SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1240, 14 January 1915, Page 33

SPORTS AND PASTIMES.

Surrey has been declared the cricket champions of 1914.

The Invercargill Lawn Tennis Summer Tournament has been put off.

Oxford University has contributed 1500 of her undergraduates to the new army.

Clyde Fitch’s melodrama, “The Straight Road,” is being made into a photo play. The will of the well-known English bookmaker, Robert Topping, who died in September, was proved at £43,128.

At a football match on Salisbury Plain a New Zealand team beat the Canadians by three points to nil. Lord Rosebery’s nephew, Captain the Hon. William Reginald Wyndham, has fallen at the front.

Miss Daisy Curwen, English lady swimming champion, recently swam 220 yards in 3min. Bsec.

The annual meeting of the New Zealand Executive of the Royal Life-sav-ing Society has been fixed for January 25.

The mummers of England are in sore straits. Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree has sent Sir Squire Bancroft £2OO for their relief.

Some of the great London newspapers have arrangements to bring copy from the front in without regard to expense.

It is suggested a ladies’ swimming club should be formed in Wellington. Its activities will embrace classes and competitions.

Lieutenant Fitzherbert, erstwhile of New Zealand and South Africa, is with the Anglo-New Zealand unit now in training in the Home land.

The Germans consider five days the average life of a cavalry horse on active service, and twenty days that of a draught. Mrs. Patrick Campbell is to sive a single performance of “The Second Mrs. Tanqueray” during her New York engagement.

The Australian Golf Club does not hold competitions during the summer months, though a good deal of golf is played.

No Dominion Ride Association meeting will be held in 1915 in consequence of the Trentham ranges being required by the reinforcement troops.

At Brisbane Stadium Marcel Lepreus, France, defeated Jack Stanley, Queensland, in the fifth round. The towel was thrown in.

Captain E. D. Miller was to manage the polo tournament at the Panama Exposition. He has now another engagement—he is at the front.

At the football match between Yale and Harvard preparations were made for a crowd of seventy thousand spectators. ’ ■

J. G. Hatfield, the English champion swimmer, recently beat his own record for 1000 yards by covering the distance in 13min. 16 4-ssec., clipping 2 3-ssee. off the previous best.

General Fitz-Clarence, whose name is amongst the list of slain, was a direct descendant of William IV. and Mrs. Jordan, the actress. Captain F. O. Grenfell, Ninth Lancers, of polo fame, is one of the first to gain the V.C. in the present war.

Captain E. L. W. Henslow, who succeeded in getting boxing included in the army gymnastic code, is amongst the missing.

It is probable that a rep. cricket match between Wanganui and Wellington will take place on January 22nd and 23rd at Wellington. General Fitz-Clarence, the “Demon” of Mafeking, has been killed at the front. He won his nickname, the V.C., and two wounds in the historic seige.

The death struggle for Ypres was photographed by Cherry Kearton, and the films are on show at the Crystal Palace.

Marie Tempest is again in America. She is appearing in Henry Arthur Jones’ play, “Marv Goes First.” Her chief support is Graham Brown.

Carroll, an Australian, played threeouarter in a Rugger match for the Lee Stanford University in a recent match, and Wylie, a New Zealander, forward.

The unusual sight of four grey horses competing in one race was seen at the Ashburton Trotting Club’s recent meeting. The football Leagues of England have given £25.000 as well as manv well-known names for the defence of the Empire.

Rugby fs ranidly growing in favour in America. The gate mnnpv nt a recent ’Varsitv match reached £12,000 and the crowd 25,000.

Australian aquatic critics were wrong over the N.S.W. rowing championship. for Town?? outclassed Kemn Lv four lengths. The time was 23min. ssec.

Captain Donald Simson, New Zealander and Africander, interrupted a tour of European waterworks to again don khaki. He was encamped on Salisbury Plain.

In the middleweight boxing championship of the world, contested in Svdnev on Christmas Eve. Jeff Smith beat Mick King on points, after an evenly-contested battle.

The Sportsman battalion of the Roval Fusiliers is 1300 strong, and embraces all classes of sporting men, including racehorse trainers, footballers, and cricketers.

Mr. Brewer, hon. treasurer of the Greymouth Surf Club, has been given an award bv the Royal Life Saving Society. This is the first to go to the Coast.

The English veterinary surgeons at the front, have proved again and again that serious wounds can be onerated on successfully. Thev have, indeed, onerated on the battlefield, and the convalescent homes have saved the lives of thousands of horses.

Lieutenant Collins, of the Royal Engineers, who has given his life for the Empire, staggered juvenile public school cricket at thirteen by scoring 628 not out.

B. C. Freyberg, well-known to the New Zealand swimming world, was at the Ostend Hospital in October. He had grasped an electric wire when with the Marine Expeditionary Force in France.

