PERSONAL NOTES FROM HOME.

Evening Star, Issue 14573, 23 May 1911, Page 1

PERSONAL NOTES FROM HOME.

♦■ —— ['From Ovn Spkcial L'ois respondent.] LONDON. April 13. An interesting letter from one of the Sedgwick boys in Now Zealand was received this week by Sir Wm. HailJones, High Commissioner for New Zoa-lr.-id. ]t is written by I L'.roid -Vi. Thomas, one of the Liverpool section of the party of lads whom Mr T. Sedgwick recently conducted to the Dominion to take up farming life there. Young Thomas is now in the employ of MiDavid Caldwell, of " Wairuri," Tolaga Bay, and his letter runs thus: — 1 have great pleasure in 'illirmmg yon that my expectations ■ i' . Aew Zealand are being fulfilled. 1 simply enjoy this life. It is much uw-. jdlv thaii being shut up in an office all day. J am gelling on quite, nicely. I can now milk, ride, and do a 1 'tic sheep work— wry little of the latter, I am afraid ; however, 1 will soon master it. 1 am with very nice people, and (hey are very kind to iw. 1 think all the other boys are enjoying themselves. They can't help it, I can assure you. The writer of this letter is the iad who made such an effective ..little speech on the occasion of Sir Wiliiim Hall-Jones's visit to Liverpool to inspect the Sedgwick contingent there. The High Commissioner lemomb'i's I m well, and is very pleased To receive from the lad such a satisfactory assurance that he and his mates are enjoying their new life in the Dominion. The Rev. R. S. Gray (Christchureh) and Mrs Gray, who travelled hither via Palestine, Cairo, Italy, and Paris, have been in the country visiting relations since their arrival. Mr Gray will do a little preaching, and is if; conduct j a service at Spurgeon's Tabernacle, and another at Regent's Park for r.Se. Kev. ]•'. B. Mycr. He will also address a few meetings on No-license in New Zealand. He hopes to begin systematic sight-seeing in London immediately after Easter and to hear the most interesting stages of discussion of the Veto Bill in Parliament. He Kires London on June 10 for Philadelphia to aj.tend the Baptist World Coinws as special representative of the N.Z. Baptist Lnion. At. I.he heuiJJj speak on 'The Church and Working j Men.' Returning to New Zealand \ ia Vancouver, he expects id reach homo about Lhe middle of September. Major \Y. G. Braithwaito, D.5.0.. Royal Welsh Kusiliers, Captain J. K. Cochrane, and Captain W. JL Pinwell j have been asked to go to New Zealand to be appointed to various districts as General Stall' officers nf the third degree, at a salary of Co.VI a year. Major IJraithwaiie has notified his acceptance of the offer. Mr and Mrs H. Atkinson (Auckland) and the Misses Atkinson C2) arrived on April 7 by the Atheiiic, after a very pleasant voyage. Rounding Cape Horn the temperature was not below -10 degrees,, and crossing the Line it will bo little above 8!). Mr Atkinson and family intend leaving London in a day or two for a tour through the South of England, including a visit to the Scilly Isles. Later in the season they will visit the North of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Continent. They are on a pleasure trip, but Mr Atkinson will take the opportunity of looking over various important piibile works accomplished or in course of construction. He proposes to arrive in New Zealand again next December. Lieut.-colonel A. Bauciiop, C.M.G., now studying at the Staff College, Camberle.v, has been selected for attachment to the Royal Artillery at Salisbury Plain for a month's instniction. Mrs M. Leslie Morisou (Wellington) and her little daughter. Miss P. Morison, arrived here by the Orontes, via Suez, on April I, and proceeded on the 3rd inst. to Liverpool, where they will be staying with relations till the end of April. Thence they go on a visit to other relatives in Aberdeen. Mrs Morison. who has been twenty-six years absent from Loudon, her native city, has come here to see her brother and to make further arrangements in connection with her business in Wellington. She proposes to remain eighteen months. She is ill be in Jxmdon'for the Coronation, and will then go to Paris, returning here about September, to enter business in London for about nine months, after which she returns to New Zealand. Mr and Mrs W. Aiteheiisou Smith (Nelson) arrived in London a fortnight ago, and intend leaving next week on i a tour through Scotland and Ireland, j Mr Aitchenson Smith has come to Eng- j land principally on account of hjs j health, to consult a specialist, and his plans of travel will depend largely on the medical advice which he receives. At the International Exhibition at the Grafton Gallery Miss Grace Joel has on the line a head of an old peasant. Mr G. M. Lambert is the only other Australasian exhibitor, and exhibits a life-size head of a woman, called ' Portrait of a Dancer.' It is very solidly painted, with all his usual skill in execution, and in a high key. Miss Joel's picture is painted in a very low key. of color, and when in the Salon

was picked out in the papers as being tres vivant. The Earl of Orford and Lady Dorothy Walpole, and Capt. the Hon. J. and Mrs Boyle, son and daughter-in-law of Lord Glasgow, who have been on a holiday visit to New Zealand, returned to London this week by the Macedonia. Lieut.-colonel D'Arcy Chaytor, Mrs Chaytor, and Miss Frances Chaytor were passengers by the same boat. Lieut.-colonel Chaytor intends to take courses of instruction at Longmoor Mounted Infantry' School, and in carairy work at Aldershot. Mr John Gore (Dunedin), who arrived here on March 28, and is now revisiting his birthplace (Leamington), tells ine that he has come to England to claim a very large estate in Monmouth, Wales. He claims to be the net of kin. Mr Gore is revisiting this country after an absence of forty years, and he intends to stay here about six months. Mrs Archibald Williams, whose death occurred on April 6 at Moseley, near Hirminghain, was a New Zealander, the daughter of the late Herbert Henry Vorley, of Westport. Mrs Williams was in her forty-first year. Miss Miriam Crichton, of New Zealand, is at present engaged as bead historical costumier for the Pageant of London, the great Imperial pageant in which 15,000 performers are to take part at the Festival of Empire. The notorious Mr John James Meikle has arrived in London. It will be remembered that the motion to award Mr Meikle compensation named the amount as £5,000 when it was introduced in the New Zealand Parliament, but this amount was eventually reduced by half. " Now," said Mr Meikle thisweek, " I have come to London in this year of the Imperial Conference to try to get the Home authorities to take up my case and secure me the other £2,500 compensation which it was originally intended I should have. I mean to lecture before the British people upon the injustice I have suffered." New Zealanders will be interested to hear that Mr Arthur L. Alexander (Dunedin) has been commissioned to write the whole, of the music for the. New Zealand section of the Pageant of Empire at the Crystal Palace. The music consists of three pieces for a large military band, a processional march, a Maori dance, ai'd another piece to be ':-(] during the scene representing the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.