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6 GEORGIA SCENES. By Judge Augustus ft aid Ivin Longstreet. THE SHOOTING MATCH. Shooting matches are nearly coeval with the colonization of Georgia. They are still common throughout the southern states, though they are not as common as they were twenty-five or thirty years ago. Chance led me to one about a year ago. I was trav eling to one of the northeastern coun ties, when I overtook a swarthy, bright eyed, smerky little fellow, riding a small pony, and bearing on his shoul ders a long, heavy rifle, which, judg ing from its looks, I should say, had done service in Morgan’s corps. “Good morning, sir,” said I, reining up my horse as I came beside him. “How goes it, stranger?’’ with a tone of independence and self-confi dence that awakened my curiosity to know a little of his character. “Going driving?’’ inquired I. “Not exactly,” replied he, surveying my horse with a quizzical smile; “I haven’t been a driving by myself for a year or two; and my nose has got so bad lately, I can’t carry a cold trail without hounds to help me.” Alone, and without hounds as he was, the question was rather a sillv one; but it answered the purpose for which it was put, which was only to draw him into conversation, and I proceeded to make as decent a re treat as I could. “I didn’t know, said I, “but that you were going to meet the huntsmen, or going to your own stand.” “Ah, sure enough,” rejoined he, “that mout be a bee, as the old woman said when she killed a wasp. It seems to me I ought to know you.” “Well, if you ought, why don’t you?” “What mout you name be?” “It might be anything,” said I, with borrowed wit; for I knew my man, and knew what kind of conversation would please him most. “Well, what is it, then?” “It Is Hall,” said I; “but you know it might as well have been anything else.” “Pretty digging,” said he. “I find you are not the fool I took you to be; so here’s to a better acquaintance with you.” “With all my heart,” returned I; “but you must be as clever as I’ve been, and give me your name.” “To be sure I will, my old coon; take it, take it, and welcome. Any thing else about you’d like to have?” “No,” said I. “There’s nothing else about you worth having.” “Oh, yes, there is, stranger! Do you see this?” holding out his ponderous rifle with an ease that astonished me. “If you will go with me to the shoot ing match, and see me knock out the bull’s eye with her a few times, you’ll agree that old soap-stick’s worth something when Billy Curlew puts his shoulder to her.” This short sentence was replete with information to me. It taught me that my companion was Billy Curlew; that he was going to a shooting match; that he called his rifle the soap-stick, and that he was very con fident of winning beef with her; cr which is nearly but not quite the same thing, driving the cross with her. “Well,” said I, “if the shooting match is not too far out of my way, I’ll go to it with pleasure.” “Unless your way lies through the woods from here,” said Billy, “it’ll not be much out of your way; for it’s only a mile ahead of us, and there Is no other road for you to take until you get there, and as that thing you are riding in an’t well suited to traveling among brushy knobs, I reckon you won’t use much by going by. I reckon ynn hardly aver was at a shooting match, stranger, from the cut of your coat?” “Oh, yes,” returned I, “many a time. I won beef at one when I was hardly old enough to hold a shot gun off hand.” “Children don’t go to shooting matches about here,” said he with a smile of incredulity. “I never heard of but one that did, and he was a little swinge cat. He was born a shooting, and killed squirrels before he was weaned.” “Nor did I ever hear of but one,” replied I, “and that one was myself.” “And where did you win beef so young, stranger?” “At Berry Adams’s.” “Why, stop, stranger; let me look at you good! Is your name Lyman Hall?” “The very same,” said I. “Well, dang my buttons, if you an’t the very boy my daddy used to tell me about. I was too young to recol lect you myself; but I’ve heard daddy talk about you many a time. I be lieve mammy’s got a neck-handker chief now that daddy won on your shooting at Collen Reid’s store, when you were hardly knee high. Come along, Lyman, and I’ll go my death upon you at the shooting match, with the old soap-stick at your shoulder.” “Ah, Billy,” said I, “the old soap stick will do much better at your own shoulder. It was my mother’s notion that sent me to the shooting match at Berry Adams’s; and to tell the honest truth, it was altogether a chance shot that made me win beef; but that was n’t generally known; and most every body believed that I was carried there on account of my skill in shooting; and my fame was spread far and wide, I well remember. I remember, too, perfectly well, your father’s bet on me at the store. He was at the shoot ing match, and nothing could make him believe but that I was a great shot with a rifle as well as with a shot gun. Bet he would on me, in spite of all I could say, though I as sured him that I had never shot a rifle in my life. It so happened, too, that there were but two bullets, or rather a bullet and a half; and so con fident was your father in my skill, that be made me shoot the half bul let; and. strange to tell, by another chance shot. I like to have drove the cross and won his bet.” “Now I know you’re the very chap, for I heard daddv tell that very thing about the half bullet. Don’t say any thing about it. Lyman, and dam my old shoes, If I don’t tear the lint off the boys with you at the shooting match. They’ll never ’spect such a looking man as you are of knowing anything about a rifle. I’ll risk your chance shots.” I soon discovered that the father had eaten sour grapes, and the son’s teeth were on edge: for Billy was just as incorrigibly obstinate In his belief of my dexterity with a rifle, as his fa ther had been before him. We soon reached the place appoint ed for the shooting match. It went by the name of Sims’ Cross Roads, be cause here two roads Intersected each other; and because, from the time that the first had laid out, Archi bald Sims had resided there. Archi bald had been a justice of the peace In his day (and where is the man of his age In Georgia who has not?); consequently, he was called ’Squire Sims. It is the custom In this state, when a man has once acquired a title, either civil or military, to force it up on him as long as he lieves; hence the oonntless number of titled personages THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN who are Introduced in these sketches. We stopped at the ’squire’s door. Billy hastily dismounted, gave me the shake of the hand which he h'ad