UNKNOWN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9824, 22 November 1917, Page 6

UNKNOWN

A CHRISTCHURCH STORY UNANSWERABLE EVIDENCE. NEWSPAPER REPLIES TO ' CRITICISM. Desperate attempts are being made in certain quarters to discredit the story, published in Saturday’s “Sun,” that the man Frederick William Eggors, who has been arrested in connection with the West Coast murder, was a deserter from the Alain Body of the Expeditionary Force (says the Christchurch “Sun”). It has been stated in several quarters that no man of the name of Eggors over belonged to the Main Body, and the aid of the Press Association agent at Wellington has been invoked in order to prove this contention. This morning's papers published the following telegram from Wellington, on the authority of the Press Association, under yesterday’s date.-

Inquiries were made by a reporter at Base Records to-day regarding the statement that tuggers, alias McALahon, enlisted in the Main Body of the Expeditionary Force. It has been ascertained that there is no record there of a man named William Frederick Eggers, or a man with a similar name, having joined the Alain Body. A deserter would not have been imprisoned on Somes Island, which is reserved for the reception of interned enemy aliens. MAIN BODY “RECORDS.”

In view of the sta-toments made in the “Sun’s” article on Saturday, inis telegram is worthy ot examination and criticism. lu the first place, no one who has tho faintest idea of how the Main Body was mobilised and dispatched would admit for a moment that the records and roils of the force wore over complete or correct. As a matter of fact, when the transport fleet sailed, they were almost hopelessly muddled, and hundreds of men sailed who possessed no papers themselves, and of whom there was no record kept in Now Zealand. Base Records, that efficient organisation which is now doing such splendid work, did not come into existence until many months after this, and to expect to find there a complete record of the Main Body and the earlier reinforcement drafts is absurd. It is well known that when the Alain Body arrived in Egypt there were many scores of soldiers whose names did not appear on the nominal rolls of their units, and they had to be attested afresh there. When the vessel on which Eggers should have made his passage was at sea with tho rest of the fleet, it was found that the nominal roll of the soldiers on board was in a very incomplete state, and another was made out and sent hack from Albany. A second was dispatched homo from Colombo, and a third—and presumably complete—list, from Aden. Under such conditions, is it at all remarkable that the name of a soldier should be missing from such rolls as Base Records may now possess?

EGGBRS’S NAME DOES APPEAR. But there is evidence that the name of Eggers did appear on the roll of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion of the Main Body. Just before the Canterbury men left tho mobilisation camp at Addington for Wellington the "Sun” published a special edition containing the names of all the men from tho province in tho Main Body. In that edition appears the name of one "Eggers”—in the unattached list of the Canterbury Regiment. The men in that list comprised batmen, orderlies, etc. Shortly after the sailing of the Main Body, a Wellington firm of publishers issued a book entitled “Our Boys at tho Front,” which contained a full list of the men of the Samoan Force, the roll of tho Canterbury Infantry, and the Main Body. At the end of the roll of the Canterbury Infantry Battalion, in the “unattached list,” there appears tho name, this time spelt "Eggers.” .As these two Hats cannot have been obtained otherwise than from official sources, there is at least strong prima facio evidence that a man bearing the name of the suspect now under arrest actually did belong to the Main Body. EGGERS IDENTIFIED.

A good deal hag been made of the fact mat “several members of me Canterbury Battalion of the Mam Body who are in Cnnstohurch state that Eggers is unknown to them, ana they caunot recall his name.” There is nothing very ■ strange in that, in a hastiiy-hung-togetlier body of over 1000 men drawn irom all parts of the provinces of Canterbury, \Vestland, Nelson, and Marlborough, there must have been very few that any one man icould know by the time the force sailed. The fact that dozens of men in tho battalion d,d not know Eggers is not nearly so significant as the fact that tho “Sun”’ knows of several men who actually did know him, and were familiar with him. The “Sun’s” informant, to begin with, was in close daily contact with him, and can identify him beyond all shadow of doubt. Yesterday a returned soldier—a D.O.M. man—who loft as a company sergeant-major with the Canterbury Battalion, admitted having had a very close acquaintance with “Bill” Eggors-To-day an officer of tho General Staff now stationed at Christchurch said that he remembered Eggers well, and also gave some extraordinary evidence of tho chaotic state of the rolls of tho Main Body. AN OUTSIDE WITNESS.

Then there is tho evidence of a former licensee of the Empire Hotel, Christchurch, tho man who first engaged tho woman McMahon as a barmaid there. Ho knew Eggors very well, and as quite certain that ho enlisted. Ho was surprised when Eggers later turned up as a civilian, and asked why ho had not sailed. The story that Eggors then told was that ho had contracted cerobro-spmal meningitis and had been discharged. That this was not true is, of course, selfevident. THE SOMES ISLAND STORY.

,Wbv then should Eggers’s tale that ho had served a term of detention on Somes Island he taken as disproof of the whole story? Tho “Sun” never said that Eggcrs had been detained in the internment camp on Somes. What it did say was that ja the let-tor

ho wrote to Colonel Macbean Stewart in Egypt, Eggers claimed to have been so detained —a very different thing. Obviously, liko every other man who tries to cover up his tracks by falsehoods, Eggcrs bad a faulty memory. COLONEL STEWART’S LETTERS. There is no need to go much further into the facts of the case, except to mention one little piece of proof of tho truth of tho “Sun’s” story, which ono of tho “Sun’s” critics was candid enough yesterday to. admit. That is, that the letters and diary of tho late Colonel Macbean Stewart contain numerous references to his batman, “tho indispensable Eggers.” In the face of this, wnat does it mattor whether or not the name of Eggers appears in the notoriously faulty roll now in the possession of Baso Records? Anyway, tho roll was mainly prepared on shipboard and in Egypt, whereas Eggers never left the Dominion.