THE REJECTED VOLUNTEERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11202, 24 October 1899, Page 3

THE REJECTED VOLUNTEERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— was pleased to see in your issue of Saturday the letter signed "A Disgusted One." I quite agree that an undeserved slight has been put upon the rejected men from this district. I should for one like to know the qualifications of the officers who told theso men they could not ride. On the Saturday before the Auckland boys left Oneliunga they were examined in horsemanship by Colonel Banks (an ex-cavalry officer), and Captain Holgate, and both these gentlemen were satisfied. After the arrival in Wellington these same men were examined by two artjllery officers, and were rejected nominally because the riding did not please the artillery officers, really to make way for a few tardy South Island men who at the last moment screwed up courage enough to volunteer. The idea of Colonel Pole-Penton or Major Haddocks telling men like Home, Draper, and Wilson that they could nol ride is almost laughable. Personally I should like to back any one of the trio to ride either the gallant colonel or the major, over rough country. Had the rejected men been Southerners, they would by now be enjoying, in all probability, the " motion's! the ocean" on the good ship Waiwera. I am informed on good authority that two members of the contingent so recently as four weeks ago had never crossed the back of a horso, but they went— horsemanship satisfied the artillerymen. Again, sir, I should like to know liow it is that Major Maddocks is allowed to go in charge of one company of the contingent. I am not aware that he has any claim to bo called a New Zealand volunteer. Lieutenant Banks is told that lie cannot go; he is a couple of months under the specified age (23), Still, a South Island subaltern, only 19, is allowed to go. It looks to me, sir, very much as though selection, like kissing, went by favour. Things like this do far more harm to volunteering than anything else, but I suppose it is too late to alter it now.— am, etc., P. H. Wilson. 148, Grey-street, October 22, 1899.