Shooting.
To pass from Wimbledon and to remark briefly on the shooting records of the Regiment is an easy digression.
The “Civil Service” has never yet had the good luck to provide the winner of the Queen’s Prize, and this fact is sometimes thrust forward by the thoughtless to detract from its merits as a “good shooting Corps.” A simple computation will show that, with 200,000 Volunteers to shoot for it, a Corps of 600 strong will have done its duty if it wins the prize once in 333 years! But members of the Corps have on more than one occasion run the winner very hard. Lord Bury himself was second for the prize in 1861.
Others who have been within measurable distance are: Private W. A. Impey (Audit Office) in 1869, Lieutenant J. Mitford (Post Office) in 1875, and Sergeant W. W. Akhurst (Post Office) in 1885.
Wimbledon honours have also been earned for the Corps by Sergeant J. P. Wright (Bank of England), winner of the Grand Aggregate in 1874; Captain H. W. E. Jeston (National Debt Office), winner of the N.R.A. Challenge Cup in 1869; and teams who have on various occasions won the Mappin Challenge Cup for running and shooting.
Nor can we in the present year (1891) admit that the shooting of the Corps shows any sign of declining. In the War Office Returns for the last two years it stood first of the Metropolitan Corps, and second in the Home District. The Regimental Team rejoice in an almost unbroken series of victories in the numerous matches it has shot in the same period; whilst Private Rothon, Corporal Matthews, and Corporal Clunan well maintained the credit of the Corps at the first meeting of the National Rifle Association on Bisley Common. In addition to this, in Private Rothon the Corps has the winner of the Champion Badge of Middlesex for 1890, and, having been chosen to shoot in the English “twenty,” he made the highest score in the International Match of 1891.
A few words about Aldershot.