PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 44, 20 February 1913, Page 4

PERSONAL.

The Rev. Mr Reader returned to Stratford on Tuesday night from the Wellington Conference.

Messrs R. Masters and S. M. Porritt left by the mail train this morning for Wellington.

Cr. Rogers was yesterday re-appoin-ted representative of the Stratford 'County Council on the Egmont National Park Board.

Miss Sarah Leigh, of Tunbridge Wells,England, has bequeathed £3,700 for the persona] use of the General ot the Salvation Army.

The Rev. Mr Metson was a passenger by Wednesday’s mail train. Mr * Metson told a reporter this morning that Stratford was exceedingly for-

tunate in securing such an excellent preacher and popular man as the Rev. Mr Bandy.

Dr George Morrison’s mother and sister recently arrived in Peking on a visit to him and his young wife. This is the first time that the mother of the Political Adviser, to the President of the Chinese Republic has been in China,

Dr, Harrison remains in much the same critical condition, states a message received from Eltham just as we go to press. Dr. Paget, of Stratford, is in close attendance on him, but has arranged to be in Stratford for a time on Saturday next.

Mr Louis Becke, whose sudden death was reported from Sydney yesterday, was 64 years of age. He was born in New South Wales, and gained, while trading in the South Seas (18701803), the experience which he turned to good account in his stories of adventure, “By Reef and Palm,” “Pacific Tales,” “Brcachley Black Sheep,” etc.

Miss Elsie Jones, who is leaving Stratford to-morrow morning for Timaru, was the recipient of a presentation from the choir of Holy Trinity Church after the service on Sunday evening. The Rev. W. A. Butler, in making the presentation, conveyed to Mies Jones the good wishes of her associates in the choir for her future welfare.

The following appointments and transfers are announced in the Customs Department consequent on the deatli of Mr Elliot, late collector at Christchurch :—J. Wratt, collector at Invercargill, to be collector at Christchurch ; Collector Hawley at Timaru, to be collector at Invercargill; and W. Rose, Wellington, to be collector at Timaru; J. MacLawrin, landing surveyor at Christchurch, to act similarly at Wellington, and Mr Howarth, Greymouth, succeeds him; J. Herd, Auckland, to be collector at Greymouth.

Sir Isaac Pitman, who devised the well known system of shorthand, was an indefatigable worker. He left school and began his working life as clerk in a cloth factory at the age of 13, and thenceforward for the 71 years to his death he worked in a way that it is given to few men to work. He had no holiday till he was past the age of 50. When employed in the cloth factory, though the office hours were from C in the morning to 6 at night, he got up at 4 o’clock to read and study before he went to work, and also put in “an hour or two” at self-schooling in the evening. Through all the half-century of his active business life it was his practice to be at his desk by 6 o’clock in the morning, and for twenty years he made it a rule not to leave it till ten at night. The story is well knowdf of his voluntarily undertaking, not for pay, but for his own satisfaction, to verify all the marginal references, amounting to about half a million in number, in Bagster’s “Comprehensive” Bible, which he did in a couple of months or so less than three years. Earlier in life he had read and approximately assimilated the contents of Walker’s Dictionary. Regent Cigarettes are famed for their purity and quality, and are not injurious to inhalers. Your tobacconist stocks them. x