PERSONAL MATTERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1910, Page 5

PERSONAL MATTERS.

The Hon. A. T. Ngata left Wellington to-day on an official visit to theUiiewera Country. Lieut. R. S. Beere, of the Victoria College Officers' Training Corps, has been promoted captain. His Excellency the Governor will hold a levee at the Legislative Council Chambers on Thursday, 2nd June. Brigadier J. 11. Bray, of the Salvation Army, is gazetted an official visitor to all the prisons in the Dominion. Mr. 11. C. Waterfield, private secretary to the Governor, will leave for England by the Rangitira next week. Mr. J. Cudby is gazetted a member of tha Assessment Court under the Valuation of Land Act for the district of Petone. Mr. C. E. Shortt has been appointed Rogistrar of Marriages, Births, and Deaths for the district of Palmerston North. Mr. P. Verschaffelt, of Wellington, has been licensed to act as a public auditor for the purposes of the Friendly Societies Act. The Rev. W. Scorgie, of Mornington, has declined a unanimous call to Palmerston North, states a Dunedin Press Association telegram. On Monday evening Sir Joseph Ward will leave for Christchurch en route to the West Coast, where he wil 1 unveil a memorial to the late Mr. Seddon. Mr. L. W. Blundell, son of Mts. H. Blundel'l, and Mr. C. W. Tringham, lefit yesterdlay foi the Siraits Settle.mentis on a 'holiday trip. They also intend to enquire into the prospects of tbe rubber trade. As a further part of the scheme for retrenchment in connection with the Justice Department, Dr R. H. Alnitgill, medical officer at Auckland, has been asked to do, in addition to his present duties, 1 the work of police and prison surgeon at Auckland. This will involve the retirement of Dr. W. J. Darby, gaol surgeon, and Dr. E. W. Shaman, police surgeon. t "To Captain Lambert from passengers on s.s. Arahura in memory of Halley's Comet. 19th May, 1910," reads an 'inficription on a pipe presented to Captain Lambert by Mr. Cc-lvin, M.P., to-day on behalf c-i parsengers, mostly Westport residents, who were on. the steamer during the trip from Nelson to Wellington on Thursday night, the date of the visit of Halley's Comet. Mr. G. Craig has been appointed chief clerk of the Customs Department in succession to Mr. W. B. Montgomery. Mr. Craig has been connected with the department since 1891, when he entered the service as a cadet in Timaru, and the following year was transferred to Christchurch, where he remained until his appointment to the head office in 1894. Three years later he was transferred to Dunedin as Landing Waiter, in which capacity he returned to Wellington. He was given charge of the audit branch at the head office in 1907, and now he assumes the duties of chief clerk. In his presessional address at Balclutha on Thursday night (telegraphs our Dunedin • correspondent), Mr. Malcolm, M.P., paid a public tribute to the late member for Auckland East. He r;aid : "I rogrot that during last week Parliament and the country have sustained a loss by the death of Mr. Baume. It is twenty-four years since I first know him, and no one could know him without recognising that he was a man of great ability, an independent thinker, and a fearless speaker. Parliament can ill afford his loss, and those of us who knew him will deeply regert tl\Q loss the country and his family have sustained."