AMERICAN NEW MOUNTED INFANTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 213, 7 September 1900, Page 5

AMERICAN NEW MOUNTED INFANTRY.

The Americans, being" ■convinced of the vital necessity in war of the man on horseback who ca,u ride vrell and shoot straight, have taken steps^ to secure the services of such men against the necessity. A million acres of land in Colorado have been secured for an encampment, and there young men willing to serve for a period of one year and pay a fee of five hundred dollars are to be trained in all the tactics pertaining to mounted infantry. Apparently, in spite of the fee, there is abundance of raw material to the hand of General Sumner, who- will boss the show, with the. assistance of General Hale and a "cocky?' lieutenant named Farrow. This young- man has spent a good deal of his service rounding up Indians, and has. written a couple of military books, including a work entitled "Mountain Scouting." Out of this the author, with that splendid assurance which characterises the modern, young- American, claims that Baden-Powell collared some of his ideas on reading signs, trailing, etc., which form such ft valuable, feature of B.P.s "Aids to Scouting." Farrow, who is* to be the head at the "department tactics," appears to be going' to run the show pretty much his own way. He has invented anew kind of rifle and this is to be' used by the 500 dollar cadets. On Farrow's own showing the rifle is only ten times better than the Krag-Jorgenson rifle, now used in the States army. ■It is, he explains, "a magazine rifle, which, by a cut-off, can be used as a" rapid .single loader, with a magazine holding' seven cartridges in reserve, available as a repeater whenever the1 cut-oil is thrown in. As a repeater its sustained rapidity of fire is greater than in any oilier known rifte. The distinctive feature of the new gun is that of the. 'packet' These packets are charged into the magazine, which lies under the re>

eeiver, in one movement, and en bloc, as if the packet were a single, cartridge. The cartridges are fed into the chamber by a positive movement. The rifle holds eight cartridges—one in the chamber and seven in the magazine. The action, is that of the Colt system." The lieutenant's rifle appears to be in essentials very little different from the Mauser, in Avhich five cartridges in a clip can be fed into the magazine in one movement. Farrow is also going to introduce sundry other novelties, including a tent, which apparently Avill serve as many turns- as the patent step ladder-cum-garden chair of world-wide comic paper notoriety. It is to be hoped that the tent won't be subject to similar vagaries. The lieutenant taboos the revolver and bayonet as useless accessories, and Avill provide in their place a patent tixnvel-curn-tent peg' of "his OAvn invention. ■