OUR LONDON LETTER.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 760, 22 December 1908, Page 4

OUR LONDON LETTER.

PERSONAL AND GENERAL NOTES (From Our Special Correspondent.) London. November 13. Mr H F. Christie, of Wanganui, has spent a month touring through the South of Europe, and has visited various parts of England and Scotland. Ho has also had about three weeks' yachting in the Highlands. He is returning by the Omrah, which left London on Friday. Mr Hylton, of Wellington, has been over here revisiting his native town, Yarmouth, which he has not seen for thirty years. He has been travelling ' for the benefit of his health, which has greatly improved since his arrival. He and Mrs Hylton leave for the dominion by the lonic on December 10. Miss Ethel G. Rodgers, of Invercargill, has been paying a flying visit to London. She has spent the greater part of the last two years at the Hague with her sister, Madame Vernaat. The Messrs Belcher, father and son, of Kaiapoi, are on a visit to England. It is over 50 years since Mr Belcher, sen., left England to settle in New Zealand. When he arrived in Wellington Harbour in 1852 no Wellington existed, and four houses was the sum total of Petone's growth. Mr Belcher helped to make the first road over the Rimutakas, and in 1854 he crossed Cook's Straits in a Maori canoe, and explored in the Collingwood district for gold. He claims to be the first man to find gold in the South Island. In 1855 he weni to Christchurch, which had just been laid out, and then he settled at KaiaT>oi, and entered the coastal shipping trade. He has resided in Canterbury ever since. The following announcement appears in the Daily Telegraph of Monday last under the "Deaths" column: Hanslow--On November 8, at Woodford Cottage, Buckingham road, S. Woodford, Essex, Maria, widow of James Hanslow, aged 82 gears. Australian and New Zealand papers please copy. The Rev. F. Stubbs, who is at present lecturing in this city on New Zealand, leaves next week for Leeds, Liverpool, and the Midland towns, on the same business. This journey will occupy thim about four months. Next spring he will visit 'the Continent, and will spend several months in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Miss Henriquette Maude will shortly be in London with aT'new scene "The Maori Chief." She is billed as the "Little New Zealand Girl." Miss Catherine Aulsebrook, who held her initial concert at Lady Brassey's, in Park Lane, has lately beer very successful over here She ha 6 been engaged to c understudy two parts (Siebel in "Faust," and tfte other in "Die Walkerie") for the English opera season at Covent Garden. The New Zealand Association had a very successful meeting at the Westminster Palace Hotel a few nights ago. A whist drive was arranged, and forty-eight ladies and gentlemen took part in the tournament. Miss E. M. Norton won the first prize for ladies, which was an enamel brooch. Mr Sidney J. Nathan won the men's prize, a morocco leather pocket book. Tfhe prizes were presented by Mr C. Wray Palliser. Sir James Mills and Mr J. M. Ritehio. of the Union Steam Ship Company, were the guests at the annual dinner of the Institute of Marine Engineers, held at # the Holborn Restaurant. Mr James Denny, the president of the year, was in the chair, and there was an unusually large and representative gathering Those present numbered about 400, and included, among other well known members of tfne shipping world. Lord Inverolyde, Sir Thomas Sutherland (P. and 0. Company), and Sir James Mackay (British India Company). The Board of Trade was represented by Sir Walter Howell. X.C.8.. and Captain Chalmer, and the Admiralty by Admiral Fremantle and Admiral Engineer Oram, Sir William White, the Hon. C. A. Parsons, and Sir Fortescue Flannery.