NEW ZEALAND NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 280, 27 August 1915, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND NEWS.

NOT MENINGITIS. A FALSE ALARM. AUCIvL AND, Ycstorday.. The statement that a case of cerebrospinal meningitis has occurred in the Maori training camp, Auckland, is incorrect. The case mentioned by the Minister for Defence is probably one. that is engaging the attention of the Auckland Public -Health Officer—a European soldier who arrived on leave from the Waikanae camp a few days ago. This man is not seriously ill and after the proscribed period of isolation he will return to Wellington. .

STRANGE STORY C? THE SEA

A mysterious' story of tin? sea has created much interest at Hull. It concerns the Russian sailing barque Montrosa, which sailed from Hull for Nova .Scotia and was abandoned early the following morning by her captain and crew of 14 Russian sailors, who, on bo ing Handed at Hull, stated that the vessel had either been mined or torpej doed. Strange to say, within a few

i liouis of Captain Anderson and the I crew landing at Hull, together with the i pet retriever dog Nell, a fisherman j named Sam Holdane in the North Sea observed the vessel passing his craft with a quantity of sail on and travelling as usual. The vessel at the time excited no curiosity on his part, but when a short period later she came travelling along near him again through a change of tide he thought iho would IxaiJ her. However, although he hailed the vessel again and again,

no answering shout came to his ears, and he decided, together with his companion in the fishing craft, to board this strange, silent ship and see why no human person showed on her. He succeeded, after some difficulty, in getting aboard the vessel, and was astonished* to find her deserted, and that he was though in a well known and frequented route of the North Sea—in possession of a handsome prize ship, * obviously worth many thousands of pounds. He brought her successfully into Bridlington and claimed her as his arize. It is doubtful whether the fishermen of the East Yorkshire coast have ever succeeded in capturing so valuable a prize in so easy and strange a manner. The theory is put forward that the vessel may have struck some- i thing which the crew mistook to be a mine striking her. and thus impelled them to seek the boats to escape.