Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 120, 7 April 1892, Page 2

Volunteer Items

As many volunteers as can make it convenient are requested to meet attbe barracks to-night, at 7.30, to consider au invitation to attend an encampment at Wanganui. The third and final competitions for Mrs Hastie's Gold Medal, to be fired for by members of A. Class, took place at the range yesterday, under rather unfavorable circumstances, a gusty wind prevailing and rather a bright light, making good shooting somewhat difficult. The following are the totals for the three competitions:—Vol. Aitken, 202; Vol. Parker, 201; Vol. Stevens, 197; five others competed. As will be seen by the above Vol. Aitken won the medal by one point only. After the competition class firing commenced and will be continued on Saturday and Wednesday next. Ammunition for clt*6s firing to be obtained from the secretary of the corps Corporal Milson. It was reported at Monday's meeting of the Soldiers' Monument Committee that the monument was completed so far as Mr W. McGill was concerned, and the committee expressed themselves as highly pleased with it as a splendid specimen of monumental masonry. The stones for til© figure of a lion, of which the mpnument will consist, have been dressed and banked ready for the sculptor, and Mr Sheriff will begin his work shortly. The total cost so far, including the removal of the remains of the soldiers buried at Nukumaru, which cost £12, is about £255. Towards this amount the Committee have about £210, and they will therefore have to come upon the public for the balance necessary to make up the difference, and com- | plete the work. — Wanganui Herald. i An old soldier belonging to the 12th [ Eegiment, named Henry Payne, i employed at the Railway Hotel, Fordell, was sitting at his tea on Monday i evening, when he suddenly gasped and fell back dead. Deceased was a single man and between 60 and- 70 I years of age. — Herald. I Sergeant-Major Bezar, who will be reI niembered by old Feilding Bifle VolunI teers from his connection with the corps, ) has written an interesting little work entitled " Some Reminiscences of the Die ) Hards " (57th West Middlesex Eegiment). ) It contains some exciting stories and re- [ cords, which will interest many. It is - well written in an easy chatty style, and ) is an excellent shilling's-worth. Copies can be obtained from Mr W. Carthew. The remains of soldiers who were buried in the vicinity of Nukumarn in * the time of the war, says the WaDganni ) Chronicle have been exhumed and L brought to Wanganui and * beneath the ' Old Soldiers' Monument/ ~ winch is now in course of erection in the L Queen's Park, Nothing but the bones of the men were found to remain, and ) these relics, representing about 17 bodies, I were carefully deposited in their new and I final resting place. Two of the sculls ! were perforated as if by bullets, and the back portion of another was completely crushed in, apparently by a blow from some blunt instrument. From the appearance of the remains as they lay ' in their graves before exhumation, it was 1 evident that many of the bodies bad been buried in blankets with boots and uniforms on.