PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 74, 18 July 1914, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Mr Alexander, accountant of the Stratford branch of the Bank of New Zealand, returned home last night, Mr and Mr s A. W. Gillies left Hawere yesterday morning for the South, Island, where they will spend some weeks prior to leaving for a trip to the Old Country. Dr. C. M. Sheldon, author of "In His Steps," is expected to arrive in Sydney on July 27. After a brief stay he will go to Melbourne and Adelaide, and thence to New Zealand, where he is to conduct meetings in connection with the Young Men's Christian Association. His principal object is to study the effects of recent social and industrial legislation in "Australia and the Dominion. Mr 0. de W. Vaughbn, who for some years has been accountant at the Stratford branch of the Union Bank of Australia, has received notice of his transfer to New Plymouth, and leaves at once for his new quarters. Mr Vaughan has made very many friends in Stratford, by whom he will be greatly missed. His position at the local branch of the Bank is to be filled by Mr H.-Gordon Reeves, of Palmerston tforth.

The betrothal is announced of Prince Oskar, the 'German Emperor's fifth son, to Countess Ina Marie von Bassewitz, lady-in-waiting to the Empress. Countess Ina was born in Bristow, Meeklenberg-Sehwerin, on January 27, 1888. She is thus exactly six months older than her fiancee. It is semiofficially stated that the engagement was arranged after the Emperor had given his consent to the prince contracting a morganatic marriage. The countess's father is Premier of Mecklenburg. No announcement has yet been made regarding the date of the marriage. The marriage will be the first morganatic alliance with the House of Hohenzollern since the marriage of Princ* Albreeht, brother of Emperor William 1., to the Countess of Hohenau, in 1853. The Countess of Ba«sewitz has four brothers, one of whom is a lieutenant in a Cuirassier regiment. Another has just begun his career as a Prussian administrative official.

Mr W. L. Kennedy has forwarded to a local resident, under date New York, June Bth, a postcard giving a view of the Woolworth Building, and he writes as follows: "Here I am on the top of the highest building in the world, .thinking what a small speck New Zealand, is on the map of the world. I have had an interesting five weeks in New York and am off to England on Thursday (June 11th), when I hope to have a budget of news from New Zealand; and one thing I have found out so far—that we, are not half advertised. I hunted in vain for a paper from New Zealand in the great public libraries." The Woolworth Building, which Mr Kennedy speaks of, occupies a plot 152 ft by 197 feet on Broadway. It is 750 feet high, there being fifty-five stories. The foundation consists of caissons, nineteen feet in diameter simk to bedrock 110 to 130 feet below the ground. The total cost is estimated at about £3,000,000.