GENERAL ITEMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2402, 15 March 1900, Page 26

GENERAL ITEMS.

A patriotic concert and dance "in aid of the more men and horses fund was held at Aparima on Friday evening, and the net proceeds amounted to almost £10. • A patriotic concert and dance, held at Evans Flat on the 27th ult.,' resulted in a sum of £18 "4s lOd being handed over for the " more horses" fund, after the payment of .all expenses.

A Wellington telegram says: — "The Rev. John .Erwin, minister of "Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cambridge, has written to the Press Association denying the truth of a telegram sent from Auckland on February 20 that he preached a pro-Boer sermon on the previous Sunday, and adds that he was completely misrepresented."

At the monthly meeting of the Albanystreet School Committee, held on Tuesday evening, Mr Diokson, one of the committee, in a patriotic speech, made_ some remarks regarding the military training of our youth. IDuring the last few years, he said, while visiting the school at a time when the children ■were receiving their instruction in drill, he •had often been surprised at the order and precision with which the boys would form and wheel at the word of command, and he could not help thinking that if some system were devised that would be the means of keeping the boys up to their drill practice after they ihad left school to follow their various trades and- professions, that it would prove a mighty factor for good to the people of the colony." Just imagine, he said, all the boys of our public schools gradually developing into citizen soldiers of the colony ! How secure we would then feel from any attempt of an enemy to invade us, and what help we could render in a time of need to our mother land. The modern invention of firearms taught us that citizen soldiers, with a knowledge of the rifle and with a few Maxims could, -after speedily throwing up entrenchments, bid defiance to an attack of five times their number of disciplined troops with all the appli- , ances of modern warfare, and hence, as the 6igns of the times told us that there was no likelihood at present of a court of nations -being established for the purpose of settling all international quarrels, then it was time we should set our house in order, so that we might be worthy of being termed the Britions of the south. He suggested that the boys of the various schools who are attending the iFounth, Fifth, and Sixth' Standards, " should »meet once a month for two hours' drill, and that the ex-pupils be likewise requested to attend, and that the time selected for such monthly "rills should be settled when in-

quiry has elicited what would be the most suitable^ date for the ex-pupils. Mr Dickson's suggestion was heartily approved of by the other members of the committee, and Messrs J. F. Kirby, W. Dickson, and J. W. Butler were appointed a subcommittee for the pur-

„_ pose of negotiating with " other school comjnittees to can^ .„ into effect. It was decided to bring the suggestion before the Premier. According to a letter written from the Modder River by Bugler M'Leod, of the New South Wales Mounted Infantry, 27 bullets passed through the kilt of a Highlander, who died from his wounds. The' kilt is being preserved for the British Museum. Lord Wolveiton, who is one of the senior partners in Glyn, Mills, Currie, and Co., lhe Tvell-known bankers, was booked to leave for the- Cape in connection with the Imperial Yeomanry, in the Scot, on January 27. Lord Wolverton is a brother-in-law of the Earl of Dudley, who has a host of relatives engaged in the war, and is very probably going out himself. It is stated (says the Warehouseman and Draper) that an order for 100,000 pairs of boots for the British army has been placed in India by the War Office, in consequence of the inabilits' of Home manufacturers to execute any more ordera for immediate delivery. IThe principal centre of the boot industry in jfcndia is Cawnpore, which of recent years has developed a most important trade in saddlery and bootmaking.

Messrs Vickers, Sons, and Maxim have just accomplished a very smart piece of work. An order lor A3O machine guns was given to them

on December 12. They are now (says a Home paper of January 10) being shipped to South Africa.

Advocate De Wet, who has been appointed chief commandant of the Free State forces at Colesberg, is comparatively a young man. He is the eldest son of the Hon. N. J. De Wet, M.L.C., and is a naturalised Free State burgher. He was a student of "the South African College, and holds the degree of B.A. of the Cape University, and that of LL.B. of Cambridge. At the latter university he gained the Chancellor's medal for English law.

A shrapnel shell fired into Kimberley on January-30 took a curious course. Entering a drapery shop, it penetrated a brick wall, making a clean sweep of the stock room on the upper floor, it seveiely punished a group of lay wax figures used for window dressing. One dummy figure of a lady was unjjallantly riddled by 12 bullets, whilst a boy's wax head was smashed to atoms.

At a meeting of the Capetown section of the Afrikander Bond it was decided to submit the following motion to the annual congress of the Bond: — "That, without discussion, a committee of seven "members be appointed, consisting of the Executive and four other members, to draw up and lay before the meeting a resolution (a) giving expression of Congiess^s entire disapproval of the policy which led to the present bloody war instead of to a peaceful solution of the differences with the South African Republic by means of arbitration, and (b) urging a speedy re-establishment of peace on fair and righteous conditions^ as also- a thorough inquiry by our Parliament into the way in which, during the war, private property, - the <sivil liberties antl the constitutional rightV6f the subject have been treated."