WOUNDS BY MAUSER BULLETS.

Mr. Treves, the famous surgeon, has (writes oiur London correspondent) brought to notice one very cuiious feature concerning the wounds from Mauser bullets. He says in effect that in most cases these are virtually harmless if left alone, but mat many men thus wounded have been killed in the attempt to cure. He states that the Mauser wound is so small, so sharp, so clean, that if left untouched it speedily heals through the unaided operation of Nature. Even in cases where men had been shot right through the middle, the ball passing through several folds of the stomach and intestines and come out at the opposite side of the body, the sufferer, if simply allowed to rest, usually recovered, the tiny olean-cut holes being plugged by the natural effusion. But when attempts were made to sew up or otherwise unite the edges of the perforation these commonly resulted in death. As showing the extreme cleanness of the Mauser perforation, Mr. Treves stated that he had seen drinking flasks, bottles, and other glass vessels which had been struck by Mauser bullets.' In each case there was a clean round perforation without any breakage or chipping of the glass. A COMMEMOx^inUiN CHAPEL. NAPIER, 2nd July. Dean Hovell made a powerful appeal in the Anglican Cathedral yesterday for funds ,to erect a commemoration chapel in connection with the Cathedral when peace is assured in South Africa. The Dean proposes that the names of the officers and men who have gone to the war from the Napier diocese shall be inscribed on marble tablets, and placed on the walls of the chapel, thus giving it a permanent historic interest. The public seem to be in cordial sympathy with the Dean's proposal, and are taking the matter up warmly. IN A MILITARY HOSPITAL. Mr. Jos E. Elliott, son of the Key. J. K. Elliott, of Wellington, who was studying medicine at Edinburgh but is now in one of the military hospitals at Norval's Pont, Orange River, writes to his father under date 16th May, as follows: — "Every day sees the arrival of more patients. Quite close to our encampment there is a convalescent hospital which provides for about 1000 patients, and we treat about 70 of tJhese m^n daily. Many of them are wounded, many spent with dysentery and enteric, others racked with rheumatism) and all are the worse for the hardships of the campaign ; yet all bear their misfortunes with a fortitude that would be amazing did we not remember that they are British soldiers, and "men" in the full meaning of that much abused word. I [ have had rare opportunity for studying j the character in weal and woe of Tommy Atkins, and as the result, to use the ! words of Dr. Conan Doyle, "I take off my hat." Many are the tales that I have heard from the soldiers of the battles in which they have been engaged and seldom in tha history of the army could there have been greater achievements. The heat is pitiless, the rocky slope seems interminable, and a hail of ] the devilish bullets used by the Federals sings through ■ the aii, t the tongue is parched and the body ' weary, and thus has the British Tommy been tried, and has not been found wanting. I have specimens in my possession of explosive and soft-nosed bullets used by the Boers , in what is supposed to be civilised war- i fare. There are no words strong enough j in, which to condemn the part which the j disloyal colonist has played. Men of the , Cape Mounted Police are now ptroll^ng j the country finding these traitors out, i I but Ifoeir duplicity has often, saved them. ! Men who were willing to sell their country to the Pretoria oligarchy can now talk glibly and, plausibly of their loyalty to the Crown. I am sure that if Ladysinith had fallen at the beginning of the war the smouldering fires of sedition would have burst into a blaze which would have taxed the resources of- the Empire to put out. lam glad that there are now signs that this war is drawing to its close, and that the end of all this suffering is nej»r at handy for in a military hospital 1 see war in all its horrors. The'" glory and the glamour of it are to be seen for the most nart in the heroic poem and in ihe pages" of the novel. The men who are not combatants suffer without the chance of questionable glory at all. To-day there died in this hospital one of the grand corps of engineers, who, while helping td repair the bridge here which the Boers destroyed, fell and was shattered against the masonry. The men of the Hoyal Army Medical Corps work during an engagement and after it as well, and go under fire without the grim satisfaction of retaliating. War is a terrible thing. So is disease. We are now living in