PERSONAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 149, 27 June 1898, Page 8

PERSONAL NOTES.

(From. Our London Correspondent.)

LONDON, May 20.

The Agent-General has been busy speaking at various functions lately. His latest oratorical efforts have been an address on cooperative dairy factories in New Zealand to the Labour Association and a speech upon the progressive movement in New Zealand at Porchester Church, Dr. Clifford's institution. Mr Herbert Samuel, the Secretary of the Liberal Home and Counties Federation, in moving a vote of thanks expressed a hope that Mr Reeves would stay in England, go into politics, and help the progressive party here, but Mr George Fowlds, of Auckland, who jumped up to second the motion, and who declared that he had conic to the meeting to see whether Mr Reeves' remarks kept within the mark, and who thought the hitter might " have laid it on a little thicker," urged Mr Reeves to do no such thing as settle in the Old Country but to return to lead the labour party in the colony from which a conspiracy of Conservative interests had spirited him away.

Mr.i Keeves has also been in evidence as a speaker this week at the conference of the Women's National Liberal Association. She .supported in a neat little speech a motion moved by Mr Ilorbert Paid condemning the foreign policy of the Government, which has lowered the dignity and influence of England in the councils of Europe and has serieusly prejudiced its commercial prospects in every quarter of the world.

Mr Reeves' little history continues to be favourably reviewed, the latest critiques beinjj in the " Review of Reviews" which calls il the best (if Horace Marshall's series, the "Spectator" which admires its " movement and lucidity' although modelled a. littlo too much after Maeaulay's style, the " Manchester City News " the " New Age " and "Secondary Education."

Mr A. F. Carey (of ToneyclifTe and Carey, Christclmrch), who ha.s returned with his wife and son to the Old Country after an absence of 16 years, means to see il thoroughly. Mrs Carey lian been slaving for three weeks with her brother-in-law at Loughborough, while Mr Carey has been busy buying spring goods in London ior his business. Mrs Carey's health has been much improved since she left New Zealand, and if who continues to grow Mtronger Mr Carey's programme is to spend a week or two at Southport, tonr through Scotland and Ireland, spend a month in London, cycle through Devonshire and Cornwall, and after a week's trip to Paris leave in October for Bombay, spend two months in India, and join the steamer at Colombo.

Mr and Mrs A. de Jongh, of Dunedin, who arrived here on the last day of 1597 after a pleasant trip round the Australian coast, have settled down in Brixton at the conclusion of a six weeks' tour round Scotland, where they vi.sited Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, Later in the season they puipope making a prolonged tour on the Continent. I hear they do not intend to return to the colony.

Miss M, Stoddart, who has taken up her abode with Miss Barnicoat at Battersea, is studying drawing from the figure at the Westminster School of Art and sketching when the broken weather allows. 1 hear that Mr Alfred East, to whom she showed some of her work, was very complimentary, but recommended her to improve her drawing. Miss Stoddart intends to join a sketching club and later on t« spend some time studying in Paris. She has been doing the Academy and the various summer shows. Her experience of London art and teaching has, she tells me, only made her realise the valuable work done in the local Schools of Art in the colony.

Mr G. Fowlds, of Auckland, spoke at the annual meeting last week of the Congregational Colonial Missionary Society, declaring that it was very important for the leaders of the Free Church to visit New Zealand, and that Dr. Clifford's visit had done more for the Free Churches and spiritual life than anything that had happened for years. -

Mrs Emily Louisa Marshall applied to Sir Francis Jeune the other day lor relief from matrimonial bondage. Her case was that her husband, Leonard Marshall, whom she married in 1890, took to drink soon after marriage and had since then consistently illused her. In 1893 he had for the benefit of his health to take a trip to New Zealand. He was separated from her some five months, but absence didn't make his heart grow fonder, for on his return Mr Marshall recommenced his cruelty. On one occasion he threatened to shoot her and shortly afterwards presented her with two lovely black eyes. The wife's pitiful tale was corroborated, and evidence being forthcoming; that Marshall had stayed at the Hotel Metropole with a Mrs Marshall who was certainly not the petitioner, a decree nisi was pronounced with costs against the respondent, who did not defend tho suit.

3,ftC4 candidates have notified their indention of presenting themselves for the Trinity Col lego London local examinations to take place on the 4th June in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Canada. This is tho largest number ever presented by the colonies, and an increase of 445 on the number entered in 1897. Colonial candidates will be submitted to exactly the ssano tests as the candidates from the United Kingdom.

The Trustees of the Sportsman Challenge Clip, the emblem of the English JSculluhChampionship, have after much consideration given their consent to that trophy being competed for in a sweepstake over the Thames course during the coming autumn as suggested by Tom Sullivan and approved by Wray, Towns, and others. A meeting of tho leading lights of the professional rowing world is to be convened at an early date in order to allow intending competitors to place their views before the Trustees.

Giving evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Foreign Bondholders' Corporation Bill, Mr Walter Bushby, of the Stock Exchange, who was called for the petitioners against the Bill, stated that he had found that in connection with the New Plymouth Harbour the corporation had over-ridden the wishes of the bondholders.

New Zealand journals are asked to give publicity to the fact that on May 10th Lieutenant Stewart Evelyn Forster, R.N., eldest son of the late Rev. H. Reginald Forster ,sometime Vicar of Camperdown, Victoria, married Miss Margaret Lucy Forster, elder daughter of Mr W. Stewart Forster, of 8, Lower Berkeley-street, London West, and Rumwood, Maidstone, Kent, The happy pair were united at the parish church, St. Mary's, Laugley, Kent, by the Rev. F. S. Forster, M.A., Vicar of Newington, assisted by the local rector, the Rev. H. Prentice.

At the second International Congress of Actuaries, which is being held in StapleInn, Holborn, this week, a paper on the " Kates of Mortality in Australia and New Zealand" was contributed by Mr David Canuent, in which the author pointed out that the death rates in the Australasian colonies were very low, and had of late years been diminishing. In this respect Australia had a decided advantage over the Mother Country.

The boracic acid prosecutions continue. Tn Birmingham last week a co-operative society was summoned for selling butter containing the acid to the extent of 70 grains per pound, equal to 1 percent. The medical witnesses for the prosecution insisted that the acid was injurious to health, inducing kidney complaints, indigestion, skin disorders, and (this was what no doubt determined the issue) acting as a " cardiac depresscnt." Mr Chamberlain's brother was "on the bench, and the case went against the co-operators. According to the doctors called for the prosecution, five grains of boracic acid per diem is harmful to health.

Mr A. Lindsay, of Blundell Bros.' of Wellington, who came Home with his wife in the India, is spending some weeks in London on business, and has been giving the editor of the *' lioofc and Shoe Journal" his ideas on the labour legislation and the working of compulsory arbitration in the colony. Mr and Mrs Lindsay intend visiting Mrs Lindsay's relations at Hailsham in Sussex, and her sister at Hastings. A trip to Scotland will follow, when Mr Lindsay means to renew his acquaintance with Edinburgh, and a visit to Paris will complete Mr Lindsay's run round before he returns to the colony in September.