Page 3 Advertisements Column 2

Taranaki Daily News, 29 July 1916, Page 3

Those who have no relatives fighting at the front have, nevertheless, some idea of the apprehensive tightening of the heart strings which beset the fathers, mothers, wives and sweethearts of "our boys" when they see a uniformed telegraph boy enter the gate of tlisir iiomes. There appears, however, to be a formal red-tape procedure which must accentuate such feelings. On Tuesday, says the Otago J)aily Times, the relatives of a Dunedin soldier, who is lying in an English hospital "dangerously ill," received 110 fewer than three telegrams, all notifying the fact—one from the Prime Minister, anothei from the Minister of Defence, and another from the Minister of Finance. The receipt of the first telegram was bad enough news; but when the second telegram came an hour or two later, a deadly fear oppressed the mother and the rest of the family that the worst had happoaed. At an interval of another so, the household was again quite upset by the receipt of the third notification. The relatives of the soldier referred to have 110 doubt, been thoroughly assured that he is really "dangerously ill," but there does not appear any good reason why their feelings should have been burrowed in such a manner,