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To The Man With A Gun
by Thomas William Hodgson CroslandMy dear Sir, -
I suppose you are having an excellent time just now.
There are a large number of counties
In England and Scotland,
And I am not acquainted with one of them
Wherein your bang-bang
And puffs of smoke
And red-faced men with dogs
Are not to be encountered.
You like it;
It is very nice;
And really, when you come to think of it,
It is what the counties were made for.
In the history books
They were wont to say
Of a certain Norman monarch,
That he loved the red deer
As if he were their brother.
Of you it may safely be said
That you love the red grouse
And the brown partridge.
As if you were a poulterer.
You are a sportsman.
The man who first went out with a gun
To shoot game
Probably did it on the sly.
Had he been caught
He would no doubt have been regarded
By the sportsmen of his day
With the same contempt
That you yourself indulge
For the unprincipled blackguard, Sir,
Who shoots foxes.
But time and the gunsmiths
Have changed all that;
And now you are a sportsman,
A shooter of birds
For the London market.
You are also a gunner,
And you kill things.
Oh! why do you not go
And live at Gunners-bury?
Bad joke?
Well, I know it is.
But I assure you, my dear Sir,
That it is not half so bad as I can make them
When I try.
To come now to the region
Of practical politics,
Let me explain to you right off
That, despite all that has been said against you
By people who are mad about the Land
And the Game-laws,
And the feathered kingdom
And so forth,
I,
Who am always on the side of wisdom,
Have discovered a justification for you.
It is this:
There has been a great demand of late
For really competent shots.
In response to that demand
Mr. Kipling has started a village rifle club.
I understand that the members thereof
Are, let us say, five hundred in number.
Now, I put it to you, Sir,
How many sportsmen are there
Shooting in this beautiful country and Scotland
To-day?
Well, we will not compute;
It is dangerous.
But you could make a fairly big rifle club out of them.
They are all good men,
And of course all beautiful shots.
Some day
(When the war is over)
England may want them.
Will they answer to the call?
My dear Sir,
You have your uses.
Go in peace.