CLASS FIRING AT THE HEADS.

incomplete, but what was done was don« well: .the time was good, and the firing steady and coneistent throughout.

LADY ROBERTS GITTS AGROUIvD.

People dubious about the patriotic zeal of our citizen defenders would have benefited by accompanying the Garrison Artillery to its annual class-faring at the Heads on such an occaeion as last Saturday. At 2.30 p.m. the "gunners" marched in perfect formation down to the railway platform, where they remained the joy of all beholders - till the order was given to entrain. The journey to Port Chalmers was accompanied by an element of chance. . One of the officers, owing to his watch not keeping military time, missed the train, and raced it to Port Chalmers in a. hansom. He disappointed many backers by coming in a bad second. The War Department steamer LadyRoberts carried the firing party to the Heads; and having landed them, took the targets in tow. These are technically termed Hongkong -targets, and represent the bow and stern of a battleship. They are perpendicular frames of tape trelliswork, and float on catamarans. The hawser that connects- them is 200 ft long, and the intervening space represent* the hull of the enemy. The "bow' target is made fast to the steamer's tow-rope, which the authorities have prudently decreed shall be 400 ft long at the least. The general idea, slightly abridged, was as follows:— England's fleef^eas busy elsewhere assisting at a naval Armageddon. A hostile fleet had descended on New Zealand. Auckland was an untidy heap; Wellington a battered remnant; Oamaru had experienced enough explosions to ensure r»in for a century to come; and now the enemy's ships had been sighted from the Bluff and from northward steering for Utago Heads. -, . . The officers present were:— Captain Richardson, R.N.Z.A.. chief umpire; CapFain Gardner, R.N.Z.A., assistant-umpire ; Colonel Allen, 0.0. Otago Division N Z G.A.V. : Major Strong, second in command; Chaplain-major Curzon-Siggere ; Surgeon-captain Newlands ; Lieutenant Sandle, R.N.Z.A. ; and Lieutenants Crawford and Braithwaite, Port Chalmers Navals. The object in view was to prevent the entrance of the fleet and the landing of troops. The officers directing the fire were Captain Fr«riric and Lieutenants Doull, White, Cooke, Phillips, and Williams. . , ._ , There is a wicked little- 3-mch Nordenfeldt quick-firer on the Harrington Point battery, and as the Lady Roberts rounded a headland with the targets in tow the orders came, " Thirteen hundred, 25 left," "shot." The Nordelfeldt barked, flicked out the empty case, and was reloaded. Then a pillar of spray shot up between the targets, just where the qxtarterdeck would have been had it been real, and the shot riohochetted clean over the mole. Some pretty shooting was made, till the Lady Roberta in her sweep to starboard fouled her targets against the piles at the mole end. Too late the signal was hoisted on shore, "Attend to target,' for the hawser parted, and the Lady Roberts lay wallowing in a perplexed fashion in the trough of the sea, while the targets got inextricably interwpven among the piles. This resulted in a delay of several hours, during which everyone but the signallers was idle. It was half-past 6 before the targets were got clear, and in response to orders the Lady Roberts took up the tow again with one target to represent the bow, the gunner to judge as best he mi?ht where about amidships might be. Misreading a signal, Run in from right to left," the steamer stood out to sea* so a rush was mad* to the battery at the Heads. Here some really clean work was done with & 64-pound muzzle-loader, which the 'men worked smartly and well. "The ponderous affair after having been fired had to be slewed ; the great muzzle deflected to receive the charge, pushed home m an archaic fashion with the rammer, while her snout was raised, like that of some great boast in the act of swallowing. She wnt off with a report that shattered the atmosphere: shreds of the powder bag mingling with smoke that blotted out the scenery. The work put in by the men "was brilliant, but it was pitiful to think of the effect of only one melinite shell dropped into that gunpi* while that medieval contrivance was boinjr fed. Many a detachment has been 'scuppered" and many a life lost because H:o Government persUt* m usine that broken crutch, the muzzle loader instead of sinking it in the uttermobt depOie of the «ea, whore it ivould be useful as an abode for fi-he* A modern oruiser would have rwntwd 20 "helk into tliac (run pit while the venerable iniquity was being reloaded. Its smoke shouts "Here's a gun for you to shoot at," ami the "nemv shoot, and «hoot quickly. and they do not use obsolete Tmizzle-lo<u]er=. TV Defenr* Department presumably knows this as well «« anybody, and yet these g^ins remain. They are by no means better than nothing; but (as pvorv cxperiencpcl ftahter knows) uifinitelv vorse. The officers and men deserved every credit for their smartness and efficiency, and certainly proved themselves worthy of handling tbe very latest thing out of "Woolwich. . ' Catherine dusk prevented practice with the 6in, although unmasked and ready loaded 1 , and the gunners had to unlock and mask her and return to the jetty disappointed. Meanwhile foe had been creeping in and along, covering the water, as it were, whh cotton wool, an<l when the Lady Roberts left Harrington Point at 8.-30 p.m. on her return voyage ehe ran right into it. She ran on to a bank, but fortunately she was eventually floated off. As the firing wa-? interrupted by a cnaptev of accidents the results -nere wofully