NOTIFYING NEXT-OF-KIN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 57, 9 March 1915, Page 8

NOTIFYING NEXT-OF-KIN

The following announcement appears in District Orders: — Notifying next-of-kin <*f death of member of Expeditionary Forces: It has been decided that the officer »n command of records will notify the group commanders or area officers direct. This notice will contain next-of-kin, religion, and the cause of death. Group commanders will then communicate with relatives direct; where possible it is to be done personally or by a chaplain of the Defence Department, otherwise the notification will be by telegraph. This course is to save unnecessary delay, and ' reduce to a minimum the _ possibility of the relations obtaining the information from an outside source before getting it officially.

Mt. J. G. Harkness, manager of the National Darry Association, has returned to Wellington after a short business trip to San Francisco and Vancouver. He was on the Marama at the time that she grounded just outside San Francisco Harbour. Mr. Harkness was awakened by an unusual rolling of the boat, and when he went on deck to investigate was informed by a white-faced steward that the ship was on the rocks. Extensive damage to the ship was the only result of the grounding ; but if they had been making full speed at the time, or the Bea had been rough it would not have been «) easy to get the vessel off. Mr. Harkness travelled from San Francisco to Seattle by train, and was pleased with the comfort of the carriages and the superb snow scenery on the mountains. Apart from the beauty of the mountains, he was of opinion that tho land through which the railway passed was very poor in everything except minerals. Iti New Zealand, it would bo classed as third, or at best second-rate, land. He returned to New Zealand by the Niagara from Vancouver. The Defence Department is calling for tenders for the^AArinly o,f clothing and equipment for the Expeditionary Faroe*.