A SURREY RIFLE CLUB FIELD DAY: A CORRECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In the interesting letter under the above heading in your issue of August 6th " Z." makes a statement which I must. in the interest of my club, correct. " Z." states that the Newlands Rifle Club " was the first founded in Surrey, if not in England, of the new rifle clubs which sprang up in 1900." I do not think it can be disputed that the Epsom and District Rifle Club, founded on Boxing-day, 1899, was actually the first club of this kind founded in England. We riflemen of Surrey and England owe a great deal to Mr. St. Loe Strachey and the Newlands Club, and to Sir Conan Doyle and his club; but I believe public notice was first attracted to the idea of rifle clubs by a letter from Sir T. T. Bucknill to a daily paper, describing the formation of the Epsom Club. As a result of that letter I received in January, 1900, forty or fifty letters from various parts of England and Wales.—
Hon. Sec. Epsom and District Rifle Club.
[We regret the mistake made in our last issue in regard to the first of the new rifle clubs, and we heartily congratulate the Epsom Club on being the premier rifle club, or, at any rate, the premier club in the new movement.—ED. Spectator.]
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