DUNEDIN ENGINEERS.

Evening Star, Issue 12871, 21 July 1906, Page 5

DUNEDIN ENGINEERS.

TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY. The Dunedin Engineers celebrated their twenty-first birthday as a corps by a dinner and smoke concert at the Carlton Dining Booms last evening. The function superseded the. annual exhibition of work, and advantage was taken of the occasion to present the prizes won during the year. Captain Boss occupied the chair, and the officers present were Major Beal, Lieut.-colonel Will, Surgeoncaptain Blomfield, Lieutenants Lacey, Flynn, Veitch. Apologies for non-at-tendance ' were received from the Mayor, Major Barclay, Chaplain-captain Mayne, Dr Nisbet, Lieutenant Midgley, ex-Captains Matthewson and Lindley, and Mr Orchardson. Lieutenant Midgley’s letter of apology recommended the formation of an ex-members’ association. The muster of members and ex-members present was a large one, the room being quite filled.

Lieut.-colonel Surgeon Will proposed '■* Army, Navy, and Volunteers,” and in doing so said that it was unfortunately the case that the worst friend of the Army was the British public. They seemed imbued with the idea that battles could be fought without losing men—that bricks could bo made without straw. This idea had severely handicapped our generals in the Boer War. What was the result? They had only to look at iaardeberg, where the arrays had Cronje kennelled up. Lord Kitchener’s wish had been to attack them at once, bnt the death rate would have been heavy, and Lord Roberts refused to consent to an assault. A bombardment was therefore begun, and the British shell lulled many animals and many Boers. These polluted the water which, for ten days, the British soldier had to drink, and the effect was that more men died from typhoid or -suffered in j my f or Hf e than would have been killed if the laager had been taken by storm. As regarded the Navy, his \iew was that its importance had diminished for two reasons : first, because the recent destruction of the Eussian fleet had equalised the balance of power, end secondly, because the Japanese War ■ , ®“ own that ships were not so important as men. Lord Roberts had said i ,7 n P°P ts represented the firstclass soldier, nine of these should go for snooting In the Japanese War it was the hekl u- d , th ? SP 1 ’ not the gun nor the ship which had achieved victory. Coming to the volunteers, he approached a subject which he knew something about, lie had completed twenty-nine years of service, and was, he believed the .oldest volunteer in the room. His Wn? had be 6 in with a dozen different companies, but he believed that his happiest _ association was with the £ ra foln n p d En tf neei Ti~ (Applause -) When he joined them they were seven years a^d their r fir^ t comm ander, Captain thou^fhr bSed^- aS , a sort of aftertnou ht, that a medical officer would be spr^ Va f tage ‘ So he i oi n e d in 1892, and ■ , * B, j7 ears with the company A chaplam did not come tiU many 7ears tlit wf fcer ;l w Possibl y t£ y SS. 'iVL . at £ he ° the Hussars had sot a f, oping Maxim the Engineers should cifij i ort S raal membems of the corns should cut the birthday cake snpermtendenoe of Major Beal. l n , }ro he felt a certain 7moS because so few of the original membens were with them that eveS . ttoe ’ 110 fclt proud to he thc SS o o f e X tp ~d the honorable com. S Engrneera—(hear, hear)—a corps which bad proved 1 themselves to be one of Zealand. If they their minds bade to 1885 they Joufo scare -” result that, a number of corps—some of them of mushroom growth—bad been formed an Tl of ? veTflow “S on aoTLfi ® breasts of many that \ ihe tnilftiZ The Engineers, who bad been one of the comm thOSe had not only m a - flourishing state. When Major Beal called the first meeting m the Garrison HnU, H4 names b mJ be “^lisluneat r , ly P rovL dcd for forty. Later U?firte r** as!Un Lp tiH the tene of that mereoee there had in filling the T J k ° the last two yearn the establisfaf been increased to 105. but unfortmmfolT, like tbe Canterbury Engineis bad able to ? J** 31 % firet on which they had not been able to show letter numbers than any Engineer corps fo the yokmy. An attempt to turn them into 7 ““£7 oompany had been frustrated by the efforts B eaJ. M(] u had the satisfaction of knowing, from the }** officer commanding the district, that they were equal f 0 any oompany ni ■«^ I * , drn as regarded discipline, work and individual excellence of members After making complhmontnry reference to the officers and non-commissioned officers the speaker paid a tribute to the work of -Major Barclay and to their old friend ger-eeant-major Henry, who had “crossed file bar. As company sergeant-major the latter was (me in a thousand, and the company were fortunate in curing a worthy success in SeTgenmtimajor Ferguson, who had proved hanself the right man in the right place.—{Hear, hear.) He would couple the toast with the names of Majors Beal and Barclay, Quartermaster-sergeant haxby, .Sergeant Patonson. Sergeant Qsnwnd, Serges snt Morgan. ' mid °En •■’incur Keyes. °

