Colonel Moggridge alludes to, I presume, the rifle range occasionally used, with the kind permission of the Colonial Government, by the Civilian Amateur Rifle Association, who have, however, at my instance, given it up altogether since the construction of the new road. Soldiers in Victoria also sometimes use this Range for matches among themselves or with Colonial Policemen, but it must not be mistaken from this circumstance for the Garrison Rifle range proper. The latter is situated at Kowloong, near the Cantonments.
The present value to the troops of the rifle range at Victoria may be estimated by the significant and suggestive fact that in preparing the conditions of the cession in 1868, neither General Brunker nor Colonel De Butts demurred in the slightest to its unconditional surrender to the Colonial Government. In point of fact, the rapid growth and spread of the City since the early days when the range was established at Victoria had rendered it inexpedient, already in 1868, to continue the practice in one of its suburbs, and so intolerable had become the hardship and annoyance to the population from the noise of the firing in such close proximity to the European thoroughfares that General Whitfield, then Commanding the Troops and Lieutenant Governor of the Colony, in a letter dated 21st October 1870, directed that the nuisance should be abated forthwith.
The propriety of the discontinuance of the range at Victoria never having been questioned by the late Military Authorities, I would respectfully submit that there can be no adequate reason why the range ceded to the Colonial Government in 1869 should be revived and relegated to the Military Authorities in 1876, nor why a new 800-yard range, as urged by Colonel Moggridge, should be erected at the cost of the Colonial Government across the grounds most eligible for villa sites, thus destroying its hopes of ever disposing of the same. In such a rifle range, the positions of the firing point...
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