Some Wimbledon Heroes 



As I sit down to-day to write my recollections of 

 Wimbledon it is odd to find history repeating itself 

 after the lapse of forty years. The country is all ablaze 

 with the same patriotic enthusiasm which brought the 

 Volunteers into existence in 1859, and gave rise to the 

 great National " Wapenschaw " which has ever since 

 been an annual institution. There is the same furore 

 for Rifle Clubs ; the newspapers teem with the same 

 earnest appeals to young Englishmen to cultivate 

 marksmanship ; town and village ring now as then with 

 the shouts of drill-sergeants and the tramp of train- 

 bands ; budding marksmen throng to the butts, and the 

 crack of rifles mingles with the click of bat and ball. 



But what changes riflemen have seen in these forty 

 years ! I remember the introduction of the old Minic 

 rifle into the Army. I have shot with the cumbrous 

 weapon, and heard military men go into ecstasies over 

 its wonderful power as an arm of precision and 

 destruction. What tales were told of the awful havoc 

 wrought by the Mini6 bullet at Alma and Inkerman 

 how whole files of Russians went down before it like 



