PERSONAL AND GENERAL NOTES.

Lake County Press, Issue 976, 22 August 1901, Page 2

PERSONAL AND GENERAL NOTES.

[From the Dunedin Evening Star.] LONDON, July 5. The Agent-General and Mr W. Reece paid a visit on Tuesday to Mr F. J. Williamson’s studio at Esher, and inspected and approved the clay original of the statue of the Queen which is to be erected in Christchurch. Her Majesty is represented in a standing attitude, and the statue, of which there will be no exact replica in the Empire, promises to be very impressive. The impression, I understand, has got abroad that the statue should very shortly be ready for erection in Christchurch. This is' erroneous. With the utmost expedition the statue cannot possibly arrive in Christchurch until the end of the year. Only within the last ten days could Mr Reeves and Mr Reece inspect the clay model, and until they had pronounced their approval no further progress on the part of the sculptor was possible. When the clay figure is completed a plaster cast has to be taken from it, and from that the bronze statue has to be cast, iho casting and finishing of the bronze alone take two or three months. . , .. Mr Walter Kennaway is taking his holiday this month with Airs Kennaway and his family at Lucerne. This, by the way, i, I believe, the first complete and unbroken holiday that Mr Kennaway has taken for many years. He has in previous summers split up his holiday to suit the convenience of the other members of the staff, or curtailed it to attend to the accumulation of business that had resulted during his absence. Visitors from the colony, who find Mr Kennaway always apparently with time to attend to them courteously, and never m a hurry don t quite realise the amount of hard and responsible work which Mr Kennaway gets through in his quiet and business-like way The tribute that Mr Reeves paid at th annual New Zealand dinner to the permanent secretary was as well deserved as it was graceful, and it is now Mr Reeves who is insisting that the Nestor of the Agencies-General in sagacity and experience shall have first consideration, and have his whole holiday and nothing but his holidav during July. . Sir John Hall has speedily recovered from his bronchial cold, and was able to go to the Royal show at Cardiff, and to speak at one of the functions connected therewith. , . . Mr and Mrs Oatts, who have just returned to Glasgow after visiting the Y M.C.A.s of the Empire, were welcomed home bv a large gathering in the Christian Institute of that city, presided over by the Lord Provost. Mr Oatts. in replying, said that he was deeply impressed with the necessity for Y.M.C.A.s in India and the colonies, where the temptations were a thousand times fiercer than at Home, and there were fewer restraining influences, it the temptations at the Antipodes are a thousand times fiercer than those to be encountered of an evening m Piccadilly well, “ there’ll be a hot time in the young town to-night.” . , . T From the number of items passed in, I doubt if Mr A. J. Whittaker (of Hawera) will find the result of yesterday s sale of his Maori curios at Stevens’s up to his expectations. The sale attracted between twenty and thirty people, but the bidding was con* fined to Kilf a dozen, who seemed wefi acquainted with the value of the articles submitted. Sir Walter Buffer. Major-gene-ral Roblev, and Mr Ceoige Beetham Ml made a few purchases. Only a few shillings apiece were bid for the items that possessed neither artistic value nor rantj, and articles of mere historical interest but of no intrinsic value such “ th ® ff Un presented by George TV. to Hongi, were a drug on the market. Erom o £2 seemed to be the limit to which bidder, would go for the more valuable taihoas and hatchets, while a carved Maori bailer realised £5, and a quaint Maori gourd with carved top £5 15s. The derived from the sa e seemed to be that riffle for really good examples of genuine MU*or-rj* substantial «xtravagant prices are obtainable, con noisseurs are not inclined to look at an> - thine else A rigorous exclusion from the collection 6 of everything but “the ml Mackay” would, I fancy, have produced better ” Sir* James Prendergast was a guest at the Canadian Dominion Day dinner on Tuesday, and at the Lord Mayors dinner at the' Mansion House to the archbishops and bishops on Wednesday At the latter dinner the company included ladies. Mr John Henry Howell, 8.A., B.bc., science master at the County School, \bervstwith. has been appointed science master of the Auckland Grammar School. Mr Howell has had eight vears’ experience in teaching at Craigmore College, Clifton, the Strand School, King’s College, London, and the County School, where he has been preparing pupils for the London and Welsh University matriculation examinations. In addition to a successful course of study at university colleges, Aberystwith mid London, Mr Howell has done research work at the University of Strassburg and the Federal Polytechnic, Zurich. He is thirty-one years of age, and married, and takes a keen interest in all school sports. Mr and Mrs Howell will not leave for Auckland until .The ‘ Liverpool Post ’ refers very sj nipatheticallv to the memento recently compiled by Mr Janies Smith, of the late Colonel Robert Trimble, who before he left Liverpool for New Zealand was “ the incarnation of fearless reform and enthusiastic philanthropy.” The ‘Post recaJs b |s good work in education, for the North in the American War, against the Jamaica atrocities, mid for army reform, and reminds the public what a good adviser he had been at the beginning of volunteering, n hen it was in danger of being checked by undue expenditure in uniform and trappings, his theory being that with a simple cheap outfit it might be jiossible to bring into a volunteer force the whole civil populaGorton, who arrived with Mrs Gorton by the Wakanui three weeks ago, had to undergo an operation two days after ho reached London. Luckily be was sutbcientlv recovered to spend the last four days of last week at the Royal Agricultural show, in the grounds of the Marquis of Bute, at Cardiff. Colonel Gorton votes the show a great success, and pronounces excellent the classes of cattle and sheep to which he devoted most attention, the shorthorn, Heiefords, red poll, Jersey, and Dexters in the cattle, and the So'uthdowns, Shropshire's, and Lincolns in the sheep being particularly good. The Welsh mountain pony stallion Starlight, which took the first prize in its class for the fourth time in succession, Colonel Gorton considered the best-made pony ho ever saw. Colonel and Mrs Gorton will probably return in February via Canada, San Francisco, Japan, and the Sandwich Islands. Miss Hodgkins (of Dunedin), who lias been in Chelsea for the last two months, left at the beginning of the week for Normandy, on a sketching tour with Mr Norman Garstin. After sho has recorded the windmills and canals of Holland, Miss Hodgkins purposes spending several of the winter months in Paris. Mr and Mrs Robert M. Turnbull (of Dunedin) have taken, until the end of the summer holidays, Bryn Adda, Grange road,

at Eastbourne, where their two girls are at school. Their son is at Radley College. Their movements when the tenure of their house expires are uncertain, although it is possible that they may return to the colony. Mr R. J. Moore, who was invalided Home from Africa wounded, is on a visit to friends at the Rector}', Lisnadill, Armagh, and before he leaves for the colony at the end of August intends to make a short tour on the Continent. Mr Edward Howlison (of Dunedin) recently made a cycling trip with some of his English friends to Oxford and Warwickshire. He expects his brother to arrive in a few days, and, together, they will make a three weeks’ cycling tour in Ireland, followed by a visit to Scotland. Mr William Dawson (of Dunedin) arrived last week with Mr J. D. Clifford by the Oceanic, after spending three weeks in America, in the course of which they paid a visit to the unfinished Buffalo Exposition, the illuminations of which seem to have impressed them more than anything else. They are going to compare notes at the Glasgow Exhibition and then ramble round Scotland. Mr Dawson anticipate a stay at Home of three or four months. Captain Neill (of the Fourth Contingent) was one of the officers, who arrived last Saturday by the Simla. A New Zealander in * The Times ’ declares that “any settlement short of the complete submission of the Boers would be received with such deep anger in our colony that it is hard to say what the consequences would be.”