Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 37, 4 September 1888, Page 3

Volunteer Items

The rifle match between the First Canterbury Rattalion and Second Rattalion Devonshire Regiment (regulars) was won by the former by 15 points, the scerces being— Canterbury .766; Devonshire, 75 1 . The teruiH were ten men a side ; seven shots ; ranges, 200,J300, and 400 yards. The Volunteers fired with Sniders, and th c regulars with Martinis. The Horse Guards are in the birththroes of a new Infantry Field Exer- ; cise. The recent army Order abblising many of the . movements in the present -edition indicates that at. last it is dawning on the offioial mind, that the moving walls of past days are like the walls of Jericho to the rams' horns, when they are fired at by the artillery and small arms of to-day. It is, perhaps, too much to hope for at last the battle, and not the show parade will be -made . the dominant idea in the prescribed manoeuvres. Moreover, the system under which the training is left to. adjutants and sergeant-majors, must be abandoned and the respontdbility must be more and more thrown upon the company officers and noncommissioned officers for the condition of the rank-and-file, as regards steadiness, hahdiness, and rallying power. And to this end -the inspection mus* cease to be a mere show parade, and become a . real test of the company units, and the fitness of their officers to handle them, and take them into and out pf situations which will try the power of keeping order in circumstances tending to external disorder.