journalism of London. The first, in order of time, of the sixpenny society papers of to-day has been the World,' and the germ of this very successful enterprise is assuredly to be found above all things in Laurence Oliphant's 'Owl.' The late Mr Edmund Yates had anticipated the society gossip of his own newspaper in the weekly column of town talk, contributed during several years to the deceased 'Morning Star,' under the signature of the "Flaneur." This, though exceedingly bright and readable, was in its essence nothing more nor less than a specimen of ", Our own London correspondent's" best work, as presented in a hundred provincial broadsheets. The "new journalism" in effect does little else than amplify, embellish, and, in point of literary style perhaps, improve those elements of gossip and local chat, which from time immemorial have been the chief attractions of the country newspaper to its readers, whether in the

cottage or the hall, whether in the village alehouse or the borough institute. Instead, therefore, of the power exercised by the journals published within the sound of Bow Bells upon the newspaper literature of provincial capitals having been fatal to local developments, one ought in all fairness to to recognise that the appetite gratified by the "new," or "society," journalism of the Metropolis at this close of the nineteenth century is essentially of the bourgeois kind, and is in fact identical with that for which country editors have long found it advantageous to cater. If, as is surely the case, the conversation and the interests of "smart" society in London have a decided taint of provincialism, this quality shows itself nowhere more conspicuously than in the columns and contents of those hebdomadals that, falsely, as moral optimists might hope, affect to be its special organs.

T. H. S. ESCOTT.

SOME sportsmen decry the habit of keeping a game-book; but I believe the only objection they can urge to it is the fear that it may make a gun a little over-zealous for his score, and so induce perhaps a little occasional wildness in his shooting.

Let us by all means, and in the most decided manner, discourage anything which could in any way add to the already sufficient element of danger always more or less in existence in the shooting-field. But that the fact of a man keep ing a daily record of his day's shooting is likely to cause him to indulge in rash and dangerous shots, I will not admit for a moment.

Personally, I have been accustomed to shoot where the gun's individual score was kept and recorded. Surely here, if anywhere, there was sufficient inducement for a little "speculative shooting," just to be at the top of the poll. But, as the old proverb says, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating; and, judging by this standard, I have never known the shootingfield to be turned into a miniature battle-field through the eagerness of any member of the party to loose off his piece on the chance of adding one to the score.

It is unfortunately true that some men are totally unable to see that a loaded gun contains any element of danger. They walk sublimely on, blissfully unconscious of the fact that, during the last ten minutes, their loaded barrels fullcocked, with death lurking in them, have some twenty times passed across the bodies of those walking in front of them, or behind them, as the case may be.

I have seen an eminent diplomatist, in cold blood and in open ground, fire shots which routed two Cabinet Ministers, who fortunately saw, and made tracks just in time. These are the men who add to the delightful sport of shooting just that suspicion of danger, that delicate flavouring of risk, without which every sport is deemed tame.

To our mind, one of the pleasantest parts of a day's shooting is the comparison of it with the records of other days on the same beat in past years. What pleasant recollections it brings up! What delightful reminiscences of the past!

And often when shooting is all over, and guns are carefully put away until another season comes round, I take up my little gamebook, and run my eye through it. How it freshens up the memory, and revives the recollection of pleasant days spent in some remote and now almost forgotten part of Scotland! Of course, occasionally, a tinge of melancholy will come over you as you run against the name of some dear friend who has long since fired his last shot; but then, after all, in this workaday world of ours, it does a man good to indulge in such solemn thoughts occasionally.

My game-book commences when I was about seventeen years of age, and almost the first entry, I am sorry to say, brings up most disagreeable recollections, instead of the pleasant ones I have premised.

It conjures up a big Leicestershire turnip-field of very thick, thousand-headed turnips, and a bright September morning. A

line of three or four guns walking through, with a mounted groom skirmishing on the right. Something brown moves in front of me. With the rash impetuosity of youth I raise my gun to the shoulder. "Hare, sir, in front," insinuatingly whispers my loader, the head-keeper's own "adlatus," and whom of course I trusted implicitly. Upon receiving this information from such an authority, I instantly fired. There was considerable commotion amongst the turnips in the immediate vicinity, but no trace of poor pussy. It was a curious circumstance, though, that almost immediately after I had fired, the mounted groom had given a "tally-ho," and my loader had developed a bad cough. My spirits fell considerably, and my heart was beating fast as I neared the road, in which was seated my host (and the Master of Hounds). However, he said nothing. But as the head-keeper approached me, I felt sick with apprehension. Of course he was delighted. "A bad job that, sir! a werry bad job!" he said confidentially; "but I'll take a spade the first thing in the morning, and put it out of the way, poor thing!" Then he told me (he could scarcely conceal his indecent delight) how the groom had seen it turn right over, and with difficulty drag its way to the wood.

Needless to say, I scarcely hit a partridge all the rest of that day, and had not the spirit to fire at any more hares-nor did I play a very good knife and fork at luncheon-time. This in Leicestershire, too! Why, I was almost worse than a murderer!

Not until after dinner did I venture to approach the Master, and nervously to inform him that I had a confession to make that I believed I had shot a tongue could at the

My moment

scarcely form the word, and even at this distance of time my pen refuses to write the word which would brand me with such infamy. My host, the Master, was kindness itself. He sympathised with my real and evident distress, and, to use his own words, said, "Why, I've done the same myself!"

was

As a matter of fact, I do not believe the-say, “animal”touched. Its body was never found, and therefore, strong though the evidence might be against me, I could never be convicted of its murder.

