PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 93, 21 April 1902, Page 5

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

CFrom Our London Correspondent.?

LONDON, March. 14. The following New Zealander is gazetted, to a commission in. the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa: — 37th Battalion, Henry Scott, late secretary New Zealand Volunteers.

The Secretary of State for War has informed Mr John Dewar, M.P., that should a member of the New Zealand Contingent who takes his discharge in South Africa be anxious to -visit this country a free passage to England >rfll be given him &n the understanding that no passage to New Zealand from England will be provided.

Mr Gow has got rid of his cold, and in company with Mr Cameron left on Monday on a month's business tour to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A final selection from the four or five medical men considered most suitable for the post of Government balneologist will be . made by the Agent-General and his expert adviser this week. ,

Mr Thomas Jackson, M.A., Auckland, lectured on New Zealand at the end of last week at Trinity Hall, Eomfcrd, Essex, to a large audience. Mr Jackson was formerly head master of the Romford High School.

Mr E. J. Greenstreet has been appointed to design and superintend the erection of cold stores at Pietermaritzburg for the Government of Natal, and will probably also erect cold stores at Bloemfontein for the syndicate to whom Bergl and Co.'s contract for the supply of meat to the army is to be transferred.

The Board of Trinity College, London/announce the appointment of the following examiners to conduct this year's examinations in practical subjects: In Australia, Mr Charles Edwards: New Zealand and Tasmania, Mr Alfred Mistowski, Mus. B. The examination requirements and standards are the same as in the United Kingdom.

Miss Hersey Wauehope, at her marriage to Mr "Joe" Studholme last week, wore a charming1 gown of ivory satin and pleated mousseline de soie, draped with Mechlin lace, with a tulle veil over a tiara of orange blossoms, with diamond ornaments. She was attended by six children —Miss Hessie Boulton (the bride's niece), Miss Audrey Fenwick, Miss Betty Lacey, Masters Teddie Moorhouse, Pat Lacey and Colin Hunter Blair. The little g-irls wore Charles I. costumes of soft white satin, with deep lace collars and caps, and the little boys were in white cloth highwayman's coats, with lace ruffles, and three-corner hats. The bridegToom presented the bridesmaids with gold and turquoise pendants and GpQfl* year bouquets of pink roses, and the pages received gold and turquoise scarf pins.

Russian village priests can hardly be expected to know much of your colony and its early explorers, but one wotild imagine that they would know something of the worthies whose portraits adorn the walls of their schools. Lady yon Haast was in a school in tlie north-east of Russia the other day, and recognising a familiar face in a portrait of the gallant sea^ man, exclaimed, "Why, there's Captain Cook!" "And did you know him personally, madam?*' asked the priestpedagogue.

General Booth's youngest son, "Commandant" Herbert Booth, has resigned his position in the Salvation Army. He was tin-til recently in command of the Army's operations in Australasia, and attained considerable popularity as a hymn writer and composer. Three of General Booth's children have now forsaken the paternal banner —Ballington, who organised the rival force in America, entitled. "The Volunteers"; Catherine (Mrs Booth-Clibborn), who, by the way, steadfastly declines to associate with the Butterfiy-EHjah-Dowies sect, and now Herbert. Mr Bramwell Booth is the only one of General Booth's "sons left in the Army. It is strenuously denied that Herbert's secession is the result of anything but ill-health, but why it should be necessary for a sick.man to "cut the painter" which -joined him to the Army is a conundrum I shall not try to answer. I i •

Further reports of the attempt of the New Zealanders to keep De Wet's men at bay only accentuate. the determined gallantry of the exploit. The "Globe" sums up the English verdict by.saying: "The record of the small force of New Zealanders which tried to hold De Wet is one of which the colony may well be proud. They were not successful, indeed, but to have fought on until oiit of seventysix men and eight officers, sixty-one men and seven officers were either killed or wounded is an achievement which may well claim its place among the finest feats of arms. The memory of it will endure in the Old Country as long as in the Colony itself."

