President Roosevelt as a Marksman.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11746, 24 September 1902, Page 7

President Roosevelt as a Marksman.

by Joseph A. Burnett, Chester House.)

Under this heading, your issue of today (Saturday) gives an account of a shooting match between the President, Commandant Snyman, and others. Commandant Snyman is an efficer of General De Wet's staff. During my recent visit to America I met both these men, and it might interest your readers to hear a little about them. It was up the beautiful Na->a Valley, some 60 miles from San Francisco, that I met the Commandant, where he joined us for treatment at the St. Helena Sano/torium, and he lectured one evening in language so forceful and fluent aa to excite great admiration, and his jovial and kindly manner soon made him many friends, I had a chat with him one morning, when we were out playing quoits and anotiher game with leads, on a long board like a bagatelle board. I need hardly add that the Commandant's accurate eye was too much for me. We travelled to> 'Frisco*, and would have gone on to Washington together only my father, who joined me at 'Frisco, had madte arrangements that didn't make it possible for a simultaneous departure.

It was on the last day of our stay in Washington that I found my way to White House, and was introduced to the President, and I shall never forget the cc/rdial manner in which he received me (I wrote N>w Zealand on my card), and the ready sympathy he at once showed in matters connected with New Zealand. In reply to my remark that the States somewhat staggered an Islander, he said that he, for Ms part (I hope I quote correctly), was somewhat staggered at the social democracy of New Zealand. I didn't hesitate to tell hdm that my knowledge of -politics wa/s, like the generality of those connected with the legal profession, of a 'verey meagre character. The President is a man of striking personality, and you feeiS at once that you are in the presence of a man of strong will and keen intelligence. There isn't an atom of nonsense about him. He is a man in every sense of the word.

To attempt a description of Washington, its wonderful Capitol Building and Congress Library, the historic Mount Vernon, and Washington Monument, is too great a task, but believe me Washington is a veiy fine city indeed, and upholds the dignity its position »as capital of a great people and a .great nation.