STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144671, 4 May 1915, Page 6

STRATFORD.

FROM OUR RESIDENT AGENT. May 3.—ln response to Lady Liverpool’s circular the Patriotic Committee is sending to ©very Stratford man at the front a parcel "containing two pairs of socks and a packet of cigarettes. Tho committee has also undertaken to pay the dentist’s bill of any volunteer who fails, on account of defective teeth, to pass the doctor. To-morrow evening -a conference is to bo held with the British and Belgian Relief Committee with the view of organising a joint demonstration for recruiting and relief purposes on Saturday afternoon next. The Belgian Fund (central) is now approaching £ISOO. Our contingent of Territorials for the casual camp marched from tho Defence Office to the railway station this morning. some thirty strong, to the skirl p’ the pipes. Private Nicholls, reported wounded at the 'Dardanelles, is the first Stratford High School hoy to suffer in the great war. 1 remember, years ago. hearing Lieut.-Colonel Malone, then X think captain of the local Volunteers, address the children of the school at an Empire Day celebration. K© said tho day would come when some of them would have to fight., and if needs be, die for the Empire. Few of his hearers took his words quite seriously or only as foreshadowing a remote possibility. The* day has come sooner than most of us thought. It seems unlikely that details of the fighting at the Dardanelles, or of the casualties, will roach us very quickly until some cable station near the scon© is in the Allies’ hands. XVirelcss will give us the news in brief, but for more wr» shall probably have to wait the arrival of returning transports at- Alexandria, as we are doing now. The suspense Is trving for relatives of men in the fighting line, but will have to be borne with what cheer wo can muster. Stratford rainfall for April was 4.24 inches, a light record.