our DEFENDERS.

Observer, Volume XXIII, Issue 2, 27 September 1902, Page 11

our DEFENDERS.

By Lee-Enfield.

THE following officers have been elected for the recently formed Hikurangi Rifles ; Captain, Mr A. M. Kust ; lieutenants, Messrs Murdoch and Kobertson. A promising lot of non-coms, have been selected by the captain, and the corps gives promise of being an acquisition to the strength of the district. The uniform chosen is a copy of the Whangareis'. There was a large attendance at the Avondale range for the opening "of the Akarana Rifle Club's season last Saturday. The heavy gale prevailing, however, put an early termination to the shooting. One target was blown clean away. The shooting will be continued next Saturday. Lieut. -Colonel Abbott arrived from Wellington last Monday. His absence from Auckland has extended over a period of some two years, the major portion of which has been passed on active .service. Captain and Quartermaster Self (Honorary Unattached list) has been awarded the Colonial and Auxiliary Forces Officers' Decoration for some twenty-eight years' odd service. The officers and non-coms, of the infantry battalion were exercised in the new drill by Sergeant-Major Carpenter in the Strand Arcade last Tuesday. Quite a number of returned troopers, well-known faces for the most part, are packing their traps with a view of settlement in South Africa. The Gordons have been again compelled to postpone the welcome home to Colonel Abbott owing to the further detention of that geutleman in Wellington. The date this time has heen fixed for Monday next, and if nothing intervenes in the meantime, a very successful gathering .should take place on that evening.

Few Auckland volunteers are held in such great esteem as Lien tenant Dormer, the genial Quartermaster of the Infantry Battalion, and his recent illness has occasioned much sympathy. He has been a soldier all his life, and saw service when quite a lad. His commission, moreover, is an Imperial one, earned by long years' meritorious service. General satisfaction will lie felt when it is known he is now on the high way to recovery. The Education Department is advertising for drill instructors to give military instruction to school teachers each Saturday. Lieut. Sherson, of the " A " Battery, who was recently elected to a vacant lieutenancy, has been gazetted to hiu acting appointment. General Babington, in General Orders, while sanctioning the various companies of battalion camping together, makes it a condition that the training is to be carried out by companies, and no attempt is to be made with battalion drill except during the last three days, and then only if the corps are thoroughly conversant with company drill. The Auckland Navals, who have qualified as a first-class artillery corps, were presented on Monday with the special badges allotted by the Government for a series of gunnery competitions. These badges were earned with the remarkably good score of 975 points, being only 25 off the possible. It is time that the proposal to issue rifles to officers throughout the colony was given effect to. According to the target regulations, all officers must go through the prescribed course of musketry. I understand that the business to be brought up at the annual meeting of the Non-coms'. Club is as follows :— Report and balance-sheet; nomination and election of officers ; to consider the advisability of making a few alterations in the rules, and afterwards it is probable the new drill will he brought under notice. This meeting, I believe, was to have been held next Monday, but as Lieut. -Colonel Abbott is to be welcomed back on that evening, the chances are that the meeting will be postponed until the following week.