SHOOTING AT THE "MOVIES."

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2418, 25 March 1915, Page 3

SHOOTING AT THE "MOVIES."

RIFLE PRACTICE UP-TO-DATE. "It is a fine morning, let us go and shoot something!" This, according to the old Continental point of view, revealed the Englishman's usual frame of miud. The game preserve is not at everyone's dsposal, however, and so the shooting gallery came into existence as an excellent substitute. The' shooting gallery has moved with the times, and the up-to-date installation is a very different affair from that of the old days when the fixed bull's-eye was the markman's sole available objectve. To-day we do our shooting in a saloon de luxe where, with the aid of the cinema, we are provided with realistic "life targets."

Anxious to find out what effect the war had had on this sort of thing, a "Daily News" representative called at a shooting range in Oxford Street. "One result," said the manager, "is that wo have lost a good many of our most enthusiastic patrons. Beforo the war started we had many customers who came to shoot because they were fond of the practice, membors of cluljs, and so on.- They were just the' sort of men who promptly joined the colours when the call came, and have since gone to the front. "There is still a good public, however, for us. Among our visitors we frequently have clergymen keen on testing their skill with tho rifle. The ladies, too, are very, enthusiastic, and are surprisingly quick in picking up the knack of sighting at a maving object." It is rathor a fascinating idea this of the moving target, At the saloon mentioned they have over 40,000 feet of film, and you can take your choice of the various pictured targets—motorracers, Grand National horses, aeroplanes, boats, cross-country runners, seagulls, deer, and seals. The ambitious marksman may try his luck at a prowling lion, or gratify in some slight degree his patriotic instincts by shooting at a German cavalry brigade, whose exciting charge, vividly portrayed, was actually taken on a Belgian battlefield. The shooting is done at a paper screen, and the bullet when it pierces tho screen also automatically stops the film, so that tho effect of the shot may be observed by tho marksman.

Military men have found the range of great help in practising shooting, and the "Daily News" man, who in ordinary circumstances would not expect to hit a haystack, found himself after a few fshots gaining an accuracy of firo that even a Queen's Prize man would not disdain. Any many in the King's uniform lias the privilege of firing six shots daily at this range without charge. —"Daily News."