Several English racehorse trainers in Germany have been released in order to attend valuable horses belonging to German nobles. The noble Germans must have an idea that they will live to race again.

There has been a great rush to join the London Scottish. The authorities of the regiment have had some difficulty in keeping out willing men who lack the true strain of porridge in their blood. The English Lawn Tennis Association received a sum of £560 as its share of the proceeds of the Australasia v. British Isles match in America, which represents, less expenses, a surplus of about £l9O.

The Hon. H. F. Wigram, M.L.C., has been awarded the life members’ badge of the Royal Life-saving Society, in recognition of the service he has performed in helping on the cause in New Zealand.

The Australasian lawn tennis championships were played off in November. The chief event was won by A. O’Hara Wood, who took part in the New Zealand championship when the Davis Cup was held here.

The programme for the New Zealand Swimming Championships Meeting at Napier in February, has been approved by the New Zealand Swimming Council, with the exception of the life-saving championship.

France had an entire train of artillery horses passing through Chicago recently, en route to an unnamed port. The average cost was thirty-six pounds a head. This was the first shipment.

Rudyard Kipling has been detained as a spy. He joined himself to the North Lancashire Territorials and asked a lot of questions. A sharpeved private did the rest, greatly to the amusement of his officer, who told him he had captured Kipling.

English gold is bound for American pockets. An order for 40.000 saddle blankets, 500,000 knives, 50,000 horse collars, 1,000.000 dollars’ worth of field glasses, mess-tins, clothing, picks, shovels, tents, 50,000 hair brushes, and 500,000 shaving brushes has been placed in the United States.

The battle films taken at Ypres show the fiercest battle of death; Turcos dancing on hearing the sound of the cannonading; the historic meeting of the King of the Belgians, President Poincare, and General Joffre, and destroyers leaving to shell the Germans on the coast.

The Wanganui Christmas bowling tournament was a great success, the weather being gloriously fine, and no fewer than 28 teams taking part in the full rink competition (writes our Wanganui correspondent). The final was played between two New Ply-

mouth teams, and was one of the finest expositions of bowling ever seen here. The personnel of the teams was:—West End: Wood, Hill, Sole, Beale (skip). Fitzroy: Hartnell, Coxhead, McNeill, Smith (skip). Smith scored in the opening head with 2, and adding ones and twos had chalked 10 at the end of the sixth head without Beale scoring. The latter then got 2, and brought his score to 6 at the 9th head, by which time Smith had added another. In the 10th head the latter raised his score to 14, but Beale responded with 2 in the 11th. In the 12th Smith added another, and in the next two heads Beale, whose four had been playing with dogged patience, raised his score to 11. Smith again drew away, scoring on each of the next three heads, the 17th head closing: Smith 19, Beale 11. It now began to look Fitzroy’s game, but V/est End put in splendid play, and amid great excitement drew closer, the 20th head finishing: West End (Beale) 19, Fitzroy (Smith) 20. In the 21st and last head, Hill (Beale’s No. 2) drew one, and the position was unaltered as the skips crossed over. No change occurred till Beale played his last shot, just touching the jack and lying another, and thus scoring 2 on the head, (he game closing: West End 21, Fitzrov 20. The game was witnessed by a big crowd of enthusiasts, who were delighted with the splendid exhibition, and heartily cheered both teams at the conclusion of the contest.

That famous Hawaiian swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku, who is at present in Sydney, has been accorded a great reception in Australia, where he is giving a series of exhibitions. The Duke, as he is familiarly called, put up a world’s record (lmin. 2 3-ssec.) for the 100 metres race at Stockholm during the last Olympic Games. Later he improved upon that achievement at Hamburg by traversing the distance in lmin. 1 3-ssec. Then the German champion, Bretting, was defeated easily. It is interesting to recall that a year before his appearance in the United Stages Kahanamoku was recognised as a wonder at Honolulu, where he created American records which, being credited to one unknown beyond the confines of his place of birth, were not seriously accepted. However, when he went east and competed in the A.A.U. championships he jumped from obscurity to world-wide fame in a s’ngle night. The young native showed all the signs of the speed turner he had been proclaimed by officials of organised Honolulu swimming. This their new luminary in the natatorial firmament won a 100 yards scratch race in* the New York Athletic Club’s tank, and occupied no more than 57sec. over the task. A few days later he gathered a like event at Philadelphia in exactly the same time. Further on he showed his heels to a bunch of the best inter-collegiate swimmers, while throwing the distance behind in 56 2-ssec., and all this in face of the fact that tank swimming was entirely new to him. At Chicago about four months before the decision of the Olympic Games, Kahanamoku started in a heat of a 50 yards race, and was defeated by Philip Mallen in 24 4-ssec. A night later at the same place —the Chicago Athletic Association’s basin —-the 100 yards contest fell to him in 57sec.