Major Beal, in responding, mentioned that the corps had been formed on April 26. 1885. One hundred and fourteen names bad been handed in to Lieutenant-colonel Staveley, and fifty of tliem had been .‘•elect'd. At their find, camp they paraded fifty-nine strong, and there met for the first time the' Canterbury Engineers. On that occasion the corps bad won complimcntaiT reference from the general. Kir George Whitmore. Among the original members was Sergeant Paterson, who was the first magi in the company to put on tlte possible, scoring 25 with five shots at 300. yards' As far aa he know, the only original'members whom death had overtaken were Scr- ' geaut-major Henry, Sergeant major Russel!, and Sergeant MEachern. The remainder wore now scattered aH over the world, and he had received letters from old member' who_ were now resident in America, Tas il mania, and Queensland.

Ibo ex-members whose names had been included in the toast then came forward and cut the company’s birthday cake, and by special request Mr Keyes sang ‘The musketeers,’ as a memento of old times. At the conclusion of the song Captain Ross said : “Mr Keyes in the son of a veteran who fought in tire trenches at Sebastopol, so you will recognise that he knows what he is talking about.” Mr Keyes: “Yon must understand that when my father came home from the Crimea I was a ' kiddie ’ at' Woolwich garrison, and it was there that I first learned ‘The musketeers.’’ Other toasts were “The Present Coro pany,” “Kindred Corps,” “The Ladies,” and “Tire Press.’ The prize-list was as follows;

Class-firing. First day.—Sapper WeSs 1, Sergeant Ellis 2, Sergeant Keilar 5. Sapper Lodge 4, Sapper Clarke 5. Second dsy. Sergeant Ferguson 1, Lieutenant Lacey 2, Sapper Bragg 3, Lieutenant Midgley 4. . Hallenstein’s Clock and-Cup Match.— Sapper Burrow 1, Sapper Wells 2, Corporal Keilar 3, Lieutenant Lacey 4. Ex-Sapper Grant’s Cup—Sapper Wells 1. Sergeant Keilar 2, Sapper Dean 3, Lieutenant Midgley 4.

Extra Prizes. ‘ First day.—Sapper Lodge 1, Lance-corporal Latta 2. Second day.—j Lance-corporal Neale 1, Lance-corporal Johnston 2.

Ladies’ Challenge Belt.-—Lance-corporal Johnston 1, Sergeant Keilar 2, Corporat Wells 3, Lieutenant Lacey 4. .Maior Junior .Ckgjt^

Sapper Ben fell 1, Lance-corporal Urn 2L$ Sapper Couth* 3, Sapper Davcy 4. * t-One-day Handicap (Senior). Corpora}!; Johnston 1, Sergeant Keilar 2y Lientenanl Lacey 5. . • \ One-day Handicap (Junior). —Sergeant Steele 1, Lance-corporal Bryant 2, Bugler, MTxenzie 3. - . ■! Ex-Members.—Corporal Johnston 1, Sep- , geant Ellis 2. In tills competition a priWf ■was presented by tbe members of the cortw to ex-Seigeant Tonkin. , Those who contributed to the programme of music, etc., presented at intervals during the evening were:—Ex-Corporal Wright, ex-OorporaJ M'Neil, Quartermaster-sergeant Roach, Lieutenant. Flynn, Sapper Myers, Bugler- M'Kenzio, Bugler Brady, ex-Sapper VViiholmson, ex-SappCr Keyes, ex-Sapper Begg (solos). Corporal Etheridge (recitation). Sapper Schacht (violin solo).