PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1666, 3 February 1904, Page 21

PERSONAL ITEMS.

At All Slaints’ Church, Paimerston North, on Wednesday, Mr W. Hannam, of Marlborough, was married to Miss Catherine Ward, third daughter of Mr Luke Ward, of Palmerston North. A cablegram/ from London states that Sir Waited* Peace, who has been Agent-General for Natal since 1893, hag resigned on account of illhealth.

Mr Alfred Beard, son of the late Mr James- Beard (one of the oldest residents of Greytown North) died there on Friday of typhoid fever. Deceased) was forty years of age.

Mr J. Spence Nicol, formerly of Messrs Bisley Bros, and Co., Nelson, has been appointed to the position of auctioneer to the New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative D istributing Company,Wellington. Mr Nicol, while in Nelson, was an active member of the Harmonic Society under Herr Lemer, and took the bass solos in tlie society’s production of the “ Messiah” ait- Christmas.

Speaking at tli© General Synod at Auckland on Friday (says a Press Association telegram), Canon McMurray saijd it was wonderful to think that the history of the Anglican Church in New Zealand was bound up in the lifetime of one man —he referred to the Bishop of Waiapu—who was the first infant to be baptised into the Church in New Zealand.

Mr McGregor Wright, of Wellington, has received a letter from Signor Nerli, the well-known Italian artist-, of Sydney, several of whose finest- paintings are in New Zealand, stating that he leaves for Italy on the 2nd prox. Signor Nerli, who is well-known in New Zealand, is a relative of Pope Pius X. Signor Nerli, who is a portrait- painter of great ability, gained much praise some years ago by a portrait he painted of Robert Louis Stevenson. The painting is now a treasured possession of the National Gallery in Edinburgh. Estates totalling £IOOO and over have been lodged for probate at the Stamp Office, during January,, as follows: Wellington—Harrison Shaw, £1230; Robert Lett, £2894; John Chrruthers, £1463; William D. Darvil, £1732; John Wall, £5791. Auckland —Jane Elizabeth Leys, £1566; Thomas S. Webb, .11154; Ann J. Jackson, £1430. Christchurch —George M. Keany, £1823; George P. Pulley, £9523; George H. Twentymun, £3606; George Buchanan, £1189; Henry Thomson, £3766; George Coleman, £21,648; James Johns, £13,382; Archibald C. Murray-Aynsley, £lslO.

A large number of his personal friends assembled in the Empire Hotel on Friday evening to bid farewelel to Mr I. J. Rothschild, who has relinquished his connection with the jewellery trade in the city to take over the proprietorship of the Star Hotel, Auckland. Mr T. Kennedy Macdonald presided. In presenting the guest ctf the evening with a piece of plate bearing an inscription, the chairman spoke of the good qualities of Mr Rothschild. Everyone would remember the Tasmania going down with all their guest’s goods, and how lie subsequently laboured to make good his great loss. In concluding, the chairman, on behalf of those present, wished Mr Rothschild the best of good fortune in the future. In responding, Mr Rothschild said he thought the occasion was the proudest moment of his life. Not only on behalf of himself, hut on behalf of his wife, he thanked them most sincerely. In his time he had been through a few business ventures, but his present departure belonged to an entirely new branch. “It may,” he observed, "prove uncongenial for a short.time, but where needs must a man is compelled to make war with a hard world.” The Hon. James Carroll also spoke in appreciation of Mr Rothschild, Among the passengers who arrived from Sydney by the Manuka last Wednesday was Captain Joseph Rhodes,, the only surviving brother of the late Hon W. B. Rhodes, of Wellington. Captain Rhodes first arrived in Wellington in. the barque Phoebe lin February, 1843. He was a pioneer of settlement in the South Island, where he was, at the time of the Wairau massacre (on June 17th, 1843), in which Captain Arthur Wakefield was killed, and Mr Brooks, the interpreter, had his tongue out out. Captain Rhodes afterwards spent twenty strenuous years on ' the East Coast, and was concerned in the trouble® with Te Kooti. Htis company of mounted riflemen took part in the engagement with the Hauhaus at Omaranui. Captain Rhodes, who is well on in years,, is revisiting the colony owing to ill-health. He says, rather pathetically, “Most of my aid* ffiiends are now in their graves, and I find none that can recognise me. My cab-driver knew nothing of the place being covered with flax, or of the Te Aro swamp. Ah!: there are few survivors of those sights now:” He earn only think sorrowfully of his return to Wellington., The growth of the place seem® to him. to bare provided a gireati monument* to those that have- passed: away—many old Mends and.' dear comrade®—in its making.

The late Mir Herbert Spencer’s estate (siays a London cable message) is vallu-ed at £IB.OOO.

Mr C. H. Jefferies, a well-known member of the Masonic fraternity in Nelson, died there, on Wednesday evening after a painful Illness. ■-.•* - y Mr John Tamblyn, one of the oldest residents of Central Otago, died at Dunedin on Wednesday. The deceased was the first to start fruit planting at Coal Creek.

Percy William Burbidge (of Mojunt Cook School), who topped the. list of candidates for the national scholarships in the Wellington Education district, is thirteen years of age, and has been exceptionally successful in publ c competitions during the last twelve months. He won the special prize given by the Sunday School Union, there being 431 candidates ; got the special prize for highest percentage of marks given by the Salvation Army in its essay competition, open to children under fourteen years, conducted in connection with the exhibition held in the Skating Rink last year ; won one of the Education Boards scholarships, coming third on the list and first amongst the boys who competed ; and also won a scholarship given by Victoria College, being third in place amongst the Wellington candidates. Now ho lias qualified for a national scholarship with 693 marks out of a maximum 850, a record only beaten by one candidate (Helen In glia P. Whyte, of Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay), with 699 marks.