HOW TROOPER BOOTH WAS KILLED. NARROW ESCAPE OF TROOPER CULLING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2399, 22 February 1900, Page 23

HOW TROOPER BOOTH WAS KILLED. NARROW ESCAPE OF TROOPER CULLING.

The News special, writing from Slingers- '- fontein, gives the following account of the death of Trooper Harold Booth, of the j New Zealand Contingent. During a tern porary respite of hostilities the Boer artilj lerymen took the opportunity to place a , Creusot gun in such a position as to com-

mand the plain five miles north and northeast of our camp, and their first shot, admirably a'med, burst right around a knot of men standing round the charger of General Clements, Avho was directing operations. Troopers Booth and Joseph Culling, of the NeAV Zealand Contingent, were the general's orderlies for the day, the latter holding the general's horse, while Booth had charge of Lieutenant Chaytor's mount. The missile struck the ground at Booth's feet, and killed him almost immediately, the s-\me shell knocking Culling insensible and wounding four horses so severely that the poor brutes had to be shot. Booth, strange to say, made his Avill the day before, Culling being one of the Avitnesses\ His body Avas laid besjde the other NeAV Zealanders on a kopje at the back of the camp. [Trooper Joseph Culling is a son of Mrs Dulling, o£ HiilgroA'e.]