LONDON GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 11

LONDON GOSSIP.

From Our Special Correspondent. PERSONAL NOTES. London, January 26. Mr Willis, M.H.R. for Wanganui, who is over here with his son on a business-cum-pleasure trip, has been doing a lot of useful sight-seeing, inspecting the Mint, the Tower, our lunatic asylums, prisons, &c. He has been staying at a hotel, but is now going into private apartments. The visit of the Duke and Duchess of York to the colonies is again being a good deal talked of, but I don't think, whatever they may do as regards Canada, they will turn up in your part of the world till the Brasseys are at Government House, Melbourne. Both H.R.H. and his wife are great friends of His Excellency and Lady Brassey. Fred. Barrett, the erstwhile famous jockey and pilot of Ayrshire and Donovan, who died last Monday rather suddenly, aged 29, might have indefinitely prolonged his life if he would have followed medical advice and emigrated to Australia. But he couldn’t drag himself away from Newmarket and the exciting turf life of Old England. Fred was a respectable and selfrespecting lad. R.I.P. Mr C. O. Montrose, whose year in the Old Country draws to a close, has been invited by Sir George Grey to collaborate with him in a Maori fairy tale, founded on a curious old legend in the right hon. gentleman's collection.