OUR DEFENDERS

Observer, Volume XXVIII, Issue 27, 21 March 1908, Page 14

OUR DEFENDERS

By Lee-Enfield.

OF the four Aucklanders who were included in the final fifty that fired for the championship at Trentham, it cannot be said that one had really a chance for. the Belt. Whatever hopes J. Carlson may have raised in the breasts of his fellow-representa-tives this usually brilliant performer soon destroyed. A thousand yards is not his strong range and the twenty-foTir points which were the result of his efforts there threw him back to fifteenth place. His club-mate, Patrick, the ex-South African, who is already becoming known in New Zealand, and will be better known when he settles down to his true form, showed a liking for the distance, and jumped up to sixth position. He would have been a dangerous man with a littfe more luck earlier in the meeting. Gr. Loveday and Lieut. White, the well-known up-country riflemen, touched money f reauently during the meeting. Lieut. White was the only Aucklander who won a match, but his form throughout was not consistent enough to make him dangerous in the final. Both riflemen, however, were well placed when the figures were tallied. For a while at Trentham it looked a$ if chamtnon honours for the meeting would go to the Australian, Sergt. Edwards. He had the misfortune to open_ up in the final match with a miss, but found the target with the next shot, and was soon with O-. Hyde. absorbino; all the attention of the onlookers. However, his chances vanished when he disced an outer with his ninth

shot, and although his last bullet punctured the bull's eye, he had to be content with third place,- two points behind Hyde, the champion. Sergt. D. McCalley, the other Australian, a rifle shot who has faced the targets in nearly all quarters of the globe, did not reach a high position in the aggregates. He shot brilliantly, however, at "the South Island meeting a week or two earlier, and annexed first honours after a hard struggle with Sergt. Bradley, of Dunedin. .McCalley, by the way, is turning his attention to two of the few countries he has not yet competed in— he will fire at the South African meeting in April next, and shortly afterwards endeavour to teach India's teeming millions how the rifle should be used. The first Auckland Mounteds. finding that attendance at the Easter manoeuvres will not qtialify for capitation^ purposes have decide.! that it ;will be impossible for them uander tfie circumstances to engage in the operations. They have therefore received permission to hold a regimental camp in another direction. But surely there is something wrong; with a regulation which renders such a step necessary. Capt. Bloomfield, the popular commander of the Seddon Horse, has been appointed acting major of the Mounted Regiment in succession to Major Wynyard, who recently resigned. Pending further arrangements, he is rmdertakincr both bis new responsibilities and his duties as squadron commander. Does smoking affect rifle-shoot-in c; ? Many affirm that it does. Champion Gt. Hyde, the steel-nerv-ed Opaki rifleman who has won the belt for the second time, is a nonsmoker. He is also most abstemious on the few occasions when he doei take any thing for the microbes. A large number of other marksmen who have won renown in the shoot-

ing world are both non-smokers and abstainers. The fact that. Borne heavy smokers are known to be brilliant performers with the shooting iron does' not .strengthen their case. They might be better still if they had leftthe weed alone. The problem is an interesting one. : The National Rifle Association of ft ew South Wales invites teams from the Empire to compete at the Jubilee meeting next ye^ir.