JOTTINGS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6626, 19 February 1900, Page 3

JOTTINGS.

There are over 300 New Zealanders serving in the South African campaign, who are not attached to the New Zealand contingents.

The Pollards can claim a record for the collection following the singing of :' The Absent-minded Beggar." This was put up at Ohristchurch on Saturday night, when Mr Paull's appeal on behalf of the War Fund resulted in £28 3s 6d being raised. A number of ladies of the company protected the baritone by collecting silver from the dress circle in tambourines.

A stolen fowl was the means of cousiderably increasing the returns at the' Eketahuna Fair. The bird was handed to the auctioneer, Mr F. C. Lewis, and was bought and sold thirty- two times, realising the handsome sum of £6 7s 3d. The purchase money on different occasions varied from Is to 7s. That fowl sho^d be allowed to live to a venerable old age. A weaner boar was sold nine times, fetching £3 3s 6d.

On Thursday, the Ist inst., we receiyed by cable two separate statements —(1) that Lord Eoberts had been recalled to Capetown, and (2) that two transports which had been ordered to the Cape had been sent on to Durban. As received by the Sydney papers the two messages read as one—viz. : " Field- , Marshall Lord Roberts has recalled to lOapetowia two transports conveying l^ljllery and cavalry, which had previously been ordered to Durban."

We extract the following from a letter written by Sergeant Eaynes, of the New Zealand first Contingent (late of the Waikato Rifles), and published by the Waikato Argus:—" To leave the kopje we had to gallop over a plain, about half a mile of which was within range of the Boer cannon. We rode across at full gallop, and the Boers fired several shells at us. Newman, No. 3 of my section, actually dismounted and picked tip one of these shells." . . . "Th's morning Jewell, my No. 2, put in half an hour's sound sleep under fire," and during that time about half a dozen bullets passed within five yards of him."