PERSONAL MATTERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 95, 22 April 1912, Page 7

PERSONAL MATTERS.

The Hon. J. Colvin returned to Wellington from the West Coast on Saturday evening. The Hon. G. Laurenßon. left this morning for Waitara and the Hon. Te Rangihiroa for New Plymouth. The Hon. J. A. Millar will leave for Lyttelton ,to-night by the Maori, en route for Dunedin. The Commandant of the Force* (Major-General Godley) returned from the South yesterday morning. Mr. John. Prior, an old identity of Eketahuna died in the Masterton Hospital on Sunday morning at the age of 89 years. The Postmaster-General (Mr. H. G. Ell] has arranged to open the new Post Office building at Porirua on Wednesday next, at 3 p.m. Mr. Norman Harper Bell, tea mefchant, died yesterday from diabetes, states a Dunedin Press Association message. He took a prominent part in the organisation of the Otago Contingent for South Africa. Mr. P. B. Manson, of the Nelsoru branch of the Public Works Department, who is' being transferred on promotion to the head office, Wellington, was presented with. a. handsome marble clock by the Nelson staff. A Press Association cable message received from London to-day states that Miss Van Staveren, of Wellington, and a daughter of the New Zealand Chief Rabbi, made her London debut at the opening performance at Covent Garden of the opera " Carmen." Mr. William Fitzgerald, one of the early settlers of the Levels Plains (1868) was thrown from his trap on Saturday through His horse shying at a rabbit (states a Timaru Press Association message). He died shortly after he was taken homo. He was seventy-four years old. Mr. Eric Waters, second son of Mr. F. V.- Waters (Chief Clerk of the General Post Office), has been appointed teacher of the pianoforte in the Nelson School of Music, vice Miss Phyllis Fell, resigned. Mr. Waters*, jun., was a pupil of Mr. Robert Parker, of Wellington, and has held the position of deputy organist of St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Mulgrave-street The following hay« consented to act as examiners in the annual examination of scholars of the Sunday School Union : Mesdames G. W. Darvall, T. H. Gill, and A. R. Atkinson, Miss Helyer, and Mr. T. H. Gill, M.A., LL.B. There will only be five grades this year, as the union considers that it is not necessary for it to provide papers, for scholars over seventeen years old. Mr. George Coward, aged 89, died at his home at Blenheim (states a Press Association telegram). He Was a very old identity, having been sixty-five years in the colony. He was one' of the first compositors in New Zealand, working ok the Nelson Examiner, and was one of the founders of the first newspaper in Marlborough (the Press). He retired from active work twenty years ago.