Let us throw a veil over this, almost the only unpleasing chapter in my history, and turn over a new leaf. The next page reveals a farmhouse in a beautiful part of Perthshire, and recalls a small bachelor party. I wake early my first morning, and step out to enjoy the bracing mountain-air. I find the farmer, an old Highlander, putting the finishing touch to a stack, and with his men celebrating the event in the usual manner. In a gush of kindly feeling he invited the Sassenach stranger to partake of some real mountaindew. I had never been in Scotland till the day before, and was unused to their early morning ways and beverages. I thought it really was some delicious mountain spring-water, and taking the glass he gave me, wished him luck

-and drained it. I only hope they were looking the other way. I did my best not to betray my feelings, but the agony I suffered in pouring that vile stuff down my throat and into an empty stomach was something to remember. How I staggered back to the farm I know not; but I can remember that the remainder of my party were highly amused at my experience, and inexperience. Another page melancholy gentleman who was

recalls a very

an amateur photographer. spirits were like a barometer, and varied according as his photographs came out well or ill. If well, he was in the highest spirits, and everything was couleur de rose. If ill, he was down in the lowest depths. There was nothing worth living for, and so on. He lived about ten miles from the station, the road being parallel with the railway all the way, and within a few yards of it. He was a very nervous man, and having a very smart pair of steppers, used to suffer extreme mental anguish in driving in to the station. He always had the door of his bus open, so that should anything occur, at any rate he could drop himself out of it at once. Poor man! he did look so unhappy. I always felt for him very much, and hoped his photographs might come out well.

Turning over a page, we come to an entry which brings back to me two amusing stories.

The first is of a man who paid something like a thousand a-year for a length of salmon - fishing. Day after day that devoted fisherman went out—but never a fish did he rise. Finally he gave it up in disgust, and told his cook he might have a try if he liked. The cook did have a try, and immediately landed a magnificent fish. The next day saw the master at work again; and this time with better results.

The next day we had a very wild, rambling sort of shoot, getting capercailzie, roe-deer, woodcock, and grouse, amongst other things. The capercailzie were driven off the top of a hill, while the guns were posted in the valley below. We blazed away, keeping up a tremendous fire as they sailed over our heads, so high up that they looked more like sparrows than capercailzie. But in spite of the heavy fire, and caring nothing for choke-bores and No. 3 shot, most of them continued their journey uninjured, and apparently with their equanimity unruffled.

This was the first place at which I had ever seen a roe-deer. These graceful creatures are a great charm to a place, as they leap up from a bracken bed and bound lightly away into the wood.

The next place I went to was one of the most charming houses in Scotland, placed in the midst of most beautiful and romantic scenery. Nature would almost seem to have surpassed herself in making this spot attractive. In one place a large loch; one side of it a grim impenetrable-looking forest-a real forest-none of your trimly kept English woodlands; the other side consisting of a rugged ridge, green with rough scrub, and apparently descending sheer down into the water. Then

a river, in one place its deep amber-coloured water swirling swiftly along, with many a current and eddy; a little farther, and it descends with clamorous roar into a sort of seething caldron, where, a mass of feathery foam, it hisses and bubbles, and then, as if ashamed of its riotous behaviour, more placidly resumes its wayward course again.

We were not living in the "mansion-house" itself, but in a little shooting-lodge adjacent. All sorts of troubles befell us here, for the house and its appointments were of the " Tommiebeg shooting " order. One night we had

no dinner because the kitchenrange had fallen in bodily. The boiler was always going wrong, and there was no plumber within thirty miles. As for the chairs, it was extremely dangerous to attempt to sit on one until it had been tested. Indeed, when the owner came over to luncheon one day, and was asked to sit down, before doing so he carefully examined his own chair to see if it was a sound one.

Another great difficulty was with the keeper. His face was a featureless, expressionless sort of ball of flesh. The back of his head was just the same. Right on the top of his head was a short, sandy tuft of hair. It was really almost impossible to tell whether you were talking to the back or front of him; at least so our hostess always declared. His face certainly was less like the ordinary human visage than that of any other man I have come across. The moors were for shooting purposes a long way off, and often we had to go on ponies nine weary miles up-hill. Then at the end of the day we had to descend the nine weary miles again, and by the time we arrived at the lodge we were wellnigh shaken to pieces.

But once on the top of the hill the prospect was magnificent, and with the fresh crisp mountain air meeting you as you reached the summit, a man must have been hard to please if he was not content. Here I was lucky enough to secure my first ptarmigan, and very pleased I was. One day, too, we had a hare-drive, and bagged over two hundred hares. But poor little pussy comes lolloping up so confidingly, that it seems almost like butchery to shoot her, and at the end of the day you half feel as if a second Glencoe massacre had taken place, and you were one of the perpetrators of it.

And now I come to one of the most delightful shoots I have ever taken part in.

Murtly Chace will always bring up in my mind the pleasantest of recollections. I can recall no place where you can get a more varied bag or enjoy yourself more. Many a pleasant day have I spent in Murtly Chace and Murtly Bog, and the genial companionship of its then tenant. Though it is now a good many years ago since I first shot "the Bog," I can recollect even now how the snipe flew that day. I also recall to mind how a great legal luminary was almost in tears at the number of shots he had fired without any satisfactory results.

The great charm of Murtly Chace is the variety of shooting you get. You never know what will get up next. One moment you are walking through a wood. A rabbit may jump up and be down a hole, unless you are sharp

or a roe deer may bound off through the bracken. Or you may suddenly become conscious of a slight rustling among the fir-trees. You look up just in time to see an old cock capercailzie sailing away. Then you emerge from the wood into a bit of open moor, with here and