Volunteer Items

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 36, 11 August 1893, Page 3

Volunteer Items

The Manchester Bines had a very successful parade last night in the Assembly Rooms. The men were exercised in com- \ pany movements by Captain Kirton and Lieutenant Burlace. Sergeants Milson, Savwell, Petherick, and Aitken put them through the manual, firing, and bayonet i exercises. The next parade will be on ! Friday the 18th inst., at the conclusion of which a meeting of the shooting committee will be held at Mrs Oliver's Empire Hotel. Color Sergt Milson, Sergt. Aitken and Corporal Pleasants received their " pass " certificates last night. Corporal Plensiint* also exorcised the men in the manual exercise. An aid to shooting has been devised by a Vienna watchmaker in the shape of a little automatic clockwork apparatus that is applicable to all firearms, and by the aid of which it is said to be possible for troops in the renr of an army to shoot with precision over the heads of those in front without danger to the latter. It is described as " a piece of clockwork, or small aparatus, by which if a rifle is held so as to come np to a certain angle of elevation, the whole imgazine of cartridges, or a single cartridge will be automatically discharged." Whether it can be brought into practical use depends upon the result ot the tests to which it is now being submitted by a committee of the Austrian War Office. One thousand Martini- Henry rifles will arrive in the Colony shortly, but they will not be issued to the volunteers until the report of Colonel Fox has been discussed in the House.