Otago men still needed for Expeditionary Force

The arrival of bread for the annual training camp of the fourth regiment at Sutton. - Otago...
The arrival of bread for the annual training camp of the fourth regiment at Sutton. - Otago Witness, 5.5.1915. Copies of picture available from ODT front office, lower Stuart St, or www.otagoimages.co.nz
Strenous efforts are being made to raise the men still required from Otago for the new Expeditionary Force.

The infantry must be ready to leave Dunedin by the 29th instant, but a large number must yet come forward before this total is reached.

Another opportunity will be afforded the men of Dunedin to offer their services, at the recruiting demonstration to take place to-night in the Garrison Hall.

In face of the urgency of the call and the serious position at the front, and also to ensure that Otago will maintain her full complement of men, it is hoped that the local response will be a ready one.

Recruiting demonstrations are also being held to-night at Caversham, Green Island, Palmerston, Milton, and Alexandra, and rallies are announced for to-morrow night at Clinton and Middlemarch.

The thick and slippery mud on the Dyer's Pass road was responsible for a bad accident on Tuesday, in which a taxi driver named J. W. N. Macintosh had the narrowest of escapes from a violent death (says the Christchurch Press).

Macintosh's car, a big Overland, had been hired by the police to take a constable over to Governor's Bay, and all went well until about half the distance between the tram terminus and Victoria Park had been covered.

The car was then on the clay road, and started skidding, whereupon the passenger, Constable Brooks, got out, and tried to steady the car by hanging on to the back.

About a few hundred yards from Victoria Park there is a sharp turn in the road, and, while carefully negotiating this, the driver felt the car getting out of control.

The nose of the car swerved round towards the edge of the road, and, feeling that nothing he could do could stop its progress, Macintosh jumped for his life, just as the rear of the car rose for its final plunge into the gully.

By the greatest of good luck he got clear, and had the mortification of seeing his uninsured car roll and bounce almost to the bottom.

It was badly smashed, and now lies with its nose pointing uphill, ready to be salved.

An obsolete punt is still relied upon to connect Kaitangata and Inch Clutha districts with Port Molyneux.

This punt frequently gives trouble in holiday times and in the early hours of frosty mornings, when parties wish to cross to and from amusements and dances on the opposite side of the Clutha River.

People have been frequently called upon, on river bank, or midstream, to test for an hour or two their patience.

For years past agitations for a bridge in lieu of the punt have fallen on the unsympathetic ears of the adjoining local bodies; but at last the Clutha County Council has arranged for a conference, to be held at Balclutha, at which delegates from the Bruce and Clutha County Councils, the Kaitangata Borough Council, and the Inch Clutha River and Road Board, and the Otanomomo River Board will discuss a proposal to have a bridge erected.

The first two weeks of the shooting season have been marked by an absence of the usual camping parties in quest of ''bags'' (says the Cromwell Argus).

Several local sports have been out occasionally on the recognised quail country in the immediate locality, but have met with little success, and report that the birds are unusually scarce.

Everywhere the little grey owls are to be seen, and those who can evidently speak with some authority attribute the absence of quail to the presence of owls.

Others state that weasels and stoats are responsible for much destruction by robbing the nests during the breeding season. - ODT, 2l.5.1915.

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