INVASION OF WELLINGTON

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 108, 25 April 1908, Page 6

INVASION OF WELLINGTON

HOW THE BLUES GOT THROUGH. COI.OXEL OUTIIIE EXPLAINS. In expressing his pleasure at the attendance of the. ollicers of the Wellington Rille Battalion at the social gathering at doliusouville, Captain F. • -Moore, of the .luhusoiiville Rilles, remarked tliat he had felt a little, bit sore at finding that .-oiut! hundreds of the. lilue force' had got through into Wellington. iPevhaps it was that Colonel Ouiliie had considered the movement too childish to bother aliout. (Laughter.) But, as 1 a matter of fact, all the Blues were dead, or supposed to b e dead, long before Sunday night, though, they hud come to life again. Colonel Duthie, who was the commander ot the. Red finw, said he could tell a little alwitt those four hundred men. Word had reached him at. 1 o'clock in the morning that a force, eslimated to number about eighty, waspassing into Wellington, lie got twoof his stall'solliccrs routed out, and they had a discussion as to whether to stop the invaders or not. The conclusion' arrived at was that if the Blues liked to knock oil' .~oklicriug and go and play marbles in front of the Post Office they could do so. He and his officers were not going to rouse out all their men' to stop What was considered a childish' freak. J)v it they had nrost seriously weakened the ptosuThm of their camp, while the four hundred men were without, nurninnitiim, and could not have got out of Wellington again. The >viidinc of that four hmulred men wan the most disastrous thing done by the Blue forces—New Zealand Times.