corrugated iron huts instead of under canvas, and fare tolernbly well. I hope to be back in Edinburgh in time for the' winter session to resume the role of medical stttdent. OUR CONTINGENTS IN CLOVER. t Trooper H. J. Richardson,' of No. 2 New Zealand Contingent, in a letter to hi? friends sent from the Zard River on Bth May, says:— "The New Zealanders are now living on the fat of the land. Every time we come across a farm-hou«e, a rush is made for the poultry, fruit, etc. That is one of the advantages ol being on the advance guard. Lord Roberts allows us to take food and forage for the horses, but anything in the way of looting or destroying property is strictly forbidden. There are thousand* of sheep and cattle on the veldt, so the whole army is able to live era fresh meat which is a treat. I am getting a perfect expert at boiling fowls or a nice youn'<» turkey. .Bully beef is right cut of the* hunt this time, although, talking about bully beef, we had Some of the Gear Company's sOrrte fime ago, and it was a perfect delicacy cimpared with the Yankee and Australian stuff. I expect you have heard ere this of our capture of the Maxim and the congratulations we have 'received from General Hutton. He is a fine fellow. We all like him, and he looks after the men's property — sees that they are fed 'well, etc. General Hutton and staff came round the other day while we were having our midday repast, and a«ked if we had any amount to eat, and if not to always come to him. No man should go hungry in this country, he said. OUR THIRD CONTINGENT. Lance-Corporal Frank J. Ryan, of the Third Contingent, the Rough Riders, writing from Aliwal North under date 6th May, states that whilst at Wepener he received his promotion to lance-cor-poral. Referring to the mistake made by the Malta Horse in firing on the New Zealanders at Smilhficld, he says the : fire wa3 the hottest he had experienced. ' Two bullets whistled past each side of . his head simultaneously, and his horse was swerving all ways from the bullots, knocking up dirt around them. Trooper Kclcher, who had dropped out on the ni?ht maich ill, and hnd lost himself while trying to find the main body next morning, came on an armed t

and mounted Boer. Kelcher's caibine was empLy, but he presented it at the Boor and took him pri&oner. Further on Lance-Corporal Ryan states that on arrival in Airica the men were titled out with khaki feathers to distinguish them from the Boers. He states that the horses have fallen away terribly owing to want of feed and no time to eat grass. They are also fearfully infested with ticks and vermin which prey on them. THE FASCINATION OF WAR. Sergeant Saddler Satchwell, of Camperdown, one of the first Victorian Contingent, writing from Bloemfontein to a friund says: — "'During our experiences in Africa we have seen life in all its phases — and death also. „ A few years of such life Avould make a fellow a regular cynic. It is a remarkable thing that in spite of the hardships of war there is a strange fascination about the lite of a soldier on active service. As soon as the word is given to advance, one feels intensely anxious to be in the thick of the fighting, and the more big guns there are the better. We haye had some exceptionally tough goeß, and by the Jook of things there will be still more. ... I have seen men sound asleep and others reading while the Boers were sending in 40-pounders as fast as they were able. This happens frequently, for we generally wait till the artillery shakes them up a bit before we have a look in, and in nine caees out of ten Are are in full sight of the enemy the whole time they are firing." ANGLO-AMERICAN SENTIMENT. The following extract is from a letter received from an American friend in Albany, N.Y., with regard to the sympathies of people in the United States on the question of the Boer War : — "I sincerely hope that three months from now (19th April) may show a very decided change ior the better in South Africa. Do not allow yourself to be persuaded that the overwhelming public sentiment of the best classes of this country is not with Great Britain in this war. The Irish, here, as with you in some cases, are favourable to anything that would hurt England. Of the large German population in the great cities a good proportion is anti-British in its* sympathies, and it was a combination of that and of the" Irish element which sent the messenger boy from Philadelphia a fortnight ago to Pretoria with the resolutions of the public school children. England has gob to win this figTffc for her own sake and the spke of civilisation, and it is rather curious that most of those in this country