The "Chronicle" adverting to the annoyance of the Maoris at being left out in the cold whilst black trackers are being employed in South Africa, and the offer of the New Zealanders to go merely as scouts or trackers, says: "This would hardly do, for if there were any, fighting g-oing- on in Ms neighbourhood the Maori could never be kept out of the thick of it." I hope the Maoris will appreciate the compliment thus paid them, but compliments are poor food to the man who is hungering for a fight. Personally I sympathise deeply with our friends, and I hope the day will come when the world at large will be.given to understand in the clearest possible manner that the British Empire will use her hrman war material just as it suits our convenience and without reference to the nationality or the susceptibilities of those opposing us.

Though Marie Henry Pontet Piccolomini was hardly in the front rank of song writers his ballads have hn<l considerable vogue, and many in your city will learn with regret of his death, which occurred a few days ago in the London County Asylum

at Hanwell, whither he was sent a year or so ago, suffering from an obscure mental disorder. Of Piecolomini's songs "Ora Pro Nobis," "The Last Muster," "The Toilers," "Whisper and I shall Hear," and "Queen of the Angels,"—none of them great compositions but all eminently melodious—had an enormous sale and must have brought much grist to the publisher's mills. But Piccolomini himself was devoid of commerical instincts and made very little out of them. Poverty indeed was ever his lot, and he leaves a widow and children quite unprovided for. He indeed will be buried in a pauper's grave unless the appeal of the "Sun"' to music-loving Londoners to unite to give him an honourable burial succeeds.

The latest recipient of the Victoria Cross, Sub-Lieutenant Kenneth Guy, of H.M.S. Hannibal, won the coveted medal by an act of conspicuous gallantry, which alasT was all in vain. On 13th July, 1900, during the attack on Tientsin city, a very heavy crossfire was brought to bear on the Naval Brigade, and there were several casualties. Among those who fell was one A. B. J. McCarthy, shot about fifty yards short of cover. Mr Guy stopped with him, and, after seeing whats the injury was, attempted to lift him up and carry him in, but was not strong enough, so, after binding up the wound, Mr Guy ran to get assistance. In the meantime the remainder of the company had passed in under cover, and the entire fire from the city wall was concentrated on Mr Guy and McCarthy. Shortly after Mr Guy had got in under cover the stretchers came up, and again Mr Guy dashed out, and assisted in placing McCarthy on the stretcher and carrying him in. The wounded man, however, was shot dead just as he was beingl carried into safety. Lieut. Guy received his medal from the King's own hands at Devonport lasi> Saturday.

For calling Mr Horatio Bottomley of Hansard Union, "Northern Terrors " and general financial notoriety, a long string of bad names, any one of ■which in ordinary immaculate society would have been libellous, Mr Hess of the "South African Critic" has had to pay £1000 damages plus costs. Mr Hess himself is not reckoned by Mr Labouchere and some others as a pattern of all the virtues, and Mr Bottomley, as you are all well aware, has had a public career not entirely free from the material for criticism. Some people indeed have referred to the action of Bottomley v. Hess as "Pot and Kettle," and it is certainly open to grave doubt whether anything the defendant in the case could say about the plaintiff could do the latter the amount of damage—moral, intellectual, or material —that may be represented by £1000. Probably the jury sought less to give Horatio Bottomley solace for the damage he had received than to punish Hess for using unbridled and grossly libellous language interspersed " with reckless charges which he could not prove. Mr Bottomley once again figured as his own counsel, and it must be admitted that he fought his case very cleverly, so cleverly indeed that one could not help grieving that he had not taken to the Bar instead of financial manipulations in the City. He succeeded in shewing that his company manipulations have not been fraudulent, and the judge only likened them to the transactions of the spider and the fly. The spider of course breaks no law and therefore cannot be called fraudulent. Nor can Mr Bottomley. Tt would be impossible within decent limits to attempt to fathom the depths of Bottomley v. Hess, but the case lias been useful in that it throws some fresh light on the methods of Horatio's finance.