PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15511, 11 January 1911, Page 4

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

[From Ocr Corresfoxde.nt.] LONDON, December 2. The High Commissioner for Nov; Zealand will inspect the London .section of Mr Sedgwick’s bo\ immigrants at Poplar on Saturday. The party, comprising twenty-fiTo London and twenty-fivo Liverpool lad:?, will sail by the Athenic on December 9 lor New Zealand. When 'the Liverpool Corporation took up the scheme its education committee circularised the Old Boys Associations of the schools, and 209 applied in fortyeight hours. These were reduced to fifty by the committee, and Mr Sedgwick visited Liverpool last week and selected twenty-live. “ Poverty is not so fierce in Liverpool as in London,” said Mr Sedgwick on his return, " but it is ten times worse there than New Zealand ever dreamed of. Eleven of the Liverpool hoys can ride and six of them, milk, but in six weeks’ time on a, farm I would—being prejudiced—back my London lot against any of the Liverpudlians, oven with that start. Our life here is more- keen and strenuous, and the acute poverty puts on a sharper edge. The competition between the two sections will excite a healthy emulation. The gill question is going forward. I am offered fifty Liverpool girls of sixteen for any town that has good safeguards, and will apprentice them to mistresses for at least a year.” The New Zealand High Commissioner and Mr T. E. Donne, Commissioner for Immigration, visited Liverpool on Wednesday to inspect the twenty-five Liverpool lads whom Mr Sedgwick is taking to New Zealand. Describing his visit, Sir William Hall-Jones said to mo: “ We saw the education authorities through whom the boys were selected, and we then saw each hoy individually, having previously examined his papers. I also gave them a little talk' collectively. 1 was very well pleased with the selection. Hundreds applied, and the twenty-five chosen were the pick of them. Several of the boys have had some little farming experience. All seemed to he of good build and all were very keen to have tho chanco of showing what they could do. I told them that people who went to the colonies must not be alraid of hard work, and must bo prepared to acquire the knowledge that was essential to their future progress in life. They all seemed lads who had been used to a hard life and who desired to obtain opportunities which were not to be found in this country. At the end of our talk the lads were invited by the ex-Lord Mayor of Liverpool to express their thanks to Mr Donno and myself for going to Liverpool, and ono of the boys came forward and made quite a good impromptu speech. Mr Donne and I then attended tho Lord Mayor’s reception before catching our train back to London. ' To-morrow I am going to see Mr Sedgwick’s twentyfive London boys.” Lady Stout has written to the New Zealand High Commissioner, Sir William Hall-Jones, a letter defending tho window-breaking tactics of the militant suffragettes, in the course of which she says: “ Even women who are most decorous and detest any violence have come over to see that peaceful requests are absolutely useless. If you had seen these women, as I did, come in bruised in body and tortured in soul, but yet resolute and determined to suffer more if necessary for the enuso of womanhood and justice, you would not place so much value on a few panes of glass.” Miss Marjorie Tempest, the New Zealand soprano, sustained a Lvagic bereavement on Friday night, after appearing at Misoha Elman s violin recital at Queen’s Hall. Her fiance, Mr Alexander Falconer, to whom she was to have been married within a few weeks, accompanied her to the concert hall, and while she was singing he became ill. Fie at first refused medical assistance, but becoming worse, he took a taxi-cab and asked to be driven to bis doctor, Sir Havelock Charles, in Manchester Square. On the way there Air Falconer’s symptoms became so alarming that the cab was stopped a t tiie house of a doctor in Welbeck Street. There the sick man remained about half an hour, after which the doctor aceomnanied him to Sir Havelock Charles’s’ house. After a consultation Mr Falconer was urgently advised to go to a nursing home, but this lie would not hear of. He had, lie said, promised to ’ meet- M iss T ompest at Queen’s Hall after the concert, ana nothing would induce him to break ms engagement. He was helped into a cab. but while it was on its way to the concert hall Air Falconer died suddenly. Air Falconer had been managing partner in India of tho firm of Yule and Company, merchants and jute manufacturers, luit bad given up work in India and returned to England to buy an estate and spend the rest of his life at home. Ho met Aliss Tempest while she was touring in In-

dia. Two years ago they became engaged, and the marriage was to have taken place within a month. Among tho candidates standing in the Liberal interest at the General Election is Air Louis Charles Bernneebi, F.R.G.S., who was scientist on the Discovery on the occasion of Captain Scott’s historic expedition to the South Pole. Air Bernacchi is standing for Chatham, which will be the scene of a three-cornered contest between Unionism, Liberalism and Labour. • ' Lord Onslow, ex-Govornor of Now Zealand, underwent an operation on Tuesday for a defect of the vocal chords.’ He is progressing favourably. Recent callers at the High Commissioner’s offices:—Aliss L. M. Gillies (Dunedin), Air. Airs and Aliss Spratt (Taranaki), Afisses Thompson (Invercargill), Air J. Nicolson (Wellington), Mr J. R. Ferguson (Gisborne), Air W. S. Loeliead (Dunedin), Alisses Constance and Beatrice Alacbeth (Christchurch), Air John T. Alidwood (AVellington). Aliss K. Henry (Wellington). Air Anthony Wilding, of lawn tennis fame, is at present staying at Kormend. in Hungary, with Prince Batty-hany-Strattman. He motor-cycled from London, and went all through Hungary and Servia. After he leaves Kormend tho New Zealander intends going to South Hungary for some shooting, and later ho will go to Italy and then to the Riviera to play lawn tennis.