who are pro-Boer .have been doing all they could to annoy and impede our Government in its operations in the Philippines." THE AMERICAN SCOUT. Mr. Bennet Burleigh, of the London Daily Telegraph, writes of Mr. F. R. Burnham, the famous American soout who, we are informed by cable this week, has been invalided horne :— "South Africa knows him well, for he ha 3 ere now gone' into battle helping British troops. i Perhaps he is best remembered to the world as the man who ended, the Matabele Avar by managing to trek and shoot the great native witch doctor in a cave amongst the hills. Burham is a squareset, wiry, medium-sized man of 30, with light blue-grey eyes. His senses of I light, smell, and hearing are all acutely , trained and developed, almost as much, jso as those of a, sleuth-hound. Tobacco he abjures, as it is calculated to impair his faculty for tracking. Like an Austrnlian aborigine, he is guided by sense of smell as much as by sight. An onion, a negro, and a Boer are all alike to him, easily recognisable in the v dark or if 1 blindfolded. Many a time h*e has saved | his own and others' lives oy his exquisite j sense of scent. Perhaps this is not so i wonderful as it seems, for a negro kraal 1 and a Boer camp are powerfully odorifer1 ous. I could myself undertake, were the i wind in the right quarter, to tell where | either was more than a bow-shot off. But Burnham goes beyond that in niceties of distinction, even to the presence of the unwashed, itinerant, solitary dweller upon "the veldt, fie fell into the Boers' hands through an accident at Kodrnspruil As a prisoner he witnessed | the whole action, and ultimately, having ■heard the officers' story 1 of the fight, gave the Boers the slip upon the road to Winburg, and returned mto Bloemfontein." THE PRINCE OF WALES ON COLONIAL PATRIOTISM. ' Nothing could have been in better taste than the Prince of Wales's speech at the British Empire League's dinner. Beginning with a' reference to the Brussels affair, which he designated as a "narrow escape," the Prince proudly dilated on the evidences of kind feeling the occurrence had brought him from all parts of t.he Empire, irideed Ne might saj the world. He was specially pleaseu to be present on this occasion "I am," said H.R.H., "always glad at all times to meet any of— if 1 may call them so^our fellow-countrymen from the distant colonies; but on this occasion the' dinner, for the one part, has bebn' given m honour of the Australian delegates who~ have come over, on an important mission ; and' it is only ior me to say it is the wish of all present that the mission shall in every way be satisfactory and successful as regards them and as regards us, and knit more closely the liss that already exist between the Moth it Country and her. great colonial Empire. (Loud cheers.) Yve are also assembled hero to-night to do honour to' our colonial troops in South Africa. We httle doubted that in a great war like the cue we are now waging we should have, at any rate, the sympathy of our colonies, but it has exceeded even our expectations. We now know the feelings that existed in our colonies, •and that they have sent their best material, their best blood, and the manhood of our colonies, to fight with us, side by side, 'for the honour of the flag and for the maintenance of our Empire. (Cheers.) It has been my good fortune to receive frequent letters from many who I know are now engaged in the war in South Africa, and on all occasions I have heard what magnificent troops our colonial troops are— how well disciplined they are, what dash and courage they have evinced, and What value they have been to us in this great campaign, which, though a difficult and arduous one, I have the hope, as I am sure we all have, and 1 the tnisfc that before a* very long time it will' come to a satisfactory conclusion." COMFORTS FOR THE INVALIDED NEW ZEALANDERS. The following telegrams have passed' between Mr. C. Louisson (Chairman of the Patriotic Fund Committee) and the Premier : — "Tho Right Hon. the Premier, Wclton.—Strong feeling hero that Government should cable money to South Africa to provido extra comforts for tho sick and wounded New Zealand soldiers. Funds mighL be provided or augmented by the various Patriotic Committees. Think my Committee would contribute £200. Kindly let me have your opinion. — C. Louisson, Chairman." "C. Louihion, Esq., Christchurch.— Approve of your suggestion contained in your telegram of to-day. Pending de- I cision ol Committees I have authorised ! our agent at Capetown by cable to provide extra comforts and attendance, msdic.il and otherwise, for sick and wounded. — R. J, Scddon,"