THE VICTORIANS AT WIMBLEDON.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 142, 4 October 1876, Page 2

THE VICTORIANS AT WIMBLEDON.

Although Canada has been frequently represented at Wimbledon, this is the first year that Australia has broken ground in that quarter, and, judging by the success which has attended the efforts of the little team, it will not be the last. Apart from the charms of a camp life, and the prestige which must ever attach to successful competitors at those meetings,. there is much in the relaxation, so to speak, of life at Wimbledon that cannot fail of bein? peculiarly accspiable to a colonist. Some of the officers' tents are fitted up with such regard to taste and refinement that a visitor would think he was stepping into a lady's richly-carpeted boudoir. The avenues are redolent of sweet-smelling flowers, the interiors are richly furnished with ottomans, easy chairs, and pianos, and here and there might be seen liveried flunkeys busily engaged in putting things in orde?. Well-dressed ladies flit in and out, and now and again the air of some favorite opera could be heard amid the din of champagne corks and the distant clang of rifle shots against the targets. It is lively and heterogenous experience, is that of. and from all I hear our Australian friends enjoyed it vastly. Qrjvtheir arrival they were taken in hand hy-'tlie London Scottish, and made of their mess, where they ris"* many of the team from north of and whose powers they are by-and-by—-in connection with the contingent from New South Wales —to test in the great match across the Atlantic. Friendly "greetings over, the Victorian Riflemen soon set themselves to attend to the more serious business of their visit, and to master the eccentricities of the Snider —a weapon, it seems, to which they had not been accustomed—and when it came to their turn to shoot for the Snider Association Cup they made very "fair practice. Captains Greenfield, King, and Wardell made nothing less than- centres, and not a few and when they were beaten by Mr. E. Ross, who carried off the cup, they were beaten by a very good marksman. In the competition for the Rifle Derby, Captain Wardell scored 30—only one under the winner. On July 11, the Victorian team did even better than the Canadians. Indeed, Captain Greenfield's shooting probably surpassed that of any man on the ground, seeing that he scored 30 in the Queen's Prize, 31 in the Daily Telegraph, 30 in the Bprroughes and Watts, 32 in the Pavilion, and 31 in the Pigou, Wilks, and Lawrence, which give an averags of considerably over 30. Major Sleep made 28 in the Queen's and 29 in the Daily Telegraph, and Lieutenaxt Draper obtained a similar, scare" in the Queen's, and 31 in the Pigou, Wilks, and Lawrence. It was stated>hat four out of the five Victorians won prizes in the first stage of the Queen's. They also shot very fairly on July 14, Major Sleep making 30 in the Martin Cup and 29 in the St. George's Vase competition, in which also Lieutenant Draper made 28,— European j

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