PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 99, 20 April 1914, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Mr Reginald Alexander, who is wellknown in this district, lias accepted a position on the Taihape Times.

Sir Joseph Ward left Sydney yesterday by the Maunganui on his return to IS T ew Zealand.

The Rev. Dr. (Kennedy, rector of St. Patrick’s College, and the Rev. Dean Holley, of Wanganui, have been selected to accompany Dean Regnault in the representation of New Zealand at the general chapter of the order to bo held in Belgium later in the year.

Mr John Stapleton, a resident of Timaru, has just received a New Zealand war medal, earned by him a little more than fifty years ago (states the Timaru Post). He enlisted in the 2nd Waikato Regiment, which was sent to the historic Galloway’s Redoubt, Wairoa, in 1863. It was while there that he earned the medal in skirmishes with the Natives, at the age of seventeen. Application was first made by the veteran in 1901, but owing to the Government having ceased granting medals, Mr Stapleton was not rewarded. More recently the question was opened up by the passing of the Hon. James Allen’s Military Pensions Act, which allows veterans to lay claim to medals for past service. After a wearisome exchange of correspondence with the Defence Department, extending over seven months, the deserving veteran received the coveted medal on Monday last.