Their Marvellous Accuracy Only Attained by Constant Practice With Most Ingenious Mechanical Aids.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of a statement by a British general that the practice of English naval gunners was so bad that he offered to take girls out of school who could do as well. The United State battleship Indiana sailed into this port with the boast that her gunners had broken the world record. With an eight-inch gun of the Indiana a seaman named Treanor had hit a bull’s-eye four times consecutively. The mark was four feet square and at a distance of 1600 yards. The four shots were made in the record breaking time of two minutes and sixteen seconds. Had the target practice occurred in Fifth avenue, the cannon might have stood at Forty-second street and the target could have been represented by an umbrella near the Flatiron Building.

Many attaches who are stationed in this country have been instructed to learn the secret of American marksmanship and to report to their home governments; and to the attaches has been accorded every opportunity to carry out their mission. But they have learned no secret. They found no new mechanism, no novel combination of levers and wheels which were not already known to the naval experts of Europe. As one expressed it: