Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 25, 13 August 1889, Page 3

Volunteer Items

♦ The Waitemata and Onehunga Navals, corps which were prominently concerned in the Volunteer scandal at Mercer last Easter, have been disbanded by the Defence Minister. We are informed that the Dunediu meeting of the New Zealand Rifle Association will be held at Musselburgh, near Ocean Beach, the site of * former meeting held in 1882. The range is a very open one, and capable of holding 60 targets. In answer to a question to him at Auckland, General Strange said he had nothing to do with negotiating the purcase of the Maxim gun by the Oovernment, but he thought that the banking firms should make it a point to present one of these guns to the cuost efficient corps as a matter of in surance for themselves. They should recollect that banks were stuck up before, and if a few foreign boats were landed in a.quiet harbour they might be so again. As bank officials could not from their business serve as volunteers, he thought that, in preference to trophies, clocks, or medals, one of these guns should be given as a trophy for the best corps. Yesterday (says the Inverness Courier of May 28th) Captain Fergusson of the Ist Volunteer Battalion CameTon Highlanders put on a remarkable score at the Longman ranges with a new Fraser rifle. Accompanied by two well-known shots, Captain Fergusson with fifteen shots at 800, 900 and 1,000 yards compiled the splendid total of 219 points— three points more than that compiled by Captain J. Gibson, Musselburgh, with a Fraffer rifle, on the 23rd inst. Church parades for volunteers are becoming popular in the larger towns in the colony.