Know your town
The accompanying photo, taken in 1910, is of the Martinborough School cadets lined up in front of the school on the corner of Weld and Hirschberg Streets.
The NZ Army started supplying school cadets with uniforms and rifles after the passing of the 1909 Defence Act. The rifles were not just make believe but single shot Lee Enfields. The cadets marched up Dublin Street to the rifle butts on Shooting Butts Road.
Many of these boys could well have later found themselves involved in the First World war. The original photo is held by the son of William McLeod – who is third from right in the front row. Does anybody know who any of the others were? And, indeed, did any serve over seas?
So much for the honour. Justice in those days was a very harsh business as indicated by a case at the time heard before the Magistrate at Masterton Court.
A seventeen old Martinborough youth was accused of indecent assault on a fourteen year old Featherston girl. The sentence handed down was seven years hard labour plus three floggings each of twenty five strokes. When was flogging abolished? One wonders.
Mate Higginson
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