PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 295, 13 December 1899, Page 2

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

(From Our London Correspondent.) LONDON, November 3. Mr Oscar Swinnock, of Auckland, who left Auckland in June last for a . pleasure-cum-business trip to the Old Country, put in a pleasant fortnight at Ceylon en route, and landing London in August spent a month at his old home in Sussex. He is now staying with his brother at Draper's Farm, near Margate, and anticipates i starting for New Zealand about the 'end of November. Whilst in England Mr Swinnock. has taken up several jagencies for New Zealand, including that of the Surrey Seed Company, the I Dairy Outfit Company, and Messrs Fleming, Bieldy and Goodall, of Halifax. His agency for the last-named firm is for the Auckland district only.

From the "Globe" I cull the follow-ing:—-"The Premier of New Zealand announces that owing to the rapid decrease in the birth rate and the constant increase in the unemployed, he will guarantee work for anyone who marries within six months. The Opposition are now thinking of offering a handsome salary to the man who dandles his baby on his knee for eight hours in the day. In other words, both parties arc nursing the constituencies."

Mr Stanley R. Stedman, of Wanganui, who came to Er,|land some little time ago with a view' to making arrangements for the sale of New Zealand poultry- in the Old Country, appears to have satisfied himself that the trade is one worth taking up, but the fact that the Government is takinga hand in the business seems to have upset certain plans he had made for dealing with the fowls of the Auckland district. My own idea is that there is not nearly so much money in the frozen poultry trade as some enthusiasts desire me to believe. I know quite well that at certain seasons of the year big prices are obtainable for really good table birds, but the natural results of any considerable addition to supplies at these .seasons of poultry "shortage" must inevitably bring about a corresponding reduction in prices. The creation of a really big trade in frozen poultry from Australasia will mean the abolition of such wholesale quotations as 4/ to 4/6 for fowls, and those who contemplate going in to the business of exporting them must base their calculations on a far lower scale of returns. I shall be surprised if a couple or three years hence New Zealand exporters can obtain an average return of more than 3/ a-piece, for their best birds arriving here twixt February and June.

Captain Scott's New Zealand - bred 'chaser Levanter, which was backed for last year's Grand National on the strength of his performances in Maoriland, managed during last month to win a little steeplechase over a 3 mile course at Limerick. The colonial horse's -victory appears to have been due, however, to the inability of the favourites for the race to keep on their feet, and to the wretched quality of the rest of the field rather than to any merit, of his own. Levanter, who is trained by his owner in Ireland, is amongst the acceptances for the Grand Sefton Steeplechase, to be decided a few weeks hence at Liverpool. The New Zealand horse is weighted at 10.1, but unless he has made great improvement in his style of negotiating our steeplechase obstructions .the old son of Captivator will stand very little chance against such old stagers as Drogheda, Ford o' Tyne and Gentle Ida, light weight notwithstanding.

Mr E. T. Sayers, who since his success on the stage at Sydney has been ambitious of gathering fresh laurels on this side of the globe, has now established himself in Manchester. He has obtained an engagement from the United Theatre Co., which owns the Prince's and Royal Theatres at Manchester, to play with one of their small companies in the provinces and to study the "leads" in Cinderella for the pantomime season. Doubtless Mr Sayers will be heard of again. He had a capital trip Home by the Duke of Westminster, via Northern Queensland ports, Thursday Island, Java, and Colombo, but was during/his four days in London unable to see anything owing to the fogs.

Professor Scott has recently returned from Wiesbaden, and I am glad to report that there is nothing radically wrong with his eyes, which will no doubt with the rest from his pedagogic duties soon recover their former strength. The Professor is now in Ireland, whither he went to fetch his wife, who has been making a couple of months' stay there.

Mr E. J. Greenstreet, of Coxon and Greenstreet, whose action against the Transvaal Cool Chambers Company is suspended by the war, has made Capetown, where he has been for the last two months, his headquarters. The Kimberley Freezing Works, which he designed for the De Beer's Company, were when he wrote (at the beginning of October) in process of erection, and doubtless these works have provided the ice which we are told figures largely at Mr Rhodes' dinner parties in the beleaguered town. Mr Greenstreet has begun the erection of cold stores at Capetown for the De Beer's Company, which will probably also build other stores at East London. He has been sharing offices with, the American dynamite expert of the Company, for the Company are starting a large factory for the manufacture of explosives some 20 or 30 miles out of Capetown, a big undertaking, which will cost over £100,000 and take two years to get into working order. Mr Greenstreet, who was in a position to hear something of the defences of Kimberley, writes: "Some people think Kimberley will be attacked, as it is Rhodes' town, and close to the borders of the Free State, but the Boers will meet with a warm reception if they attempt it, judging from what I hear of the preparations made for the defence of the town."

Mr Harrison F. Bulman, in the "Colliery Guardian," gives a detailed account of the method of mining at the Blackball Colliery.

A prominent feature of the "Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News" is a picture of a specimen lot of sixty head of deer shot in the Wairarapa this season. The photograph was taken by Mr A. E. Winzenberg-Featberston. This picture will no doubt prove an additional attraction to sportsmen contemplating a visit to New Zealand.

Marquis Townshend, who died in Paris last week at the age of 62, was a brother of Lady Audrey Buller's, and a great friend, as well as brother-in-law, of the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa. In the sixties and seventies his lordship loomed large in philanthropic and temperance circles. He married a kindred spirit in Lady Anne Duff, the Duke of Fife's sister, and found in her a most sympathetic helpmate. Their joint efforts to mitigate vagrancy and encourage total abstinence had often successful though I sometimes rather startling results. But Marquis Townshend cared not a dump for public opinion. He and his wife were amongst the first persons of rank Ito join the Good Templars, a proceed- | ing which caused a rare buzz in society. Latterly the Marquis suffered from ill-health and lived chiefly in Paris. . The verdict of the jury in the libel action of the Rev. Edward Andrew Phillips, some time of New Zealand, but now of Swalecliffe, Kent, against his former churchwarden, Mr Pout, who accused him of drunkenness and I general neglect of clerical convenances, ' was for the defendant. The New Zealand medal of Private J. Gibbon, of the 65th Regiment, awarded in 1865 (a rare date), and his long service and good conduct medals were sold by auction a few days ago for £ 10.

Mdlle. Vera, the New Zealand child violinist, who has been placed by her mother (Mrs French) under the aegis of the well-known "Concorde Concert Control," will, I understand, shortly make her debut at the Queen's Hall, Langham Place. It speaks well for little Vera's ability that Mr Norman Concorde has consented to "run" her.

Mr A. P. Buller has an interesting account of the search of the Talune for the derelict Perthshire in the November "Strand Magazine." Moreover, it is illustrated with capital photos by Sir Walter Buller, who constantly surprises his friends and the world by exploiting some new gift or accomplishment.