TWO HARD CASES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

TWO HARD CASES.

According to Mr G. B. Shaw in re the termination of Piper Findla-ter's engagement at the AJhai.abra, it is 'not in consonance with the traditions of the British army' that a- piper with the V.C. should play at a ruusic hall, inasmuch as according to those traditions a V.C. is generally left to starve in the gutter. Empire-bniklers receive much the same fate. A sad case is that of Mr William BoniuT, who js dying from consumption in the Fulham Workhouse Infirmary. In the Army Medical Staff Corps he served at nearly every military station outside of India as far east as Hongkong. He took part in the Zulu and Basuto campaigns, was in one of the British garrisons shut up by the Boers in the inglorious Transvaal war, was in the Soudan in ISSI-2 and ISBS, and was present at the actions of Kassassin, Tel-el-Kebir, El Teb, and Handub. lie purchased his discharge to join the Emm Relief Expedition, and now remains the sole survivor of the illfated rear-guard slowly dying from the hardships of the march, the battle with mutiny and fever on the banks of the Armvimi. Captain Beddoes is now inviting subscriptions to place in a nursing home the man who has renderer such services to his country, and who holds the Royal Geographical Society's medal. A single picturesque; action in one battle is rewarded by the V.C. and a permanent appointment in the Queen's household but a life-long devotion to the extension of the Empire and defiance of death in many forms find their recompense in a pauper ward. An inmate of the Guilford Workhouse, Mr James Outtersori Pratt, has had almost worse luck than Mr Bonny. Mr Pratt, a crippled veteran- of some 65 years, was the son of a high sheriff of "Northumberland, a landed proprietor who was ruined by the failure of the Northumberland and Durham Bank. Young Pratt fought against Malay pirates in Borneo; and obtained his lieutenancy when only. 21. After serving in the' Kaffir war of 1852-3, he fought in the trenches of Sebastopol and was wounded in the leg by a shell. When the Mutiny broke out, he commanded the Calcutta Naval Brigade, and took part in the attack on Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow. He seemed settling clown peacefully as a resident, magistrate in the Presidency of Bombay when his Wife and children were drowned in the Madeira on their way to-England, and he himself received a severe sunstroke. Making a fresh start, he commenced sheepfarming at Rondebosch, and bought about 300,000 acres of land just where Johannesburg stands. But ill-luck doo<ged his footsteps, and as he took up&arms against the Boers when the latter revolted against British rule his papei'S, medals, and decorations were lost and his property was confiscated. Refusing to swear allegiance to the Boer Republic, he returned to England jn ISS7, but found that when the^East India Company had been taken over by the British Government he had been officially recorded as dead and so lost his pension. The authorities refused to recognise him, his relatives were dead, and being -stricken with paralysis he took refuge in the workhouse. Clearly Findlater may think himself more than ever a lucky man.