THE LATE LIEUT.-COLONEL GORTON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 704, 4 January 1910, Page 3

THE LATE LIEUT.-COLONEL GORTON.

The funeral of the late Lieut.Colonel Gorton took place at Greatford on Sunday afternoon last. Deceased was accorded a military funeral. The gathering of the family, comrades, relatives and friends was numerous, about four or five thousand folk assembling round the Greatford Church, and on the face of all could be plainly read the sorrowing for the loss of one of the Dominion’s great men. The solid rimu coffin, with its great silver handles, was borne to the gun-carriage by the stalwart members of the Permanent Artillery. Sharp came the word of command, “ Order Arms,” obeyed with machine-like precision, then ‘‘Present Arms,” and the salute to the majesty of the dead followed ; then “Slope Arms,” and “ Reverse Arms,” and the weapons were brought to the position of sorrowful mourning so eloquently expressed in dumb show, and the cortege moved off to the telling strains of the Dead March in “Saul.”

The coffin was draped with the Union Jack, and on this was placed a wealth of floral tributes, which overflowed all over the gun carriage.

After a short service iu the little church, by the Rev. E. J. Sola, before the last remains of the man who had so often officiated a fe w feet away in his duty to his Maker, the coffin, was borne out by the personal friends of the Colonel, and laid in the grave on the lefthand side of the path immediately in front of the church. The last rites being uttered, the. final military tribute to the departed was paid. The firing party of Permanent Artillery thrice fired the last salute, their bugler giving a perfect rendering of the “ Last Post ” after each volley, and. as the instrument sounded the last mournful strains of the air—like three great sighs of sorrow, dying away almost to a tiny shriek —the listeners standing around with bared heads seemed turned to statues, so still and silent were they all, until with an audible and concerted hard breath they returned to the realities of the world from the echoes of some other, to which they had been momentarily translated. From the Governor and Prime Minister downwards came telegrams of sympathy to the family.