THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Véritè sans peur.” Wanganui, May 2, 1861.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 5, Issue 233, 2 May 1861, Page 2

THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Véritè sans peur.” Wanganui, May 2, 1861.

Thei “ Wpngrii, Wonga” .brought..up the English mail ou Monday. , r . .. A regiment is daily expected at Auckland from Calcutta—the 70tli Foot. Major Ryan and Quarter-Master Neville, of this .regiment arrived ; at Nelson by the Mail Steamer from Sydney, and went on to Auckland.

In a lata number of Punch, a captain of volunteers asks his men, —“ Now, have you, got any more ammunition ?”/ “ No, no’! all gone P On which the captain rejoins, •“ Ah ! well! .ah I cease firing.” The volunteers at home are singularly blessed/ They receive ammunition for the purpose of ball firing. -The volunteers . of JFangamri are * not so .highly favored, f for after ;ha,ying been,, enrolled for a whole year, they can scai’cely be said to liave yet. begun ball practice. ... nous nave- been. made to head-quarters as to the necessity for. a supply of ammunition, “to enable us to hold our own in case a spark should kindle into a conflagration in the neigh - bourhood. /aTundreds of tons of warlike stores have been landed at Auckland during tho last few months. The Government steamers have been racing between Auckland and Taranaki, and could have brought down any quantity pf ammunition. The Governmentprize shooting is to begin on the 27th A/ay, and up to this moment each volunteer in Wanganui who has had the honor of having a rifle entrusted to him, lias received not more than forty rounds of ammunition for ball practice. We say every volunteer who has had a rifle given to him, for a large number of the rifle volunteers have as yet no instruirient with whiah to go through the little pantomime of—shoulder, present, fire, except it may be a manuka stick. The Government is evidently determined/to teach the young idea how to shoot, for the whole of the shooting, whether with the rifle ox* the manuka stick? has been purely ideal. The meekest peace-loving ’ Quaker on earth could not disapprove of the /Fanganui volunteers. Bob Acres, himself lnight join them, ami never have occasion to feel his courage oozing out at his finger ends. Manzie Waucli, that gallant volunteer, if he had belonged to them, could'not have recorded in his autobiography the state of “ flustration ” into which he was thrown by the order, to fire, and (what our late theatrical manager here would call) the “ screaming farce” consequent thereon: The Wanganui volunteers, who did not think it necessary to get any fine uniform, so firmly persuaded were they, on enrolment a year ago, that sergeant Shaw’s advice as to fighting in their shirt sleeves wquld best suit them, so. soon to be in the tliick of the melee, are many of them still practising/'four, deep,.-or. running' about insanely, in .'skirmishing disorder,' with' empty cartouche* boxes flying out Wildly behind them, for want of waist belt's, or doing anything hut. what will enable them to qope with the Maori, should they meet .him as a foe ; alb because they have not got firearms and accoutrements and ammunition, without which everything else is useless. ; Sp far as appear** the volunteer cavalry would have been without any sort of Weapon to -this day (except perhaps stock whips, or the linanuka sticks shod with .iron to represent danees, which were at? first proposed by the igallant Major in command), had not a i?angitikei settler ferreted out a number of cutlasses and carbiries which had been lying in a custom liouse cellar in Wellington since 1846, and which were immediately r secured for our defence. A great deal was heard of these carbines before they came to, hand. How our young cavaliers were' to fiddle, tlie targets, or if needful, the ATaoris, with- these splendid fusils! When they came they were found to he. curiously antique, invaluable specimens Tor Jonathan Oldbuck’s museum, but weapons of offence only to those who used them ;• carrying so well,, that at-fifty yards; Jhe firing, is nearly as good as that of tb.ree-

•pqunddrs at/ the, distance 5 of five miles, only -that it isdoubtful wlietherthe ball will strike five yards to the right or five yards to the left of the target. T Mad with this very efficient weapon, and an equally venerable cutlass, which is much too short for a horseman’s use, our gallant cavalry are still armed. The rifles have some faint hope that areas and,ammunition may reach them within a year or so (a.few months more or less of course do hot signify, as the natives are very deliberate iii their movements); but the „cavalry are, we 'suppose, thought to be thoroughly efficient, and, there seems ,now to be no hope of anything, better in the distance for them. - AVe need ndt : mention particularly the dis-

trict in which,, during the past year, the volunteers. met one afternoon, and after having practised the goose step for a 'few minutes, thought.they had had quite enough of it, and broke up indignant and"sibilant. .■’.lf this fall under the eye of any volunteer in' '.Great Britain, it*.Will be thought a monstrous exaggeration. There, though the danger is remote both.iu time and place, the Government supplies arms, ■ ammunition, and drill sergeants, free of charge, wherever and whenever asked for. Here, we are within ten miles of men who have been .fighting at Tara-

naki for W. King; and who are known to be equally ready to fight for the king Here (so great was the impression of impending danger a year ago)' a majority of/the neighbouring settlers then left their houses empty, their fields untilled, their property unprotected, and fled into town to save, their ’ lives ; and the danger has since been increasing and’coming nearer. Here, the foe is a savage and gives no quarter, spares neither man, woman, nor child. And yet the volunteers here are, after a year’s fighting at the distance of only 120 miles, and when some think the contest is only beginning; the most of them unarmed with rifles, and the whole of them unpractised as marksmen. W ho is to blame ? And how great is the. culpability of those, to whom the .blame is to be attached 1

The consequence is, that numbers of our volunteers, are too disgusted with the service to continue in. it after the year for which.they have been enrolled expires. • The more serious consequences that may possibly arise from such ill-timed .and heartless trifling it is not pleasant to think of.