Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1875 — A Japanese Marksman. [ARTICLE]

A Japanese Marksman.

A lion on the ground this year, says the London Telegraph, speaking of the rifleshooting at Wimbledon, will be the Japanese officer who has been astonishing Hythe and Aldershot by making bull’seyes from the shoulder at 1,000 yards. Some say he is an Englishman who was naturalized at a tender age in Japan; others again declare that he can speak not a word of any European language. Ho is, at all events, a marvel of marksmanship • and when at the Cliiswie garden party a distinguished person said to the Japanese Ambassador: “I hear you have a wonderful good shot in this country,” His Excellency replied, with the modest and dignified terseness of a Japanese gentleman: “He is a good shot;’’ which answer meant more than a whole string of superlatives. The same journal records the following anecdotes about the said gentleman from a vast number which are going the rounds of the camp as substantially true: At Hythe Maj. Muretta was pitted against one of the most celebrated musketry instructor iu the camp, an officer who can, to use a familiar phrase, “ face the target,” that is, can say where he is going to place his shots and then do it. The Japanese Major saw everything that the English Lieutenant was able to perform, and immediately proceeded to cut him out in a manner that amazed all beholders. At Ash, near Aldershot, he was purposely misinformed as to the distance of a range, the number of yards as given him being 800, whereas in reality it was 1,000. Mai. Muretta said nothing, but calmly sighted his rifle, and, firing, hit the bull’s eye. This he did again and again, and when he was told that he had been deceived in the distance his reply was that he was not deceived at all. Maj. Muretta, we are further informed, is still at Berlin, and as he is suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism his expected visit to the camp becomes a very problematic affair.