the nail remember visible to the shooter If you want to realize what the feat means just knock a nail into a board and then measure a hundred paces you will find that even to see the head of the nail at that distance requires remarkably good eyes eyesOne One of the best rifle shot I ever met with I mean before the modern express and match rifles were known was a Mr Smith of Stone in Staffordshire a miller and n wonderfully keen sportsman I have seen him in a match for 100 bit five pennv pieces in succession at fifty yards and in the year ISfiO when lie was an old man obliged to wear spectacles I saw him smash seven oyster shells natives in succession at 100 yards And he was just as good a shot witli the fowling piece lie shot partridges witli a doublebarrel of rightoen bore and seldom failed to drop his right and left stone dead But whether he would have been any use as a rifle shot at the long ranges jioxv in vogue is more than I can say sayBut But take him for all in all I suppose the late Captain Horatio Koss was about 1hc best allround shot we have ever seen in this country He had no superior as a pigeon and game shot and no equal as a pistol and rifle shot Talk of your Bogarduscs and Carvers of recent date I should like to know what they ever did to compare with Captain Boss feats at pigeon shooting Tnke two instances In 1820 he won the Red House Club Cup by killing seventysix birds out of eighty thirty yards rise five traps three more hit the top of the palings and counted as misses but fell within the grounds One got over the paling owing to Ross right barrel missing fire but was feathered with the left But even this was eclipsed in 1841 when Itlie captain shooting against Lord Macdonald killed fiftytwo liigeons in fiftythree shots at thirtyfive yards rise In his grcit pistol match against a Spanish gentle ¬ man whose name I forget the captain in his last twentyfive shots hit the small bullseye which was exactly the size of a sixpence twentythree times at twelve 3ards the then favorite dueling distance distanceBut But it is as a Title shot that I call particular attention to Captain Horatio Ross When rifle shooting as we now understand this term came into vogue Ross was upwards of sixty years of age and although he bad had plenty of practice at clccr Rtalking had not liandled a rifle to shoot a match tit targets for more than fiveandtwenty years Yet he took his place at once in the front rank of marksmen At Wimbledon he carried off the three great smalMwre prizes at long ranges the Associa ¬ tion Cup the Any Rifle Wimbledon Cup and the Duke of Cambridges for which all the crack shots of Ilie day competed When he was in his sixty Bixth year he wrote as follows to a friend I have begun mytraining for the rifle season I am shoot fug wonderfully well all things considered Last week I tried the very long distance of 1100 yards and made a better score than is often made at that great range seven bullseyes three centers and five outers in fifteen shots shotsIt It is interesting to compare this score with that of Captain Mellish who in July 1S91 won the Any Hille Wimbledon Cup the last time it was shot for with nine bullseyes three innerSi two magpies and an outer an fifteen shots at the same distance It must be remembered that there were no magpies in Captain Ross day otherwise it is probable that I ho greater number of his outers would have ranked as mags We may therefore put Ross score down as CO against Captain Mellishs Co But it must l e remembered that the veteran was in his pixtysixth year and that match rifles have and had then attained a far higher degree of accuracy than existed when Ross made his very creditable wore woreIt It was I think in June 1807 that I saw this wonderful veteran win the Cambridge Univer ¬ sity Long Range Clubs Cup at Cambridge against rill the best shots of the day including his own son Kdward the first winner of the Queens Prize If I juincmlKT rightly the captain wound up on hat occasion with seven consecutive bullseyes at 1 MK yards Cambridge at that time was a great center of riflw shooting and with such splendid shots as Kdward Ross and 1 II Doe of Trinity anil Peteikin of Emmanuel in the Uni ¬ versity Corps they never failed to carry off the Chancellors Plate from Oxford Edward Ross though a wonderfully steady and accurate marks ¬ man was never equal to his father and his some ¬ what Hiipercilioiis manners prevented him from be ¬ ing generally popular at Cambridge He and his father were the joint heroes of one memorable feat At the Highland Rifle Association Meeting in I think 1SG7 there were thirteen opeu prizes to be competed for and Captain Koss and his son Kduard won eleven of them themA A not less remarkable shot was another member of the family Hercules Ross who won the Indian championship three years in succession and on the last occasion made nine bullseyes with his ten shots at 1000 yards Hercules Ross was one of the heroes of the Indian mutiny and did signal Forvlee with his deadly rilip during that terrible struggle On one occasion he performed a grew 8omefcat of skill which has probably never been equaled Hi rode nearly a hundred miles to a ford on tins River Rogra where it was thought that a large force of mutineers intended to cross It was of vital importance to keep them at bay till the women and children the sick and the wounded could be removed to an English station close by Hercules Ross undertook the task He had a pit dug on the bank of the river commanding the ford where ho tjok his post with a dozen good rifles and four attendants to load for him Heavy rains had swollen the river and the ford was impassable the enemy however had a large boat with which they tried to make the passage of the stream but Ross from his pit picked off the rowers one by one with marvelous skill time after time the boats put back time after time they came on again but the quick and deadly fire which that single rifleman kept up prevented them from ever getting nearer than a third of the way across Tor three hours with unfailing skill and nerve Ross shot down the rebel oarsmen whenever they at ¬ tempted to cross till at last a body of English troops with three guns came up and the Sepoys retired By his courage and skill Ross undoubtedly saved the lives of those English women and their wounded companions Another feat of what I may call practical rifle shooting was done at Lucknow during the long and terrible siege It surpassed Ross achievement in so much as it was a sustained effort kept up for many days under circumstances that made fearful demands upon the watchfulness and endurance jtt the solitary marksman The hero of this exploit was Sergeant Ilolwell of the ThirtySecond Foot The Sepoys had hauled a couple of guns on to the flat