CLUTHA NEWS ITEMS.

Bruce Herald, Volume LII, Issue 23, 23 March 1916, Page 4

CLUTHA NEWS ITEMS.

- »i» -.. ' , (From Clutha Leader.) '■■'.' A straw stack on the farm next to Mr \ Hugh Blaikie's, at Crookston, was set on fire by lightning x last week and burned to the ground. A Glutha boy had a very narrow escape in the attack on the Senussi. The soldier beside him was struck, and the j Clutha boy was spattered with mud from • a shell which burst near by, although he was fortunate enough to escape quite unhurt himself. The following are the latest enlistments:—H. Farquharson (Stirling, al- . ready in camp), John Agnew (Kaihiku), ' J. C; Ludlow (Balclutha), W. H. Griffiths (Toiro), W. Hunter (Balclutha), .7. ; '- :S. Rarity (Kaitangata), H. ..Garven / (Kaitangata), A. Morgan (Fiflgand), O. 11. Williams (Kaitangata), OR. Williams (Kaitangata). ' !. A Clutha boy, very dusty and dirty, was busy on top of a huge pile of sacks when a very dapper officer came riding up and began shouting instructions in a very loud and peremptory voice. His surprise was comical when, the job being done, he found he had been "bossing an old chum and companion of pre-war days. -

One of our Clutha soldiers advises his friends that a British Tommy told him that,before the war started he was visiting a zoo and came to the kangaroos. A woman said: "What on "earth are those?" "Oh, those are Australian . natives," was the reply. "How awful!" said the woihan; "my sister is married to one of them." Our local High School is evidently, doing its share to fill the gaps in the education service. The following pupils have all left the school this year to take up positions in the teaching profession: Ivy Roseveare, Kensington; Ruth Christie, George street; David McVie, Kaitangata; Emilia Fleming, Stirling; .Helena Watt, Balclutha; Mavis Mal- . eoliu, Training College; Nellie Mitchell, ;. Training College. Nurse J. E. McLeod, a sister of Mrs Stenhouse, Balclutha, sent a most interesting account of her experiences as a war-hospital "nurse yi Northern France to relatives, and the account has been printed in the Southland Times and reprinted in the Ot'ago Daily Times. She says the British Tommy is a splendid patient, most amenable to discipline, very easily managed, and very grateful. But his ignorance is generally appalling, and his speech!—never had she heard our language so mutilated in all her life. Probably Nurse McLeod had not pre- - vibusly heard many of the British dia-lects,-but they have a force and music of their own. # There is often considerable rivalry amongst farmers at harvest time, and recently two local farmers were somewhat annoyed to find that every morning when conditions permitted early cutting that their other neighbour always made a start before they did. They started still earlier, but their neighbour "still led, and gleefully enjoyed his vie--tory. But one morning as, at the first peep of dawn, he led his horses out to the ■ machine, he heard the click and rattle- of his neighbour's machines asthey started off. Not to be beaten, they had* harnessed up in the dark and sat on their machines waiting for their neighbour to come out, and the laugh was on their side.