DEATH OF MISS MACNAUGHTON.

Timaru Herald, Volume CV, Issue 16081, 30 September 1916, Page 3

DEATH OF MISS MACNAUGHTON.

NOVELIST'S WORK EOII THE .WOUNDED. The news of the" death of Miss S. Maonaughton, which took place Recently at her London residence, will be received with' regretb by the novelreading public. I' 1 or it is as author of "The 01 Christina McNab," ■'A Lame Dog's Diary," "The Expensive Miss Du Oane," and sovera.l, other studios of social types, that she was known to the world at largo. But there is a special class (saj's an English, writer which never knew her name, and had never oven lieaxd that she ]iad written a hook—the soldier fresh from the battlefield—v. liich has risen to remember with gratitude the quiet, capable little Scotswoman who, often in the midst of horrible. surroiindings,' went about untiringly and unostentatiously "doing good." v

, Miss-Macnaugh ton. was the daughter of the late Peter Macnaugh ton, J.l'. Her early life was spent in visiting aM. parts of the world and "roughing it" in every conceivable circumstance. Her experience of war dated from the bombardment of Bio de Janeiro. - A trained nurse, she had tended the victims of Balkan atrocities. She distributed Bed Cross comforts to the sick and wounded in tho South. African War. She has told in "A AVomnnis Diary of the War" something of ■ what she did in., the early course of tho ••.struggle' now. in progress, and in this" little book, with its . omissions and reticences,'•• she lias given us a picture of the war: (and incidentally of her own character) which is worth half a dozen of tho _ - ordinary oxciting descriptions of "women writ 01 s" who-have been to tho "front;'v or, for tho matter of that, of men writers either.

To Miss- Macnaughton war v was not •in "lie least' an attractive- tiling/. She was not "out for • copy.": but "to malic herself useful. She joined-vJVIrs, St. (Xair - Stobart's unit at the end of September, 1914. and- as head orderly, worked at' the summer concert hail, which : did i duty as a, hospital,- during the siege,; of Antwerp. ? She used to stand at «. the / gateway - with «,■ lantern, and- receive the wounded vas ..they arrived from the. tranches.

: "We used/.' she'"says, "to hold- electric torches for the doctors who -were dressing . wounds.- ■ .■"'■.■ •■. .From a .distance I fancy.that the-actual suffering that war- brings : is" sometimes- not preeia.ted, or ■ may even be overlooked. ■lt :is not, perhaps,- well- to insist upon it,- lint a hospital at the Front leaves nothing unrealised in this respect." • -War, indeed; as Miss -Macnangliton used' to tell the munition workers in the' addresses which she delivered after her return from F'anders a year ago,, "is not a merry pienw." \ Leaving Antwerp " with tlie unit :,a few hours -before the bridge across the Scheldt was -blown up, and not until thp-jlast or the wounded had been ■ re-r----inovod, Miss" Macnausditon '.joined-. D.r; Hector Munro's ambulance at Ostend, and proceeded to Malo, Dunkirk, and: on October. 22 -moved up-to-Fumes; where a large- ecclesiastical institution was being;- converted into a -.field hospital; Here; she> tasted to the full tlie'hoirors of war, and her forgetful-; •news - of self and personal heroism were daily revea'e'd in countless acts of devotion. At Furnps Station, too, with •three Belgian- Sisters,u.sli'e started .. .a soup kitchen, in •' a." small space uncier an archway cut ofFfrorn the rest off the stabion by a door of sacking. ■