PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 38, 1 October 1914, Page 4

PERSONAL.

Sir Charles Johnston lias been elected Lord Mayor of London. Mr Moses Ward, one of the oldest pharmaceutical chemists in Australia, has just died at Hobart, aged 87 years. He is survived by a widow and eight children, one of whom is the wife of Commander Beresford, who is in charge of he Ausralian expeditionary force in New Guinea. Commissioner Richans, in charge of the Salvation Army -n New Zealand for the past two years, is to be transferred to Canada in November, in succession to Commissioner Rees, who was drowned in the Empress of Ireland wreck. A London correspondent, writing on August 20th, mentions among other New Zealanders at Home who bar® gone to the war, Dr. A. Dillon Gkrbery, of Stratford (who has gone ,on I service w ith the R.A.M-C ) i Rr- W. H. Johnton, R.A.M.C., late of Stratford, who has gone to the toni imrnt With General Hospital No. 1, which, is attached to the First Corps of the British Expeditionary Force; and Mr J. Shaw (New Plymouth), a medical student of London University, who had been passed by the War Office, and was awaiting instructions.

Colonel Marchand, the military rep-i-*sentative of France at Fashoda in the days of long ago, has been reinstated in the French Army, and has been gh en a command at the front v the French Minister for War. Colonel Marchand was placed on half-pay shortly after the settlement H the Fa-ffioda incident, hot on account of the incident itself (states an Australian writer), but because he allowed himself to be placed in the forefront of a reckless anti-Government campaign when he returned to France —a campaign, which, moreover, had a decided antiBritish tendency, being openly opposed to the principle of the Entente Cordiale. Ever since then the gallant colonel, whose bravery and military value have never been called into question, has alienated sympathy by his political activities. His reinstatement in the army is a sign that once more France is “une et indivisible.”

The late Hon. Thomas Fergus was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1851 j and arrived in New Zealand in 1870. Shortly afterwards he entered the Otago University to study engineering, and from 1872 to 1876 he served under the Provincial Government as engineer for the goldfields, with headquarters at Cromwell. In .partnership with Mr D. Henderson, he carried out a number of important public works, including the construction of the Mosgiel and On tram railway, New Plymouth waterworks, Patea railway, and the railway wharf at the Bluff. He also constructed railways in Tasmania and Victoria, and, returning to New Zealand, entered Parliament as a member for Wakatipu. He held office as Minister for Justice and Minister for Defence in the Atkinson Administration from 1887 to 1889, and thereafter as Minister for Public Works and Mines until 1891, when he resigned with-his colleagues.