SCR00007.189

SHOOTING

182, STRAND, LONDON, NOVEMBER 16, 1887

MISS ANNIE OAKLEY'S GUNS.

SIR, -- I should like to ask Mr. Charles Lancaster why he did not do himself and Miss Oakley more justice than by building her a pair of 20-bores, when it was in his power to have given her something far more effective?

Your remarks on the inadequacy of so small a charge as 2 1/2 drs. and 3/4 oz. of shot for pigeon shooting, to compete on equal terms with 12-bore guns, are perfectly correct, though I should scarcely have expected them; but I fail to see why Mr. Lancaster should have thus handicapped Miss Oakley by compelling her unnecessarily to use them.

You remark on the "difficulty with which Mr. Lancaster has had to contend in building guns for a girl of eight stones weight," and you might have added, "and he has increased the difficulty by the resolution that they shall be 20-bore guns."

Seeing that guns are now advertised of 4 1/2 lbs. weight, and 12-bore, shooting 3 drs. and 1 1/8 oz. of shot, I confess it puzzles me why Mr. Lancaster should have gone out of his way to give Miss Oakley guns a full 1 lb. heavier, of inferior bore, and shooting a far inferior charge. With those light 12-bores, and their charge, she could have competed with other 12-bore on equal footing, and her shooting would not then have been open to the charge of cruelty under which it at present would seem to lie in your estimation, by using so small a charge at 25 yds.

CIGAR.