A GATHERING OF OLD PENSIONERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10919, 28 September 1897, Page 7

A GATHERING OF OLD PENSIONERS.

(F.bom Ovr Own Correspondent.)

Auckland, September 23,

The founders of Howick are just now arranging for & meeting of *U those remaining out of tho 240 pensioners who arrived in the colony about November, 1847, by the ships Minerva, Sic Bobart Sale, and the Sir George Seymour, with Lieutenant-general Pitt commanding and Major Greenwood A.D.C. Mr J. W. White, who is the prime mover in organising the celebration, has eompiieS a pretty accurate muster roll, and finds that out of three campanies—each 80 strong —about one-third still survived the half century of ups and downs of colonial life, a roll of 80 living in various parts of ths country having been verified, with a < large number of sons, daughters, and grand-cbildran, &c- The companies Were under Major Gray, Captaias Smith and Macdoueld, none of whom are now alive. The men were of a. certain age, limited to between .40 and .45 years, all being old soldiers of the Imperial Army, who had been pensioned for services in the wars of tbe mother country, m&ny carrying their honourable scars. Ova named John Smith had no less than ait gunsUot wounds running in a straight line across.the breast like a row of men a Is—gritn ones, iudced —which he' received in the Sikh war 3. One of thess old warriors, now nearly 90, by name J. Heath, atteuds divine service as regularly as the parson ia toe little old church at Howick, and can describa thetiegeof Acre as if it occurred yesterday. Another of the fouaanrß is the senior occapatit of Greenwich Hospital, Eogland, aged 97. Tha shipn named left Tilbury for the Thames on the Ist July, 1847, and on that to them memorable d&y several of these old pioneers at the I»st moment took unto themselves wives from amoug the women who had come merely to give them a good oend-off, but who at this juncture hastily resolved to cast in their lots with them, and now at this day tell the tale with a winning naivete. The idea is- to gather together, ou a day to b* hereafter fixed, on the ground of hallowed Hovfisk, and compare notes and renew their friendship and old associations.