RETURNED NELSON SOLDIERS.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13825, 21 July 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

RETURNED NELSON SOLDIERS.

(From "The Colonist," July 17.)

. The Pateena left Wellington yesterday with the following returned soldiers belonging to the Nelson district aboard:—Harvey, Clarke, Cock, McConcbio and Ki»ase.

Mr T. A. H. Field. M.P., telegraph; ed to the Sick and Wounded Soldiers* Comniitt«j, Nelson, yesterday, stating that the R-ov. T. G. Butler, a member of the committee, had asked him to send tho following' information respecting the returned mon : — M<jConchie «nd Harvey, fairly well.

Cock and Clarke, recovering. Haase going to Nelson Hospital, suffering from rheumatism ; nurse accompanying him from Wellington. Ilegaldo is in Dr. Hardwick-Smith's hospital, Wellington, with a paralysed arm. Shorman, Savage, and Shaw left the Willochra before the Nelson representatives could traoe them; Tho men wore' met" by ,members ot local patriotic committees on their arrival last night. In consequence of the .inconvenient hour of their arrival,.

) • i. . . ■ ■ . - . • a public reception has been deferred till next week. Haase, who is suffering from. rheumatism^ will be conveyed to the Hospital this morning. The nurse returns to Wellington fey tho' Pateena. Cock and Clarke .will be' out-patients at. the Hospital. Clarke and McConchie went to their homes with their people last night, dock was met in Wellington by his parents, who accompanied him to Nelson. Regaldo, who belongs to Greymouth, though, ho has lived in Nelson for ..some- years, will probably recover the us© of his arm after undergoing special massage treatment. The Rev. Mr. Butler came back by the Pateena. Ho says that his experience shows that it is necessary for a Nelson representative-to' be in Wellington on occasions vsuch as the return of invalided soldiers. The Nelson meni wore provided-.by tho Defence authorities with second, class—that is, steerage—steamer passes. On behalf of the committee, and with the concurrence Off Mr Field, M.P., Mr Butler paid the difference, where necessary, to secure saloon passages for the soldiers, feeling that it was only right that sick men should not be required to travel steerage. Mr Butler was at the reception in. the Wellingon Town Hall, sitting among the men, and he speaks of the proceedings as having been in every way inspiring. He has heard many of tho soldiers' accounts of the fighting, and gathered that those who were able to do so were all anxious to get back to the, front. It is satisfactory to know that Mr Butler, as already indicated, was able to be of material assistance in various ways to the Nelson men who game home in the Willochra.