Our Volunteers.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5785, 25 November 1886, Page 3

Our Volunteers.

Yesterday evening the Canterbury Engineers did a little practical work in the way of field fortification, under the direction of Captain Webster and .Staff Sergeant-Major Lu^ro. the Government instructor in fortiu.nuon. Thirty-two members of the corps were present, and constructed a gun- pit for a field piece and a shelter trench for infantry, in the Eouth-west portion of the parade ground. The gun-pit was an excavation 2ft deep, 6ft wide at the front, and 12ft wide in the rear, with a parapet 3ft in height. According to regulation, seven men should complete it in two hours. It was constructed in about an hour and a half by 14 men, working in two reliefs of seven men each. Three kinds of shelter trench were excavated — the half -hour trench, of which one man is supposed to be able to cut sft in half an hour, the hour trench, and the hour and a half trench, the excavation of sft of which is supposed to occupy a man the time from which the work takes its name. The first named is 18in deep, 2ft 6in wide, and has a parapet 18in high. The second is sft wide, and 18in deep, and the third sft wide, the front portion 18in, and the rear 3ft deep. The work was very well done, considering that it was the first time that most of the men had ever attempted anything of the kind. The half-hour trench was finished in about 25 minutes, and the others were completed in less than the full time allowed. Tho work was also of a neat and serviceable character.

This evening and to-morrow SergeantMajor Lucas will deliver lectures at the Engineers* orderly room for instruction of volunteers of all corps in the art of fortifications.

On Tuesday night Mr A. J. Muller was elected to the vacant lieutenantcy in the Ashburton Rifles, caused by the promotion of Mr A. A. Fooks to the adjutantcy of the South Canterbury Rifle Battalion.