Dr W. Marshall Macdonald (president of the association) presented Nurses Buckley, Calder, Dodds, Foote, Moore, and Wilkie with electric torches.
Nurse Chalmer received a gift of books from the Dunedin nurses who served in South Africa.
An electric torch is also being sent to Nurse Ingram, who leaves from Napier, but formerly did a lot of work for the association in Dunedin.
Messrs Herbert, Haynes, and Co. generously donated a deck chair for each nurse.
Dr Macdonald, in making the presentation, said they had met to do honour to the nurses who were leaving our shores for active service with the Imperial Troops.
They would remember that, a few months ago, the Nurses' Association had approached the Minister of Defence and suggested that he should offer some 50 nurses for service abroad.
Mr Allen acceded to their request, and the War Office accepted the offer.
The association had been asked to nominate nurses from a list of those who had applied, and the matron-in-chief had made the final selection.
They had, he thought rightly, chosen those whom they thought the best nurses, irrespective of their being members of the association or not; but, at the same time, he thought it was the bounden duty of every nurse to join and support the association.
If they had not had some such organisation New Zealand would have been in the position of being the only important part of the Empire which had not sent nurses to the front.
It was a noble service that these nurses were going to perform, and they had every confidence that they would perform it with credit to themselves, to their hospital, and to the country of their birth.
They wished to make them a small gift as an earnest of goodwill from their fellow-nurses in Dunedin.
The gifts took the shape of electric torches, and they seemed to him to be sympathetic, because they would remember that Florence Nightingale, the founder of military nursing - indeed, of all scientific nursing - was known to the sick and wounded soldiers in the Crimea as the Lady of the Lamp, because she used to visit them in the watches of the night with a lamp in her hand. - (Loud applause.)
• In consequence of Easter falling next week, the Early Settlers' Hall will be reopened for work on Monday and Tuesday.
The soldiers' kits are well on the way to completion.
With the approaching summer at Home, the socks would be better made of four or five-ply wool.
Nevertheless there will always be a big demand for the heavier ones, both for those at the front and for our boys in camp at Trentham.
A soldier who has been on active service recommends that a very small pot of Red Cross ointment or Zambuk be put in each kit.
In cases of abrasions it would be an advantage to have some.
It is imperative that all soldiers, whether at the front or in camp, should have warm feet.
Unless the men are kept well shod we cannot expect the best results from them.
Work is being steadily pushed forward at the hall.
The association is pleased to state that many women who are not able to come to the hall to sew have expressed their willingness to make articles in their own homes. - ODT, 27.3.1915.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
