by circumstances which would not
affect ordinary infantry; but common sense would readily dictate the
positions of attack or defence in which their peculiar powers would
render the best service, and military science would suggest the most
efficient manner of directing their operations. Such a force, however,
would necessarily form but a small portion of any army; and we have
dwelt upon the subject solely from the conviction that its importance is
too great to allow it to be neglected, while it is yet too little known
to be appreciated as it deserves.

We turn now to the ordinary rifle-practice, which has come of late years
to be considered in Europe almost as the one thing needful for the
soldier, while with us it has been gradually sinking into disuse for a
quarter of a century. When called upon to send an army into the field,
we find that more than half of its members have never fired a gun, and
even of those who have, not one in a hundred has had any instruction
beyond what he has been able to pick up for himself, while popping at
robins and squirrels with a ten-dollar Birmingham shot-gun; and every
account we receive of a skirmish with the enemy elicits exclamations of
astonishment that so few are hurt on either side. It may relieve in some
degree the prevalent dread of fire-arms (which is a primary cause of
this general ignorance of their use) to discover that it requires no
small amount of skill to hurt anybody with them; and when the fact comes
to be equally appreciated, that ignorance lies at the bottom of all the
unintended mischief that is done with them, it is probable that proper
instruction in their use will be considered, as it ought, a necessary
part of a boy's education. It had been better for us, if this matter had
been sooner attended to. _Let us lose no time now_.

Reader! are you a man, having the use of your limbs and eyes, and do you
know how to put a ball into a rifle and bring it out again with a true
aim? If not, it is time you were learning. Provide yourself with a rifle
and equipments, and find some one to give you the first lessons in their
use, and then practise daily at target-shooting. Do not excuse yourself
with the plea that you have no intention to enter the service. If the
work of preparation is left only to those who mean to become soldiers,
it will not be done; but if every man proves his appreciation of its
importance by taking an active interest in its promotion, the right men
for