NOTES.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12469, 19 February 1909, Page 2

NOTES.

The .Rev Father Clancy, who. returned t<) Nelson yeserday, assisted at the liequeim ■• Mas,s at the Church of St ; Mary , of.the. Angels, .Wellington; on ■ Tuesday;' on the occasion of .thefutt-i erals ef two of the victims. of the Pen- ■ gum disaster. _'-..-..'.■:' -^ ■■ -.. ; .A correspondent of the "New Zealand' Times" says/regarding the funerals of the victims : At the gates of .the""'- cemetery- Police - Commissioner Dinnie was present in charge of two constables. The police arrangements were ridiculous .beyond- belief . Outside was a mob, striving to get. into the sacred grounds. Women, carrying children in their- arms, fought frantically, for places. Men, whose only excuse -was .; curiosity, : struggled . and trod on anyone in their way. The two boy constables at the gate,. witli their chief, were utterly " powerless. The crowd burst through and chuckled as though it had gained "■■ a victory. Children had to be handed over the fence in order that they might be saved from injury. Some women in the crowd screamed and fainted. None of them by their demeanour had any real right* to. be there.. Inside . the cemeteiy there ■ was pandemonium. Peaple really picnicked . on the tombs of the dead They . stood in heaps on marble slabs and- pushed their children to the edge of the newly made graves, so that theymight obtain a better via,w. Glergy- ■ .-men had to ask stupid women, .who - .were chattering like magpies, to dei sist, in order that' the solemn service for the burial of the dead iiiiglrb be recited. ' The lack of -heart shown by the immense crowds of rude ■Welling-ton-people was -a more pitiable' sight. ■ than the corpse strewn "beach of Terawhiti, and *if there are any person s who 1 should be thoroughly ashamed of ! themselves it is the chiefs of police : who allowed the mob to carry the gates of the cemetery. . Mr Robert W. UrquhaTt, late chief engineer "of the Penguin, was ;a ■ son of the late MrJ: p.jP.'-'Urquhart, manager' of the- Provincial Bank of Ireland, Strabane, Co. : - Tyrone, and brother of Mrs !R. Handcock, jot Christchurch (says the. "Press.") His widow is a daughter of the late Rev. = W. Gillies, for many years of Timaru: She and her three children -.reside • m Wellington. Mr TJrquhart served for ten years in the Royal Navy and for twenty-nine years in the merchant service, under the "Onion Company. , . There was a persistent rumour I afloat that Mr Close, who is well known in connection with the Salyation Army here, was a passenger by the steamer Penguin, but such proves not to be the "case. Mr Close left Nelson last Friday to proceed to Taranaki to visit his brother, but he decid-ed-to go by the- steamer Rotoiti which '< proceeded direct to New Plymouth.- •"'