5 
purchase the two challenge cups, one of which was paid for by the Royal 
Engineers, and the first matches were played at Woolwich in the same year. 
The list of subscribers to the fund increased rapidly, and when I left Woolwich 
in 1879, there were from 200 to 300 names on it. I was appointed to the 
command of a battery at Florfield, and I observe the first donation from the fund 
was made on my application. It was the opinion of many officers that the fund 
would never do more than provide for the expenses of the matches, and any 
prospectus, in which a very much wider scope of usefulness was comtemplated, 
was regarded as ambitious and visionary. The pamphlet you have circulated 
shows that I was not unduly sanguine as to the ultimate success of the undertaking. 
Exception was also taken to the low scale of subscriptions, which it was contended 
would not produce sufficient money to pay the calls; but I believed that a small 
subscription would induce many to join who would have hesitated to pay a larger 
one. As the scale now is, I believe, the same as that introduced in 1878, my 
forecast seems to have been correct. 
Yours truly, 
T. B. TYLER. 
COME. 
THE CEITEMS.Y CUP, 1896. 
In consequence of the Centenary .Cup having been won in 1896 by No. 1 
Company, Southern Division, R.A., Cork Harbour, Colonel E. H. Holley, 
Colonel-on-the-Staff, C.R.A., Cork District, held a parade of the R.A., Cork 
Harbour, on Tuesday, 5th December, for the purpose of congratulating Major C. A. 
Howard, R.A., and the officers and men of No. 1 Company on their achievement 
in winning the cup the first year it has been offered for competition by Garrison 
Artillery. 
In the course of his speech, Colonel Holley pointed out the fact that actual 
hits only counted towards the figure of merit, that there were many difficulties in 
the way of practice and previous drill in Cork Harbour not shared by many other 
competing stations, that a towed target had been used for the first time in Cork 
Harbour and also that the exceptionally rough weather in which the practice was 
carried out enhanced to a considerable degree the value of the fine performance 
of Major Howard’s Company. In conclusion, he hoped that the cup would return 
to Cork Harbour in 1898, when next competed for by Garrison Artillery. 
The cup, which is a very handsome one of silver, standing some two feet high, 
is surmounted by a figure representing an officer in the dress of 1795, with panels 
in relief representing Horse, Field and Garrison Artillery at work, was placed on 
a table in the centre of a hollow square formed by the three companies, Cork 
Harbour, and was afterwards deposited in the Officers’ Mess, Fort Westmoreland, 
where it remains for one year. 
