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Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 91, 10 January 1918, Page 5

Much has been heard recently of the fact that persons who have lost a limb retain the "sense" of that limb, and can feel pain in it. But a soldier who writes to the "Manchester Guardian" describes a much ( more elaborate variation of the phenomenon: "I had the misfortune to lose my left hand on the Messines Ridge last June, and all tho pain I have suffered from tho wound has been in tho hand which I no longer possess. Now, the peculiar part of it all is that on alternate days tho fingors of the missing hand open and close—that is to say, yesterday they were closed, to-day they v are open, tomorrow they will bo closed again. This chance takes place (luring sleep, and once or twice, on restless nights, I have actually felt the change taking Dlacc. I was left-handed, and during the attack I carried my revolver in my missing hand. "When tho fingers are closed they aro exactly in tho same position as if they wero still grasping tho rovoher. Tho only explanation I can offer is that what remained of the hand after I was wounded was amputated exactly twenty-four hours later. Also, I was wounded somewhere about <t o'clock in the morning, and was operated on about tho same time the following morning, and tho opening and closing of the fingers takes place about this time."

New Caledonia, commercially, is having a doze (states a visitor who has recently returned to Auckland). France's notion in ceasing to send prisoners there made the place somewhat slow, and now the Republic has withdrawn its subsidy, so that the colony has to live on its own resources, and it ia not yet prepared to kick out actively on its own account. Trndo is made duller, too, than it otherwiso would be by the withdrawal of the Mcssageries liners. They aro wanted for war purposes. The only communication with Australia is by a little steamer, once a month. Whilst" the professor was at Noumea there wero a number of New Caledonia, soldiers spending tlioir leavo at tlieir own homes. Under the French law every soldier is entitled to periotlio leave to be spent in his own district. This law, no doubt designed to suit men residing in France, must entail somo expense ami trouble in regard to tlio colonial contingents.