AMBULANCE BRIGADE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24759, 6 December 1943, Page 4

AMBULANCE BRIGADE

J ÜBiLEE CELEBRATIONS GROWTH OF WORK IN CITY The activities of the St. John Ambulance Brigade were inaugurated in Auckland on December 11, 1893, and the Auckland centre of the Order of St. John, which celebrated the jubilee of its foundation in the city last year, lias arranged a series of functions this week in recognition of the occasion. On Friday afternoon there will be a meeting of the commandery, presided over by the Knight Commander, Sir Ilea ton Rhodes. The Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, will attend a reception in the Town Hall in the evening. On Saturday morning there will be a conference of officers and in the afternoon, a parade of the corps and visiting units will be inspected by His Excellency. A social function, at which the Auckland division will be the hosts, is to be held in the evening. Sections of all members of the commandery and the hrigade will attend a service in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday morning. An investiture of honours by the Governor-General will be held in St. Mary's Cathedral in the afternoon. AH the arrangements for the celebrations are in the hands of Mr. David F. Mackav, commissioner of the brigade and chairman of the St. John Ambulance Association. The first step in the brigade's widespread work was taken when it was decided "to procure for our city an ambulance carriage or waggon on the new'st and best principle." The first motor ambulance was secured in 1921 and to-day, the centre maintains 14 ambulances, a hospital trailer, a mobile canteen and trailer ambulance and cars for "the vise of district nurses. ESCAPE FROM HONGKONG SOONG SISTERS FLOWN OUT (Reed. 7.40 p.m.) OTTAWA. Dec. 4 The way in which two of the Soong sisters, Mesdames Sun Yat Sen and H. H. Kung, escaped from Hongkong is revealed by Major-General Morris Abraham Cohen, of the Chinese Army, one of 217 repatriates who have returned to Canada. General Cohen said the sisters were in Hongkong during the siege of the city by the Japanese in December, 1941, and were flown out to safety only the day before the airfield was occupied General Cohen, whom the Chinese call General Ma. and who is one of the builders of the Chinese Army, was for years personal bodyguard to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and was captured in Hongkong. He served in the Canadian Army in the last war. PENSION INCREASES INTENTION IN BRITAIN LONDON, Dec. 4 The Government proposes to introduce a bill to provide increases in the lower ranges of State pensions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Anderson, announced this in the course of a debate on an amendment to the Address-in-Reply moved by Mr. W. J. Brown (Independent), who said lie had the support of 1 10 members. The amendment regretted that the King's Speech made no proposal for raising such pensions. Sir John said the Government would frame the proposals with the utmost determination. ALLEGED NAZI AGENT NEPHEW OF SPANISH DUKE (Real. 5.35 p.m.) NKW YORK, Dec. -i Carlos Yeja ratio y Cassina, who claims to be a nephew of the Duke of Alba, Spanish Ambassador to London, has been arrested on a charge of being a Nazi agent, according to an announcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.