PERSONAL ITEMS FROM LONDON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13397, 28 January 1907, Page 8

PERSONAL ITEMS FROM LONDON.

[from our own correspondknt.]

LONDON, December 21. It is slated that there i- a possibility of the famous New Zealand jockey, Hewitt, riding in England next season. At all event-, he has been approached by Mr. Lionel Robinson, who cabled out to Hewitt offering a handsome retainer.

There is a musical treat in -tore for colonists, for it. is announced that MisMarie Hall, the clever and popular violinist. intends early next year to start off on a professional tour of the colonies, whither she will travel via America, where her recitals will begin.

Mrs. Gower (Auckland) is on her way back to the colony, via Australia, she having travelled overland to Marseilles to join the s.s. Mongolia. Mrs. Gower and her family have been resident in England for some considerable time, they are all leturning now, and are due to reach Auckland toward the end of January.

His Majesty the King held an investiture at. Buckingham Palace on Tuesday morning. Among those who were severally introduced into the presence of the Sovereign was General Babington, late Commandant of the New Zealand defence forces, upon whom was conferred the Companionship of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael ami St. George.

Miss Mabel Man.-on (formerly of Dunedin) will sing the principal soprano solo- in Handel's oratorio "The Messiah," which is to be given at Bradford on Friday. Madame Clara Butt taking the chief contralto part. Mrs. Man-on tell- me that "engagements still continue to come in splendidly." and that, she "has plenty to do," and is prospering.

Information has reached me to the effect that Mrs. G. Caughey (Auckland) has boon suffering from serious illness, and that she has had to undergo an operation since reaching Loudon from the Far Fast. Mr. Caughey went to China and Japan early in the year, and lately he was compelled to bring his wife to England for medical treatment. The duration of their stay here is undecidedly a> it will depend entirely upon ,{';£ "progress made by the invalid. _ **•''-""

■ Mjf. i §S{ n * Tucker, whose mountain-elimb- . ■.„.' escapades have formed the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, was in Cardiff on Saturday, and obliged a press representative by relating some of his experiences, the most exciting of which befel him in Now Zealand. "Mount Cook, the monarch of the New Zealand Alps," said Mr. Turner, " had previously been climbed once from the Hooker side, and once from the Taxman side. but. it had never been traversed—that means going up one side and down the other. For us it proved a sensational climb. ] have ascended numerous mountains in Switzerland 15,000fi. and one in Siberia 17,800 ft, but in none of these i- there as much actual climbing from the base as is the case with Mount Cook, li is an exceptionally difficult mountain to conquer, as is plain from the fact 'that about, 25 mountaineers in New Zealand have devoted a lifetime trying to climb it. and of tjicso only four have been to the top. After 36 successive hours' climbing we got to the top. During that time we had no sleep and had to carry fairly heavy swags."