156 
VOLUNTEER ADJUTANCIES. 
the inspection, and to this all the members have to be brought. There 
are several ways of accomplishing this. Full and due notice must be 
given to all the men, of the days and hours when practice will be 
carried on, and these days and hours must be arranged so as to suit 
the spare time of the different classes of men in the corps, and if 
towards the end of the practice, many men have still failed to appear, 
the N.-C.(Vs of the batteries should be given their addresses, so that 
they may look them up and caution them. Post cards also may be 
sent to each non-attender, and no stone be left unturned until all 
are brought up. One must hammer, hammer, hammer, till all are 
reached, perseverence will certainly be well repaid. Aud when Volun¬ 
teer Artillerymen thoroughly understand how important it is to comply 
with this regulation, the difficulty will fade away and compliance be¬ 
come general. Volunteers are proverbial for good shooting, and I 
found the greatest keenness, amongst all ranks, to make good use of 
the ammunition allowed for gun practice ; this keenness was certainly 
stimulated by the numbers of prizes given to the corps for competition, 
and by the popularity of the Shoeburyness meetings. One gun detach¬ 
ment from each battery was sent each year to Shoeburyness, and 
during the week of the National Artillery Association meeting, local 
papers, though far removed from Shoeburyness, were full of the doings 
of their Volunteer comrades there. Detailed results of the competitions 
were telegraphed each day, and humourous letters from different men 
in the camp were published. The enthusiasm of the population, when 
good prizes were won by their local corps, was astonishing to witness. 
It may not be known what interest our Volunteers took in the naval 
manoeuvres of one or two years ago, when look-outs were kept all 
round our coasts, and many towns were bombarded with blank ammu¬ 
nition. For several nights the Volunteers patrolled the sands along 
the coast, and kept watch the whole night through ; at last, when 
early in the morning, the iron-clads were heard booming far away, 
the signal guns were fired, those Volunteers who were at work threw 
down their tools in the workshops and rushed to the batteries, manning 
all the guns, firing blank ammunition at the most amazing rate and, as 
local history related, scared the enemy from our shores. Many of the 
men were only in their shirt sleeves and working clothes, and one, I 
believe, with one side only of his face shaven, not having had time to 
finish his toilet. There was no doubt about the corps being ready to 
do its best, and some of the foremen in the workshops who were 
ignorant of the cause of the stampede, were quite dumb-foundered at 
steady men losing their heads in such an extraordinary manner. 
A few corps have arranged marches for their Batteries of Position, 
and now annually proceed to practice camp by route marches. Such 
corps greatly improve their efficiency, and gain valuable experience 
which nothing else could give them, not to speak of the healthy exer¬ 
cise and pleasure to all ranks. 
If weather be favourable and the time arranged to suit the holiday 
season of the district, more than half the corps will attend camp for 
the inside of a week. The Adjutant who accompanies the corps into 
camp which has never been under canvas before has no sinecure; all 
