SYDNEY ROMANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 33

SYDNEY ROMANCE.

A VETERAN POLITICAN. TO MARRY MISS PRISCILLA VERNE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 12. Ihe engagement is announced of Miss Priscilla Verne who, a few years ago, was one of the best-known vaudeville artists on th? New Zealand stage. Her prospective bridegroom is one of the best-knowV politicians in New South Wales. Mr Gear-e Black, aged 74 years. It is stated that an intriguing romance is associated wivh the meeting, courtship and engagement of this couple. Mr Black, a member of the Legislat-ve Council in New South Wales, was one of the founders of the Australian Labour Part, and as with so many other founders is regarded by them as a “ back number ’ lie was a tower of strength to Labour at its dawn, and in those davs was a forceful writer in the Bulletin, then much more reactionarv and democratic than it is to-day. He entered Parliament 37 years ago, and sat in the State Assembly until 1893. when he was defeated. Re-elected in 1910, he became Chief Secretar v in the Holman Cabinet and, bv virtue of his position, guardian of the public morals as Chief Film Cenor.

Miss Verne is an Australian and first camo into prominence with a conipany headed by Charles Hugo. Later she went to America, where she was highly successful in vaudeville and she achieved stardom in a pantomime production, “ The Land of Nod.” She returned to Australia about 15 years ago and toured the Fuller circuit over and over again with Ted Armstrong as her partner. For some time now Miss Verne has been settled in Sydney and latterly has been in one of the costumes sales departments of the big drapery firm of David Jones. Of undoubted ‘ stage ability, she has always been admired bv her friends for the fine business sense shown by her, and her long pursuit of the stage was not because of the limelight it, brought her, but because it assured her a comfortable livelihood. She is as bright and as humorous in speech as ever she was, and is not averse to a joke about her own age. People, she said, nad extravagant ideas about her age. . Some seemed to think that she was a vision of the past. But they forget when they recalled having seen her years and vears ago, that she started on the stage when she was a mere girl. “ No.” he added. “ I am not nearly as old as people think.”