R.LS. RELICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 50, 28 February 1923, Page 8

R.LS. RELICS.

SALE AT SOTHEBY'S. SOME TREASURES. (By Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON. January 11. Some curious rejics of Robert Louie Stevenson's life in the South Seas are to come under the hammer in February next a. SothebyV. One always knew ILL. I *, as an individualist, all for the free right to do as one pleased, but never associated him with real law breaking. This, however, he scorns to have indulged in when he got beneath tropical skies, for one of the tare documents to be sold is a proclamation directed against him, issued by H.M. High Comniissioner for the Western Pacilic in 189_. Lord Rosebery was Foreign Secretary then, and when this proclamation was brought to his notice, he immediately ordered it to be withdrawn.

There is also for sale a copy of the "Samoa Times," of 1894, recording Stevenson's death and burial. There may, of course, be other copies of this newspaper extant, but of another curiosity to fall to the hammer only one other is known to exist. It is a broadside, 'I'll sing you a song of the tropical sea on board of the old Equator*" presented to each guest at the Tivoli Hotel, Apia, at a dinner given by E.L.S. to celebrate the safe arrival of the schooner Equator in 1889.

Some of the rarities to be sold on this occasion belong to his earlier period at Davos Platz in 1882. They include leaflets announcing "Black Canyon,' "Moral Emblems" (printed on the back of a concert programme), and a leaflet advertising S.L. Osbourne and Co., job printers, and "A martial elegy for some lead soldiers," and many examples of the eccentric quality of that press. The collection of Stevenseniana to be offered for sale belongs to Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson's stepson, who was his collaborator in many broadsheets, and in "The Wrecker" and other works.