A NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER'S FUNERAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1915, Page 6

A NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER'S FUNERAL.

LATE TROOPER JAMES HUGHES. The following appeared in the Paignton Observer and Echo on October 21:— After six weeks' illness, Trooper James Hughes, of the Wellington Mounted Rifles, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, died at the Oldway Hospital on Sunday, at the age of 32. He was wounded in Gallipoli, and arrived with-several other New Zealanders at Paignton. His injuries consisted of a gunshot wound in the head, with fracture of the skull, his condition being hopeless from the first, though magnificent nursing kept him alive for six weeks. ' It was a pathetic, inevitable that, so'far from his home, no relatives of the deceased could attend

the funeral on Tuesday. Atonement was made for this as far as possible by the attendance in strengtli of members of the 7th Devon Territorials under Captain Hunter, besides a party of wounded from Oldway and the Larches, undev Lance-Corporal Sheard. The body was conveyed on a bier, wheeled by a party of eight of the Devons, the coffin being covered, with the Union Jack. A firing party walked.in front of the bier, the solemn procession proceeding from Oldway to the Roman Catholic Church at Barnes Hill, Trooper Hughes belonging to that faith. The impressive obsequies of the Catholic Church were performed by Rev. Father Kirk, who had been most assiduous in his attention to the dying soldier. Before the coffin was carried out of church to its last journey to the cemetery, Father Kirk addressed those In church, and said it was evident from the first that recovery wag impossible. That hero—because all those who had. fought in the present war were heroes—was a lion in battle, and he showed that by his bravery on the plains of Gallipoli and in going to the front. He had suffered very much indeed, but at the beautiful hospital, which was a source of consolation to so many of our soldiers, an operation was performed so skilfully and well that it allowed him to spend six long weeks in preparing his soul for eternity, and he (Father Kirk) felt certain that that soul had gone straight to God. If the departed had any small sins and imperfections, they had been wiped out by the resignation to God's holy will in the time of suffering. He came all the way from New Zealand at the call of duty, and he was one of the victims of this terrible war. Father Kivk gave his own testimony to the kindness and perseverance of the good nurses at the hospital, and said he felt the deceased would not have lasted so long but for the gentleness, charity and, kindness of the nurses. They all knew that God was stronger than the devil, and that the result of this fearful struggle be' tween barbarism and civilisation would be that God would triumph in the end. Two wreaths were laid on the eoflln, these being from the commandant and Mrs. Gunning,, the card hearing tho words, "He never faileth the path of duty"; the other being, "With deep regret, from the hospital staff." After the service at the graveside the firing party fired three volleys over the open grave, and the buglers sounded the Last Post. A considerable number were present in addition to the military.