LAWN TENNIS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 58, 5 September 1914, Page 10

LAWN TENNIS

— ♦ (By "Huka.") CLUB MEETINGS. The Brougham Hill Club holds its fifteenth annual meeting on Wednesday, 9th September. The club was particularly successful last year, winning the men's senior, junior, and third-clas3 championships in the inter-club contest, and the junior and third-class championships in the ladies' competition. The membership^ of the club is taxed to its uttermost, and yet there are numerous applications for the incoming season. Unless the club resolves to increase its membership there will be disapp.ointment awaiting players who are anxious to join. The committee will have much to consider this season for the welfare of the sport, both as regards grounds for inter-club matches and the playing of the provincial championships. \ The big events of New Zealand will be decided at Dunedin this coming Christmas, and for many reasons outside lawn tennis it is to be hoped that matters generally will be normal by that time. The Otago management has shown that it is a very capable body at running tournaments, and competitors can depend upon the meeting being conducted in good, businesslike style. When Mrs. Larcombe beat Miss Ryan in the final of the championship at Wimbledon on the Thursday, many experts voted her the winner in the challenge round against Mrs. Lambert Chambers. This match was played on the Saturday, and afEer Friday's rain the weather had returned to the brilliance of the previous days, consequently the heat in"the centre court was intense. All the air there waa seemed to have been swallowed up by the gasping spectators, and very little was left for the players. Both players admitted after the match that they had never lieen more exhausted after one set. Both were nervous at starting, and in a long first game appeared to De feeling their way carefully. The ball went high over the net, and fell in the centre of the court, t,and the first player who took her courage in both hands and hit the ball hard reaped the reward of her temerity. Each got the ball back safely, and appeared to be waiting for her opponent to make the first mistake. Mrs. Larcombe led 2 love, but her opponent then commenced to hit hard, and won game after game until she led, 5-2. Mrs. Larcombe also now showed improvement, her famous " drop " shot being very telling, and she evened the score, but her opponent with hard hitting won a love game. In the next she led 40 love, ,and with a good drive appeared to win the set, but the linesman after some delay called "out." Mrs. Chambers had walked to the umpire's chair thinking she was winner of the first set, and on the decision being given had to restart. Naturally she lost the next point, but was not to be denied, and won the set with a fine backhand drive. First set to Mrs. Chambers, 7-5. In the second set Mrs. Larcombe started splendidly, taking two games in succession, and led 40 love in the third. Mrs. Chambers now brought out her famous cross-court drive, which had been very little seen up to this point, and she took the next 5 points and the game in a decisive manner. Two all, and three all were called ; then Mrs. Larcombe, by splendid play, led, 4-3. Suddenly Mrs. Chambers started driving hard cross-court to her opponent's fore-hand, and the latter lady tound the pace so hot that she could not return the ball with any degree of accuracy. She missed the ball altogether several times, and Mrs. Chambers, with pace and accuracy, took three games in quick succession. That meant 'set and match. It also meant breaking the record for the number of wins, as her victory gave her the honour of having won the championship for the seventh time. One thousand two hundred and fifty hard courts have been made in England during the last few years, and over one hundred are in course of construction this year. The above shows $hat, the English players are anxious to play all the year round. They also find that in wet seasons the hard court is a great boon^ and can be played upon when the grass court is useless. Public bodies in the counties are finding it a paying game to form tennis courts. The Cheshire County Council's Parks Committee purchased a piece of ground for £2200 and spent £1100 upon it in forming four courts. Alderman iGoodwin said that the committee did not grudge spending money to secure the health and happiness of the people. Municipal tennis courts had proved a good investment, and so popular were the courts that enough money would soon be forthcoming to lay out a great many more. The area purchased in the first instance was 21,800 yards. A small qliargo is mado for the use of the courts, which are fully equipped, but players provide their own rackets and balls. THE HUPMOBILE CAR, AS AN INVESTMENT. When you're buying a car remember that you may want to sell it again some day. Tho car -which will fetch the best price second-hand is the car to buy .anyhow. Now the Hupmobile will sell sec-ond-hand at -a price, nearer its original value than any other automobile! And why? Because it is so well designed, so soundly built, and such sterling value for the money that it's worth more at second- hand than many new ca.«s. The Hupmobile is supreme in its claes. It is the quality ca.r for the moderate purse. It ie perfectly engined, giving ample reserve power for the exigencies of rough country. It is the sweetest-running, easiest-handled, and most comfortable car on the maTket. Call and let the local agent show you what a Hupp can do! ■ Agents: A. Hati rick a.nd Co., Ltd., Wellington and Wanganui. — Advt. 15

