OBITUARY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 41

OBITUARY.

JOHN CHANTREY HAREIS. [1830—1895.] All who knew Mr Harris, who died at Milton, Otago, on Tuesday week after a painful and lingering illness, will regret the passing away, in his 65th year, of an tipright, kindly-liearted and energetic man, well-known in Welling con, and, by his newspaper connection, in other j>arts of New Zealand. Mr Harris was born in Bath, England, in October, 1830. His father, who was the owner of considerable property, was by profession a sculptor, and had been a favourite pupil and intimate friend of Sir Francis Chantrey, after whom the subject of this notice was named. Mr Harris at an early age imbibed a passion for the sea, and at 13 years old determined to seek his fortune as a sailor, and entered himself as an apprentice on a West India trader, continuing in that service for several years. In 1851 his ship was wrecked at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the beginning of 1852 he joined, as chief officer at Capetown, the barque Gwalior, bound for New Zealand with passengers and cargo. On this voyage he experienced no little trouble, the captain and second mate having drunk themselves into a state of delirium tremens, the captain putting the passengers into a state of continual alarm, and driving the crew to the verge of mutiny. The ship was in danger, and, on the earnest solicitation of the passengers, Mr Harris took charge and placed the captain and second mate in irons. One of the passengers, the late Mr Hirst, of New Plymouth, told the writer of these lines many years ago that but for the fearless energy, and promptitude, and seamanship of Mr Harris, and his management of the crew, he believed the vessel would never have reached New Zealand. Reference to a file of the Auckland New Zealander of that time (June 19, 1852), testifies to the anxiety about the missing barque, and narrates that H.M. brigantine Pandora had gone in search of the Gwalior, but had passed her in the night on her way to Auckland, which she reached, having had the captain seventeen days in irons. It mentioned also that he had attempted to stab the chief mate. After this episode, Mr Harris took charge of the first colonial-built steamer, the Governor Wynyard, which he took to Melbourne, and ran on the Yarra until, like many more, he was seized with the gold fever, and started for Forest Creek. Then followed twelve years of gold mining, with its manifold vicissitudes and varying fortunes ; and then Mr Harris settled down to journalism. For many years, when the Thames was in its golden gloiy, he was mining correspondent for the Auckland Daily Southern Gross, and did good and faithful service to that journal and the public by honest reports, supplied at a time when occasional bulls and bears were not over scrupulous in their manipulations of the mining market. Subsequently Mr Harris became connected with the Otago Daily Times, and was commissioned, in 1878, by the Union Steam Ship Company to visit and describe the Hot Lake district of the North Island ; the result being the publication of one of the first of the efficient guide-books to that wonderful region, the attractions of which Mr Harris very graphically described with that ready flow of language which characterised his pen. After being for a year or two connected with the Invercargill Times, Mr Harris, through the intervention of Mr Bain, of Invercargill, became proprietor and publisher of the IMew Zealand Times and New Zealand Mail, which he owned and managed from 1880 till 1890, when the property was purchased by Captain Baldwin, who in his turn disposed of it to its present owners in 1892. Mr Harris after this lost considerably in a mining speculation in Puhipuhi, Auckland, where great expectations of rich returns of silver utterly failed of realisation, and some two years ago he invested the remainder of his capital in the purchase of the Bruce Herald, which he continued to edit and manage until his health failed about three months ago. He had met with a bicycle accident, and dilatation of the heart followed, to which after much suffering he succumbed as above narrated. He leaves a widow and a son and daughter, the former of whom just arrived from West Australia the day hia father died.

Perhaps it may be said that an oversanguine temperament and a too generous belief in the betterment of human troubles by means of printer's ink rendered our deceased friend, notwithstanding his industry and working power, somewhat too credulous in the matter of what could successfully prove the means of effecting necessary social reforms. But £.ll who knew him will bear witness that honesty of purpose, straight dealing and upright manliness of life marked his conduct alike in private and in public. And those -who were most intimately acquainted with him (and not least the staff of the Times and Mail, of whom he was a generous and considerate employer) will mourn the departure of a true friend. Mr Harris some time since expressed a desire to be buried in Wellington in Bolton street cemetery, where one of his daughters was interred, and arrangements were made for carrying out his wish. The body arrived by the Monowai on Saturday morning, and the funeral took place from Mr Luckie's house in Sydney street during the day. There was a fairly large and representative attendance at the funeral. J. V. SMITH. An old settler of the Wairarapa district, Mr J. Valentine Smith, J.P., died at Patea on Monday week. He at one time owned the run known as Lansdowne, at Masterton. He was a passenger on the ill-fated Lord Worsley when she was wrecked on. the coast. He had lived at Patea for about 12 years. Of the deceased, Tuesday's Masterton Times says : —" He was an educated man of the highest character and probity, and in earlier days took his share of public work in this town and district. He was one whom high and low, rich and poor, held in the highest estimation and regard, and when he left his old residence at Lansdowne it was generally felt that the district had sustained an irreparable loss."