A VETERAN WARRIOR’S DEATH.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 9 January 1901, Page 4

A VETERAN WARRIOR’S DEATH.

Anything more painful than the story told to the Portsmouth coroner, a few days ago, at the inquest on an old Marino pensioner named James Roberts, who was found drowned off Southsea beach, could hardly be imagined. Hero was an old veteran who had served his Queen and country, for close on a quarter of a century, and saw the first shot fired in the Crimean War. As age crept on he gave up his pension of. £24 odd a year in order to obtain the shelter and the attention provided for old naval veterans at the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar. ‘ For four years he had been an inmate, the authorities keeping his pension in return for the old man’s board and lodging. But lie was too long a-dying, and My Lords decided to clear out the old man and several of his fellow pensioners. He was offered two shillings a day, and was told to leave on May 14th. All pleadings to be allowed to remain on were in vain. Admiralty orders have to be obeyed, and put ho was turned, penniless, seventy-one years of age, with no friends anywhere near, and not a soul to care anything about him. The officers and their wives collected a small sum, and with this he had to begin the world again. It was true he was entitled to two shillings a day, but, with a refinement of cruelty that could not be found anywhere but in a Government department, the first payment was not due until the beginning of July, six weeks later on. It was equally* true that, as all pensioners are paid in advance, the authorities, either at Whitehall or Haslar, had received Roberts’ quarterly pension in advance along with those of all the other

pensioners in tho Hospital. But only six weeks of the quarter had elapsed, and consequently the balance of seven weeks ought to liave been paid over when Roberts was discharged. At last the old warrior had to go to the workhouse, hut even then he found no rest, and was driven from pillar to post, and at length sought death on those waters on which so many years of his life had been spent in his country’s service. Seven other men had been treated in the same way, only their cases have not terminated fatally