THE GREAT ARMADA OUR MOBILISED FLEET ITS COST TO BUILD AND RUN. •THE £ s. d. OF SEA-POWER. To-day there arc more than 600 ships in full commission flying the white ensign of the British Navy. The number includes 411 warships — battleships, cruisers of all classes, depot ships, and destroyers— and 211 torpedo-boats. The cost of this prodigious Armada, the greatest fleet the world has ever seen, is almost fabulous. . The main fighting line of the fleet consists of twenty battleships of the Dreadnought type. They were all launched in a period of seven years — between 1906 and 1912 — and their aggregate first cost amounted to £36,339,024. Contemporaneously with these were built seven battle-cruisers, and an eighth — the Invincible — was at the outbreak of the war in dockyard hands. These eight ships cost £13,081.405, making a 1 grand 'total of nearly £50,000,000 spent on Dreadnoughts actually in commission. In addition to these there is another not in commission and seventeen under construction. While those now in service averaged £1,900,000 in cost, those now building will cost from two to two and a-half millions sterling apiece. £120,000,000 CAPITAL COST. The thirty-seven pre-Dreadnought battleships now in commission, launched between 1894 and 1906, cost £42,153,276. while the thirty armoured cruisers of the same era, built between 1899 and 1907, cost £29,158,584. The total cost, therefore, of Dreadnoughts and nreDreadnoughts, battleships and cruisers, is over £120,000,000. This enormous sum represents only a part of the whole cost of the whole fleet of the 600 ships of the Fleet. There are 60 protected and other cruisers in service which cost 18 millions ; 211 destroyers, accounting for 15i millions ; together with 68 submarines, costing 4 millions, and 103 torpedo boats costing just over 3 millions. At a moderate estimate the chips not included in the above list, but now in full commission may be set down at 10 millions, making an aggregate of over £170,000,000. Between the oldest and the newest battleships the cost has more than doubled. It costs over half a million sterling to supply a modern battleship with guns and gun mountings, and every ton of her armour (and she carries anything from ,4000 to 8000 tons) repre* sents an income of two guinea* n. week for twelve months. A battleship's machinery runs away with. a. quarter of a million sterling, and in the case of the 28* knot battle-cruisers of the Lion, and Queen Mary classes the cost is doubled. RUNNING EXPENSES. Every time a big gun is fired it costs £300, and there are 372 such gun® in ■Admiral Jellicoe's fleet. Torpedoes cost ; ten times as much. Many of the big ships burn oil fuel as an auxiliary to their coal, but there are 127 torpedo craft, besides the submarines, which burn oil fuel alone. In the aggregate th«ir tanks and double bottoms can accommodate 10,315 tons of fuel, which costs £5 a. ton. Coal is not so expensive, but it does not go as far. If the twenty-seven Dreadnoughts now in commission were sent on an eight hours' full-power, coal-burning run they would consume 4,320 tons of fuel, running up a bill of some £3000. The Navy's fuol bill for 1913-14 was over 3£ millions. In short, if a single Dreadnought battle squadron of eight ships were ordered to steam at full speed for twenty-four hours, and to fir© each gun and each torpedo tube once, the cost to the cation would be, approximately £200,000, allowing nothing for depreciation. THE PAY-SHEET. The pay-sheet of the Navy in commission represents a fortune a day. Probably the personnel of the Navy runs to 150,006. Armoured ships alone would absorb 73,000, cruisers 21,000, while torpedo boats and destroyers would represent another 20,000. Over 2000 officers and men are engaged in the submarine service, where two whole crews are alvrays provided for each boat. How much it ha« edst to train these officers and men it is impossible to estimate. It takes three years to make a youth into an ordinary seaman at Is 3d a day, without any special qualifications in gunnery or other work, said five years to make him a really efficient member of a ship's company. It takes ten years to train an officer for the duties of a junior lieutenant. The actual wages vote for the Navy for the current financial year was £8,800,000 or' over £24.000 a day. With the reserves now employed it would be a reasonable estimate to allot nearly £30,000 a day to the pay-sheet for the Navy. It may be added that sine© 1894-^-in twenty years — $.he Navy is estimated to have cost over £700,000,000, and to-day it appears well worth the cost.