been reluctantly reserving for a mile back, and, leading me up to the ’squire, in troduced me: “Uncle Archy, this is Lyman Hall; and for all you see him in fine clothes, he’s a swinge cat; a darn sight cleverer fellow than he looks to be. Wait until you see him lift the old soap-stick, and draw a bead upon the bull’s eye. You gwine to see fun here today. Don’t say nothing about it.” “Well, Mr. Swinge-cat,” said the ’squire, “here’s to a better acquaint ance with you,” offering me his hand. “How goes it, Uncle Archy?” said I, taking his hand warmly (for I am al ways free and easy with those who are with me, and in this course I rarely fall to please). “How’s the old wo man?” “Egad,” said the ’squire, chuckling, “There you’re too hard for me; for she died two and twenty years ago, and I haven’t heard a word from her since.” “What! and you never married again!” “Never, as God’s my judge!” (A solemn asseveration, truly, upon so light a subject.) “Well, that’s not my fault.” “No, nor it’s not my fault, nither,” said the ’squire. Here we were interrupted by the cry for another Barney Sniffle. “Hel lo, here! All you as wish to put in for the shoot’n’-match, come on here! for the putt’n’ in’s riddy to begin.” About sixty persons, including more spectators, had collected; most of whom were more or less obedient to the call of Mealy Whitecotton, for that was the name of the self-consti tuted commander-in-chief. Some has tened, and some loitered, as they de sired to be first or last on the list; for they shoot in the order in which their names are entered. The beef was not present, nor is it ever upon such occasions; but sev eral of the company had seen it, who all concurred in the opinion that it was a good beef, and well worth the price that was set upon it —elev- en dollars. A general inquiry ran round, in order to form some opin ion as to the number of shots that would be taken; for of course, the price of a shot is cheapened in propor tion to the increase of that number. It was soon ascertained that not more than twenty persons would take chan ces; but these twenty agreed to take the number of shots, at twenty-five cents each. The competitors now began to give in their names; some for one, some for two, three, and a few for as many as four shots. Billy Curlew hung back to the last; and when the list was offered him, five shots remained undisposed of. “How many shots left?” inquired Billy. "Five,” was the reply. “Well, I take ’em all. Put down four shots to me, and one to Lyman Hall, paid for by William Curlew.” I was thunder-struck, not at his proposition to pay for my shot, be cause I knew that Billy meant it as a token of friendship, and he would have been hurt if I had refused to let him do this favor for me; but at the unexpected announcement of my name as a competitor for beef, at least one hundred miles from the place of my residence. I was prepared for a chal lenge from Billy to some of his neigh bors for a private match upon me; but not for this. I therefore, protested against his putting in for me, and urged every reason to dissuade him from It that 1 could, without wounding his feel ings. “Put it down!” said Billy, with the authority of an emperor, and with a look that spoke volumes intelligible to every bystander. “Reckon I don’t know what I’m about?” Then wheel ing about, and muttering in an under self-confident tone, “Dang old Roper,” continued he, “if he don’t knock that cross to the north corner of creation and back again before a cat can lick her foot.” Had I been king of the cat tribe, they could not have regarded me with more curious attention than did the whole company from this moment. Ev ery inch of me was examined with the nicest scrutiny; and some plainly ex pressed by their looks that they never would have taken me for such a bite. I saw no alternative but to throw my self upon a third chance shot; for though by the rules of the sport, I would have been allowed to shoot by proxy, by all the rules of good breed ing, I was bound to shoot in person. It would have been unpardonable to disappoint the expectations which had been raised on me. Unfortunately, too, for me, the match differed in one respect from those which I had been in the habit of attending in my young er days. In olden times the contest was carried on chiefly with shot guns, a generic term which, in those days, embraced three descriptions of fire arms: Indian-traders (a long, cheap, but sometimes excellent kind of gun, that mother Britain used to send here for traffic with the Indians), the large musket, and the shotgun, properly so called, rifles were, however, always permitted to compete with them, un der equitable restrictions. There were, and they should be fired offhand, while the shot guns were allowed to rest, the distance being equal; or that the distance should be one hundred yards for a rifle, to sixty for the shot gun, the mode of firing being equal. But this was a match of rifles exclu sively; and these are by far the most common at this time. Most of the competitors fire at the same target; which is usually a board from nine inches to a foot wide, charr ed on one side as black as it can be made by fire, without impairing mate rially the uniformity of its surface; on the darkened side of which is pegged a square piece of white paper, which is larger, or smaller, according to the distance at which it is to be placed from the marksmen. This is almost invariably sixty yards, and for it the paper is reduced to about two and a half inches square. Out of the center of it is cut a rhombus of about the width of an inch, measured diagonally; this is the bulls-eye, or diamond, as the marksmen choose to call it; in the center of this is the cross. But every man is permitted to fix his tar get to his own taste; and according ly, some remove one fourth of the paper, cutting from the center of the square to the lower corners, so as to leave a large angle opening from the center downward; while others re duce the angle more or less; but it is rarely the case that all are not sat isfied with one of these figures. The beef is divided into five prizes, or, as they are commonly called, five quarters—the hide and tallow count ing as one. For several years after the revolutionary war, a sixth was add ed; the lead which was shot in the match. This was the prize of the sixth best shot; and it used to be carefully extracted from the board, or the tree in which it was lodged, and after wards remoulded. But this grew out of the exigency of the times, and has, I believe, been long since abandoned everywhere. The three master shots and rivals were Moses Firmby, Larkin Spivey, and Billy Curlew; to whom was add ad upon this oocwßlon, by common con