roof of one of the palaces which surrounded the residency If they could only liave mounted those guns they would have been able to pour down such a lire uK n the residency that it would have been untenable and the English would have been compelled to surrender Ilolwell being a crack shot was supplied with the best rifles the place possessed and posted in an angle of the residency with orders to prevent the Sepoys from mounting those guns The part of the building in which Hoi well took up his position had already been battered into a heap of ruins and behind the scattered ma ¬ sonry he lay at full length there was just cover enough to protect him in that posture For days he remained there never once rising to his feet or even to his knees for that would have been to court instant death from the swarm of rebel marks ¬ men surrounding him The only change of posture in which he could indulge was by rolling over from his back to his stomach and yice versa The Se ¬ poys never succeeded in mounting those guns Whenever they attempted it Holwell picked them off till they dared no longer expose themselves to his deadly aim In the dead of night provisions were conveyed to him by men crawling on their hands and knees to avoid the shots of their foes For this service Ilolwell was rewarded with the Victoria Cross and never did any man more richly deserve it itSome Some years ago as I was walking along New Oxford street I saw a tall soldierlylooking man in a peculiar costume i acing up and down what was then the establishment of Moses Son He had medals on Jiis breast and amongst them the little gun metal cross which bears the simple in ¬ scription For valor I got into conversation with the man and found that he was Sergeant Holwell the hero of frucknow who was acting as outside attendant at the shop of Moses Son I had more than one conversation with him afterwards and then lost sight of him I believe he has been dead many years I wonder how many of the ladies whose carriage doors lie opened or gentlemen who perhaps gave him a trifling tip guessed what a valiant sol ¬ dier was rendering them his humble services servicesI I was a constant attendant at the old Wimbledon meetings and have seen rifle shooting make some wonderful strides since Edward Ross won the Queens Prize with a score of twentyfour out of a possible thirty at 800 900 and 1000 yards But it must be borne in mind that there were no centers at the long ranges in those days A bullseye counted two and an outer one so1 that to make even an average of outers was no mean performance I think the most remarkable sight I ever saw at Wimbledon was the shooting for the Queens Prize In 1SVS Sergeant Menzies of the First Edinburgh had made sixtyfive Private Pullman of a Somer ¬ set corps was if 1 remember rightly only one point behind and had three shots to fire He had only to hit the target once in three shots and the prize was his Some rash friend acquainted him with this fact The excifement was too much for him he missed every phot and lost the coveted prize just when it seemed within his grasp Three years later Pullman then a sergeant in the Second Middlesex wiped out the memory of that failure by winning the blue riband of Wimbledon in gallant style Angus Cameron of the Sixth Inverness was iip to the year 1000 when Ward of Devon rivaled his great feat the only man who liad won the Queens Prize twice and each time he was credited with a higher score than had previously been made in the comiietition But the most remarkable point about this feat was that between the first and second triumph he lost the sight of his right eye and bad to shoot on the second occasion from the left shoulder instead of the right as before Subse ¬ quently I believe he lost the sight of both eyes and so his shooting days came to an untimely end Cameron was a teetotaler and I shall not forget the looks of disgust on the faces of the gallant and hospitable Victorias who claimed the pre ¬ scriptive right of handing their splendid regimental loving cup foaming with champagne to the winner when Uiat little Highland miller refused the prof ¬ fered goblet and asked for a bottle of ginger beer What a contrast to his countryman McVitie of Dumfries who used to fortify himself with a remarkably stiff dram of mountain dew before shooting at each range rangeI I will wind up this gossip with a couple of in ¬ stances of tall shooting which the reader is at liberty to believe or not as he chooses JoTin Myt ton the mad Squire of Halston was one of the finest game and rille shots of his day In the latter capacity it is told of him that he could split a bullet on the edge of a razor at thirty yards and at double that distance send a ball time after time through the peg hole of a trimmer used for pike fishing the said hole being an inch and a half in diameter After that the following Yankee yam may not seem wholly incredible The hero Is Dr Frank Powell of La Crosse Wis U S a popular and successful surgeon and M D but even more famous for his hunting exploits and his marvelous skill with the rille Among the Indians who have the greatest respect for him he is known as the White Beaver According to the very reliable authority quoted in an American journal some gentlemen called upon Mr Powell one day for the purpose of ascertaining his powers and accuracy as a marksman They found him with his friend Mr Richardson when the doctor as a pleasing pre ¬ liminary observing that Richardsons lips embraced a cigar about an inch long picked up bis rifle and knocked away the cigar stub without injuring the smoker But that was not all adds the Yankee narrator for Mr Richardson in order to show his friends steadiness of aim placed a cork on the top of his own head and as a favor asked the other to shoot at it which the doctor annihilated at once by a revolver shot Then stooping backwards Mr Richardson balanced a peanut on his nose which must have been a wide as well as a large one the nose not the peanut and that at once shared the fate of the cork But listen to the closing feat of this miraculous display of shooting Taking a knife blade Dr Powell fastened it to a target and upon each side of the target he fastened a tiny bell Then calling in his oflicc boy he placed between the youths fingers bis masonic ring previously covered witli sonic white tissue paper Between the boy and the target IJichardson stood cigar in mouth when stepping back fully flfty feet White Beaver raised his rifle Now both of you stand steady he said fired and simultaneously came two sharp rings from the bells The ball was found to have passed through the finger ring snuffed the ashes from Rich ¬ ardsons cigar and splitting upon the knife blade had on each side glanced off and rung both bells How is that for highV
