MR SPENCER GOLLAN

The new number of the Badminton Magazine contains an article on Mv Spencer Gollan. The vniter, Mr Alfred K. T. Wat^i). says : — '"Few rara who ey*>r li\e<J have so thoroughly deserved the title of ' all round spoitsman' as Mr Spencer Gollan. AVcre it not for the fact that he nevei gieatly distinguished him=elf as a ciJclvplpi-, it would be difficult to say in what sport he has not made his mark, and had he taken to this best of all games, as so many people consider it, iherc is good reason to suppo«e that he -would ha\o scored heavily in e\cry sense of the term, lie has won prizes at running, high jumping, swimming, rowing, sculling, golf, lawn tenni". boxing, skating, with gun, rifle, and lovoher, liding on the flat, o\er huidles <mci fence- --indeed, nhate\#i he has taken in hand he has done to admiration. His. forbears were among the earliest «ettleis in New Zealand, vrlieie, near Napier, Jlawke's Bay, Spencer was born in 1860. In tho colonies everyono rides as a matter of course. Tho boy had to go to school on his pony, and so acquired the rudiments of horsemanship soon after he had learned to walk — at which age also he learned to swim. Ilis father raced a little, with horses of his own breeding, and was an. .excellent ehotj, & hsL Hhiefa isussd tha

emulation of the boy, who, when some eight years of age, was quite an accomplished marksman. He had acquired, indeed, no small reputation in this line, and a visitor producing a five-shilling piece, told the lad he might have_it if he could hit it in three shots at 50 yards. The youthful Spencer says that at the time he fancied a five-shilling piece was ' most of the money there was in the world, 1 and, nerving himself for the effort, he hit the small target twice. The visitor, who was of Scotch extraction, somewhat reluctantly yielded up the reward ; but Spencer's father, hearing the story, made the boy surrender his well-earned prize, which Spencer believes to have been the nearest his father ever went to injustice. . . , To talk to Mr Spencer Gollan, and observe his placid, self-possessed, courteous manner, with a quiet vein of humour at intervals marking his utterances, one would not feel inclined to suspect that ho was so essentially a man of action ; but one must be extraordinarily good at any of the numerous games ho plays in "order to have anything distantly approaching a chance with him. He would be a very bad man to fig-lit, and certain to catch you if you ran away. If the colonies contain many such sportsmen, the Old Country had reason to he proud of its offspring," says tho writer at the conclusion of his lengthy article.