FACING DEATH GALLANTLY.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1916, Page 6

FACING DEATH GALLANTLY.

JSRAVE WANGANUI MASTER. LAST LETTERS 3?ROJi THE FRONT. Several interesting letters from tho late Captain Hugh Buttenvorth, of the 9th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, formerly a. master at Wanganui Collegiate School, are published in the school magazine. Captain Butterworth fell in action on September 25. He was leading his men against the Germans at the time, and, in the words of his colonel, he "allowed the most conspicuous courage and coolness."

Writing in July, Captain Butterworth said:—"l am not particularly afraid of death, but I dislike the thought of dying, because I enjoy life so much, and 1 want to enjoy it a lot more. This dug-out life gives plenty of time to think, I can tell von, and the danger is, one gets down to a minor key, and stays there. I feel I've expiated every crime I've ever committed. I fancy that when we warriors fetch up at the 1 •final enquiry they'll ask, 'Where did you perform?' We shall reply, 'Ypres salient.' They'll answer, 'Pass, friend,' and we shall stroll along to the sound of trumpets and saekbuts."

Writing in August: "Perhaps, as you study English papers, you imagine us in the trenches with a continual smile on our face. I assure you that is not always the case. I've seen fear in the faces of almost all in a company, and I've felt my own inside go wrong, and heard the voice of the temper saying, 'Now, -Butterworth, old son, that's the spot for you; if you're rushed, you'll be near the exit-door, and be able to fall back.' At those times the only thing to do is to take oneself by the neck and get right into the heart of tilings, swarm about and cheer up the men. and generally restore your own confidence—in yourself. I know exactly what fear feels like at two o'clock in the morning." Writing about September 20—his last letter: "Of course, one has been racing death pretty intimately for months now, but with this- ahead one must realise that, in the venacular of Nv.v Zealand, one's numbers are probably up. We are not a sentimental crowd at the Collegiate School, Wanganui, but I think in a letter of this sort one csm say bow ... I am very much attached to the school, and to Selwyn in particular. Live long and prosper, all of you. Curiously enough, I don't doubt my power to stick it out, and I think my men will ■follow me."

His friends, says the Wanganui Collegian, are sure that his men followed him, and in those words he has penned his own best praise. Hugh Butterworth was a leader and inspirer of boys, who became a leader and inspirer of men fighting in a great cause.

A lady who lives 111 Leomonster, Herefordshire, Unhand, in a letter to a friend in Christchurch, states that during the week in which siie wrote 1.017,016 eggs had been supplied in the town as gifts for wounded soldiers. "I think that is very good for the farmers' wives around this district," she said, "as .Leominster is only a small country town, not as big as Hereford. Eggs are given and collected every week and sent away to different places for the soldiers. The number is printed in our local newspaper cgLch week, and the names of the people who give." HAS WON CONFIDENCE. Cough medicines containing opium or olher narcotics give only temporary relief. Once the effect of the narcotic is gone the cough is as bad as ever. Chamberlain's Cough Remedy 'contains no narcotic but it relieves the lungs, aid* expectoration, allaya coughing by healing the inflamed air passages. You don't need a long course of treatment for a tough when you use Chamberlain's Cough Remedy. The first dose gives relief and if taken according to directions the cold will have disappeared in a couple of days. Sold everywhere.