AFTER THE BALL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 14, 3 August 1894, Page 29

AFTER THE BALL.

[Fragment fromja record at the^esdfof^tbe'aeaaon.]

The straoger had heard shouts and cries, but bad Men no emukr. Ha bad ascribed the latter characteristic of the fray to tbo newest invention in gunp jwder. Still the noise was terrific. He oould not see the combatants engaged in their fierce contest, but every now and again a victim was carried to the rear, tometimes to the ambulance teat, sometimes to a retiring-room of evan a sadder nature. The fight was evidently hotly contested, and the list of the lost and wounded would be a very long one.

' And bow many patients have yon doctor? " asked the itrangir as he entered the hospital tent.

"Oh, about the average. Six broken legs, ten fractured arms, twelve etavod-in-ribs, and seven collarbones unsettled. Had this poor fellow's neck been twisted half an inch more, they would have had to carrj him to the other tent. It.would have been all up witbi him."

And then the stranger noticed that although the marquee' waa full of suffering me a, there were no signs of warfare. He saw no swordp, no rifles and accoutrements. " And where was the battle.fought ?" asked the stranger. " Wbat battle?" queried the doctor. " Why, the battle in which these poor fellows came by their wounds."

" Oh, it wasn't in a battle." returned, the medico, " that my patients got into .such straits. No, they owe their presence here to joining in a game of football."— Punch,