NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 49, 27 February 1929, Page 12

NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.

MR. EDWIN BEZAR. Sergeant-Major Bezar. of Wellington,, who is also well known in Wanganui, celebrated his ninety-first birthday on Monday. The "Post" states: "He was 1 present at Trentham last week when the King's Prize was competed for. Seventythree years ago Sergeant-Major Bezar's markmanship at the peace celebrations upon Crimean War territory won for him the coveted first prize—a full hundredweight of plug tobacco, which, as a result of his generosity in sharing it with his Diehard comrades, was reciprocated by their arranging with the paysergeant, at their expense, to add a bottle of ale to his daily ration as long as the contest held out; and so prolonged an event it provfed that it and the regiment's order to proceed to Malta almost coincided. It was from the father of the late Colonel Collins, then quartermaster of the Diehards, that Sergeant-Major Bezar received the commander of the Crimean Forces' unique rifle shooting prize. In company with the Taita Maori War veteran, Mr. Reuben King, a centenarian next August, Sergeant-Major Bezar was snapshotted with this years' Trentham champions. Sixty-eight years ago on Monday Ser-geant-Major Bezar's old regiment, just newly arrived at Auckland from India, was marched seven rough miles to Onahunga and there embarked on H.Ms. Niger, disembarking at Waitara next day to flight in the Taranaki campaign."