Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Issue 155, 31 July 1888, Page 3

Volunteer Items

The Manchester Rifles will parade on Friday the 10th of August. The proposal to send a team of rifle shots to Victoria is being warmly taken up throughout the colony. We expect to see several Wanganui shots included in the list. Captain Sommerville has received j from the Defence Department a reply to the effect that the Martini- Henrys required to send a team to Victoria can be had, but funds will not allow of ! any pecuniary assistance. As per usual, the Defence Department have done a very sensible thing in getting out Martini rifles, and neglecting to import ammunition. What earthly use the weapons can be under these circumstances perhaps " Snider" Fergus can tell us. — Herald. A new drill was lately performed at Aldershot before the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley, when a number of battalion movements were executed without word of command. The attention of company officers, section commandeis, guides, and markers was attracted by notes ou a whistle giren by the commanding officer, who by the movements of his arms (understood by all) expressed his intentions, which were in turn conveyed to the meu. This is intended to be used when, during an action it is either inadvisable or impossible to use words of command. The Duke was much pleased with the facility with which the signals were understood and obeyed. The annual returns of the volunteer corps of Great Britain for 1887 show the authorised establishment to be 255,478. In 1886 it was 253,935. The number of efficients was 221,491 against 221,105 in 1886. General Brackenbury in an address to the Metropolitan Volunteer Ser geants Tactical Association last April, pointed out, study is useless unless supplemented by practical outdoor work in the field, under conditions assimilated, as far as may be, to the actual circumstances of war. An extraordinary accident is reported from Lille. While a party of soldiers from the Citadel were engaged in firing blank cartridge, one of them, a man named Carre, put a bullet into his rifle. When the word of command was given, Carre, who was in the rear rank, fired with the rest, and his bullet lodged in the head of hi» front-rank man. The captain who had charge of the party dropped down dead, owing to disease of the heart, when he saw the soldier fall, and Carre endeavoured to kill himself, but was prevented from putting his project into execution. The soldier who had been hit in the head was carried to the hospital, where the bullet was successfully extracted. We understand that Colonel Stapp has received instructions stating that old colonial officers who wish to have their services placed on record in the New Zealand Army List are to send in to the Militia and Volunteer Office a statement of all field service during the New Zealand war.