PERSONAL ITEMS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 22

PERSONAL ITEMS

Mr J. R. Smyth has been appointed chief accountant in the Department of Roads. The office was previously filled by the late Mr H. J. Knowles.

Corporal J. Thomson was the recipient of a souvenir from his comrades of the R.N.Z.A. on the eve of his departure for Dunedin, to take up the duties of staff sergeant-major.

The Chamber of Commerce has extended to Mr J. S. McConechie, representative of the Manchester Ship Canal Board, an invitation to address a meeting of the Chamber. This will take the place of next quarterly meeting.

Mr W. O. Kensington is to remain in office as Under-Secretary for Crown Lands and Immigration. Mr Kensington las become entitled to retire upon a superannuation allowance, but has been requested to continue his official duties.

Through the kindly interest of Herr Wessely, the famous London violin teacher. Master Victor Harris has been allotted a two years’ scholarship of the Royal Academy of Music, London. Mrs Harris is trying to make arrangements to send her son to England by the White Star liner Athenic next month.

Mr JP. Barry, who has been a member of the commercial s ff of the “New Zealand Zealand Times Company,’’ has received an appointment on the* staff of the “Marlborough Express,”' and takes his departure for Blenheim on the 2nd prox. As token® of goodwill and good wishes, he was presented with mementoes on behalf of the management and of the various departments of the office staffs on Saturday. Mr Nisbet Mcßobie, formerly head of the factory and job printing departments of the “New Zealand Times” Company, has severed his connection with the office, having accepted a position on the “Pahiatua Herald,” in which concern he has been offered an interest-. On Saturday a gathering of employees took place, when Mr J. Griffiths, foreman of the jobbing-room, on behalf of the workers, asked Mr Mcßobie’s acceptance of a souvenir, as a mark of the esteem in which he was held. Mr McRobie returned thanks in a feeling manner.

At the Hamilton (Waikato) Borough Council meeting on the 11th inst. the Mayor (Mr Bond) handed to Mr S. B. Sims, on behalf of the Wellington City Engineer’s staff, a planimeter, a silver* mounted fountain-pen, and a silvermounted purse (for Mrs Sims), as tokens of.the esteem in which he was held by his fellow-officers during the time he occupied the position of second assistant to the City Engineer. Mr Sims, who was five years in the service of the City Council, left Wellington about three weeks ago to take up the position of Town Cierk and Engineer to the Hamilton Borough Council. In consequence of changes in the organisation of the Works Department of New South Wales, the active connection of Mr H. Deane, M.A., M. Inst., C.E., with that department has ceased, and he has taken an office in Hoskins’s Building, Spring street, Sydney, where he proposes to carry on the business of consulting engineer. Mr ’Deane has been more than twenty-five years in the Public Works Department of New South Wales. He has just completed a tour round the world, visiting America, the United Kingdom, and Europe, during which he made a study of all subjects of a general engineering character.

The Countess of Mayo, whose name stand first amongst the recipients of pensions for political services in the finance accounts of the United Kingdom, recently published, is described in cold official terms as “Widow of the late Governor-General of India.” There is no reference to the fact that she became a widow under extremely tragic circumstances as far back as 1872, when the late Lord Mayo was murdered by a fanatic in'the Andaman Islands, where he was on. an official visit as Viceroy of India. The Dowager Lady Mayo, who receives a pension of £IOOO a year for life, is an aunt of Mr George Wyndham, the late Chief Secretary for Deland. Sir William Muir, whose death took place on July 12th, had an exceptionally long public career. He commenced service with the East India Company when William IV. was King, and after more than sixty years of public service over thirty of which were spent in India* ended as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Edinburgh University. Sir William had his share of the excitements of the mutiny when he was in charge of the Intelligence Department at Agra. It was Sir William Muir who “made Queen Victoria Kaisar-i-Hind.” When he was leaving India on the eve of the proclamation of the Empress, Lord Lytton, at a farewell banquet, declared that, while the Queen’s Government had made her Majesty Empress of India, there was only one man who could make her Kai-sar-i-Hind, and the man to whom her Majesty was indebted for this title was no other than his honourable friend, Sir W. Muir.” Sir William wrote many works, mostly on Mohammedanism, on which he had lone ranked as a leading authority.