PITT'S MILITIA.

New Zealander, Volume XIX, Issue 1973, 15 September 1863, Page 2

PITT'S MILITIA.

The first four companies of the Victorian contingent to this splendid force debarked from the Star of India yesterday afternoon, having been conveyed from the ship to the wharf by the steam gunboat Sandfly. At a moment like the present, when almost every citizen is a soldier, it is not easy to get up a demonstration, the citizen soldiery off duty plying their interrupted labours with double diligence. Still, despite of this, if the crowd was not so great —if the acclamations were less vociferous than the new levies may have expected to be greeted with —they may rest assured that their welcome was none the less sincere and heartfelt.

The two first companies, in command of Lieut. Lomax, marched into the Albert Barracks, without being played up. As there is only the Volunteer Band in Auckland, we think it might be well if the members of that band, and the public desirous of welcoming our future defenders, were made aware of the time and place of their debarkation, in order that they might be met with that shout of welcome so clear to a stranger's heart.

The two second companies in charge of Lieuts. Smith and Nunnington, landed some time afterwards. The Volunteer Band had then assembled, and the community had congregated, so that they were played up and cheered along their line of march to the Albert Barrack square, where there was a considerable concourse to greet them. They halted there but a short time, and, preceded by the Volunteer Band, they resumed their march to the camp at Otahuhu, where their arms, clothing, and equipment had gone before. They are, in downritrht earnest, a very fine body of men, just the sort to cut the gordian knot of native difficulty. Captain Goldsmith, we learn, has had good experience of irregular warfare. Lieut. Lomax bears a high reputation. Lieut. Smith stands high in estimation in Victorio. And there are many old colonists, like ourselves, who remember Lieut. Nunnington—a gallant old Rutlander, familiar wiih New Zealand and its wars, and twice wounded at the sanguinary action at Ohaowhai.

" The cry is still they come !" It is well now that it is so. Sharp suffering requires sharp remedier.