LANATIC DRILLS REGIMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1085, 20 August 1912, Page 4

LANATIC DRILLS REGIMENT.

♦ A FIRST-RATE INSTRUCTOR

An episode suggestive of the exploits of Voigt, the Captain of Koepeuick, is repuited from Ireland.

Last month application was made to a lull meeting of the Mullingar Asylum Committee for the discharge of a certified lunatic named Farrell, a native of County Longford. Mr Shaw, the chairman of the committee, demurred, and in the end the discharge was refused.

The man, however, settled the matter tor himself by escaping in a highly ingenious fashion shortly alter the meeting. The police were informed, and a thorough search instituted. Still no trace of Farrell could be lound till the Wednesday, and the authorities were electrified to discover him in the barracks of the Leinster Regiment at Maryborough, of ail places. Calmly, and with great military dignity and bearing, he was actually drilling a squad of sixteen men. Nothing in his manner suggested the lunatic. The clue to his identity came in the knowledge that Farrell had served many years in the Army, and was a first-rate soldier, and that a stranger had called and drilled soldiers previously at Birr. The head attendant of Mullingar Asylum went to Maryborough and readily identified Farrell. The man himself was in no way perturbed, and went back quite cheerfully to Mullingar.