VIVE LA VOLUNTEERS.

NZ Truth, Issue 143, 14 March 1908, Page 5

VIVE LA VOLUNTEERS.

JOYS OF JOHNSONVILLE

JOKERS.

The Bitterness of Aloes.

Johnsonville Rifles are at present :l caught m the current of volunteer J unrest which is sweeping through the, Dominion, but the trouble m this ease is a purely local one. Frank T. Moore, ex-Meat Co. manager, divine i physician, meat buyer, and present Socialist candidate for Parliamentary honors, is capting-, and, according to the men, is aright good capting, too, but Lieut. A. J. Miirrielees, who claims seniority because his initial; is further up the alphabet than the other man's, is a ridiculous person who deserves, the utmost discouragement from all and sundry. He sells pills and semia m Johnsonville for a living, and is cursed with military aspirations coupled with the cheek of a man. • The corps has only been m existence nine or ten months and so far as "Truth" can learn, the trouble arpse from the unsportsmanlike behavior' of Pills, who took advantage of a childish defence regulation to climb over the head of popular Lieut. G-. S. Willis, who had beaten him' at the ballot box. In the selection of a Lieutenant, Willis was chosen by the men by 26 to 15, but as Wi is nearer Zthan M, the militant Mirrielees claimed seniority and was supported by the Defence Council, which is a. base imitation of the horrible oldworld failure, the British War "Office. This assumption of seniority was resented by the men, who wanted their:. Willis, and the position was made more acute by the insufferable egotism of the unspeakable " brimstone vendor. On one occasion when" the Sergeant-Major was inspecting the men. Epsom Salts persisted m showing his beastly authority over the non-comniissioned person by calling the men out of the ranks to be measured for overcoats. CASGARA WAS TAUGHT HIS ' . , PLACE , by being informed that there was a time and place for this duty without interference with drill instruction. On another occasion Willis, who should be the senior officer, was drilling the corps when Ointment took the oompany out of his hands like a spoilt child recovering a lost toy. The company has no respect for Bitter Aloe's, and won't drill under him. The Captain was away for a week recently*. and when* it was understood that Black Draught would be m charge, nine only out of the fiftynine men turned up to parade. The circumstance evidently affected the temper of Carbolic, for he, swore at the attenuated corps and thereby sank still lower m the estimation of the men he is supposed to boss. This sort of thing can't go on for ever, and if the strange Defence Council doesh't confer seniority where senior? ity is due there won't be much left of the corps m a month or two. Already between thirty and forty members Have" signed their resignations, which will be held, pending developments, and if Nux vomica persists m his stupendous assumption of cheek as . a usurper, he will have to yell his orders m future at the small boy who washes the medicine bottles. Who on earth is responsible for the alphabetical regulation, m any case ? That the accident of. having A for an initial instead of B should earn promotion reveals an awful state of affairs, and' ■> hoever Was responsible for such a regulation must have been iri a state of doddering imbecility at the time. A man named Zachariah who hankered after a captaincy wouldn't get there m the race of. cats if persons named Bugiuicc or Drivel or Swankey wanted to get m before him. It is another injustice to Jerusalem. A thorough shaking up of the drybones m the Defence Department is howling for performance with the shrillness of a fruit-hawker deprived of his license.