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Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 47

The Rev. R. W. Seaver, 8.D., E.C., Episcopal Commissioner in Ireland for New Zealand (reports our London corresponddent) writes to the Northern Whig (Belfast) that he listened with interest to the New Zealand Prime Minister in the City Hall, although his own personal concern has been chiefly with the church there. “The Bishop of Wellington, he says, is an old university friend, and to his diocese I have occasionally passed a clergyman who left Ireland for health reasons, or owing to its troubled condition. By Bishop Sprott’s desire I asked them if they could ride, and also, if possibly they could do without a servant maid! Herr we have briefly the conditions of clerical work generally in this colony, which offers desirable openings for younger clergymen who may be fed-up with the unprogressiveness of the Irish Church.”

Sitting in Chambers in the Supreme Court last week, Mr Justice Sim granted probate in connection with the following estates: —Robert Crawford, Dunedin (Mr P. S. Anderson): Sir John Ross, Dunedin (Mr H. E. Barrowclough); William Leslie, Ahuriri Flat (Mr J. B. Nichol); Neil Gauld, Dunedin (Mr A. C. Stephens); and 'dward Alfred Oke Kempthofne, Waikouaiti (Mr C. J. Payne). Letters of administration were granted in the estate of Mary Ann Findlay, Dunedin (Mr P. Lemon).

Fifty years ago, on February 6, 1877, one of the biggest and most destructive floods that the people of the Taieri every witnessed took place. The result was great loss of stock and crops. The Outram railway, which was on the point of completion, was badly damaged, and the north end of the Taieri .bridge was so badly washed out that a new span had to be added. The embankment gave way near where the power station now is at Outram. Many of the houses in the township were flooded, and extensive damage was done. Since that date Outram has been immune from floods, and, with the recent strengthening of the banks, should remain so.

The reported discovery by an American expedition of an extraordinarily primitive race of pigmies in unexplored territory in New Guinea recalls the fact (reports our special correspondent in Auckland) that one of the first Europeans to penetrate the interior of that mysterious country and report the existence of pigmy races to the outside world was a resident of Auckland, Captain T. 0. Kerry, F.R.G.S., who recently returned to Auckland from a trip abroach- - He has been an explorer and navigator for 30 years of an eventful life, and was the first white man to discover the pigmies of New Guinea. That was in the seventies of. the last century. The revelations of the recent American expedition therefore cannot be accepted as entirely new, as much of the material gathered was collected 45 years ago by Captain Kerry during the 22 distinct expeditions he made into the mountain fastnesses of New Guinea. ...