THE LATE EARL HAIG.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3751, 7 February 1928, Page 3

THE LATE EARL HAIG.

WONDERFUL MILITARY PAGEANT. Rugby, February 3. The funeral of Earl Haig to-day may be said to have been marked by three distinct phases. In the first, the late Field Marshal’s family and friends joined at St. Columba’s Church, where he had worshipped, in a homely act of devotion. The remains were then borne to Westminster Abbey, with wonderful military pageantry, through silent reverent crowds of the general public, who must, have numbered a million persons. The third phase was the service in Westminster Abbey, which contrasted strikingly with that which had preceded it at St. Columba’s Church. In the Abbey the last ti’ibufe was being paid to Field Marshal Earl Haig, the soldier, by high officers of the nation’s forces, statesmen, politicians, distinguished men and women of every sphere* of national life and the representatives of foreign Governments.

The coffin was carried into the Abbey by troopers of the Royal Horse Guards. The fourteen pall bearers included Marshal Foeli and Marshal Petain, of France, General Baron de Meuninek, of the Belgian Army, and Earl Jellicoe, Earl Beatty, Lord Methuen, General Sir lan Hamilton, Air Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard, arid other eminent officers, wh'o had -led the British Army. Behind the pall bearers walked the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, Prince Henry and Prince Arthur of Connaught. The service concluded impressively. Behind the altar kilted men of the London Scottish played on their pipes the dirge which the Scottish have .played for the dead from time immemorial, “The Flowers of the Forest.” Bugles high up in the roof sounded the “Last Post,” and. “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” the hymn chosen by Lady Haig, was sung by the great congregation. London, February 4.

There was unforgettable scenes at midnight when the body of Earl Haig was conveyed through the streets of his native city of Edinburgh to St. Giles’s Cathedral, where it will lie in state until Tuesday. Despite the late hour and a piercingly cold wind people of all ages and classes made the pilgrimage to Princess 'Street Station and waited in the frost-covered streets. The approaches to the station were impassable when the special train arrived at 12.7 this morning. Eight artillerymen 1 bore the coffin to the gunearriage. Pipers played “Flowers of the Forest,” and the procession was headed by a battalion of Scots Greys to the Cathedral. After the service at St. Giles’s Cathedral on Tuesday, February 7, Earl Haig’s coffin will be entrained to St. Boswells, -where it will be placed on a farm cart and escorted iby Bemersyde employees along the five miles of route to Dryburgh Abpey, where a non-military service will be held.,

“BELOVED BY EVERY MAN.”

GOVERNOR’'S TRIBUTE

Christchurch, February 3. In an address to the Veterans’ Association, the Governor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, said: . “I would like to pay my respects to our old comrade, a very^great man and a very great gentleman. It was my good fortune to have known Earl Haig, and it was also my good luck to have served with him in the Sudan* War. He was then a subaltern in the 7th Hussars. Thereafter we soldiered together, and I constantly met him. “He was nut a man who was showy, and it was quite contrary to his nature to go in for theatricalism. He did his job well. He was hot a man to put himself out to secure cheap popularity. Those who knew him loved him, and even if one cannot say that be was one of the great figures of history, - one can say that he was tremendously beloved by every roan in the airoies.