THE LATE SIR FACTOR MACDOXCALD.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 18, 20 July 1907, Page 15

THE LATE SIR FACTOR MACDOXCALD.

• * _ For some timo stories have boen afloat in the AmeKdan precs thai tho death and burial of S^r Hector I-lacrlonalcl t.-cre fictitious. These hevo been gradually bocoming more .circumstantial, and ono of tho latest represented him as having born -eon drilling and organising an army in Central China. Tho following published letter, dated Bth Mhy, from Colonel Stuart \Vortley, C.8., who wre military attacho in Paris in 1903, should, we thiulc, c^=Ctivo!y dispose of such rumours: 'i much regret, that any aich Btorie3 as you montion concirnin;; ray old friend I £J?u comrade, Mnjorigonoral Sir Hector alacdonaid, should have appeared in any nowapaj>er. I had knoirn Hector Macdonaldrinco 1879, ' when, as a eergeant in the 92nd Hish!s.pt?crs, ho won his commission ut diftinguiehed bravery. I wan present at the complimentary dinner which the okcsn of tlie I'Figade— who had been sent from India to Natal in 1881— gave to him oh his rcco'vics his commission. I served 'wlch him for many years in Egypt and tho Soudan. I shall chvays look back with much pain lo the eo'l clays in 1903 when I iv? t cal'.ed to tho Hotel Eegina, in Par.s, and found !y;ng in a room tho dead booy (f my old comrade. I placed the body, Tvilh my own arms in tho ooffin, and was M-osont v/hilo tho c'afUn wan being closed, r previous to it? removal to the English church. I am only tao sorry to hear that any a:Mitional pain should bo caused to Lady Mtcdonald by, rfcorics placing dcubt upon Hector Macdonald's death, and I brg you to make any ufo you may think fit of this 'loiter, which, I trust, will be. sufficient to put an or.d to all cuch reports." '