PERSONALS

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 151033, 26 July 1919, Page 4

PERSONALS

' The Tutanekai, with the vice-regal • party, arrived at Wellington at 6.45; ; p.m. yesterday from Napier.—Press Association. Sir James Allen .has received a cable I from Mr Massey, at Honolulu, dated July 24th:—"Arrived safely; all well."— Press Association. At the Poultry Association's supper last evening Mr E. Cussen, who has acted as judge at the last three shows, was presented with a case of -pipes by Mr J. Hockey on behalf of a number of friends, as a mark of their esteem and .appreciation of the assistance and adrice they had received from him. Mr Tom Pollard arrived in Kelson from Blenheim <c.JterJay ffternoon, in order to ooafer with the Nelson \m 'teur Operatic Society with a view to producing the opera "Paul Jones." It is hoped'that this pretty and tuneful opera will be staged in the second week in December. The death occurred last week of Mr. Thomas Edward Hamerton, aged 78 years, senior partner and editor of the, "Inglewood Record," and formerly p prietor of the Patea "Mail." He leaves a family of four sons and four daughters.

Dr. Truby King, the authority on maternity and infant welfare, has accepted the invitation of the New South Wales Government to visit Sydney on his way from London to New Zealand. Dr. Truby King will arrive in Sydney in November.

Dr. A. B. Pearson, bacteriologist of the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, has been granted eight months' leave of absence on full pay, to enable him to visit Great Britain and revise his bacteriological knowledge in accordance with the latfest discoveries.

Mr. A. H. Court, one of the three directors of the firm of John Court, Ltd., who has been on active service, has returned to Auckland. Mr. Court is still suffering from the effects of the severe gassing he experienced almost at the end of the fighting on the Western front. Ho was-blind for nearly i week, and lost his voice for a considerably longer period.

Mr. J. W. Hardy, headmaster of the Caversham School, Dunedin, has been appointed an inspector of schools in the Auckland district. He has been acting in the south temporarily since Dr. Don's death.

There died at Auckland this week | an old identity, Major Andrew Burns, aged 81, well kno*wn in New Zealand! for the last 59 years. He arrived in; the Dominion by the ship Mermaid m\ 1850, and fought in the Maori war. He j was well known in the South Island! as manager and secretary of the Dunedin Hospital Board for thirty years, j The news has been received in \ Eltham of the death of Major Herbert | Bowen Hamlin, D.5.0., of the Austra-! lian 10th Light Horse. He died at ', Ismailia on May 30th of pericarditis, j He will be remembered (says the "Argus") as being in the office of Mr. Templer, surveyor. He was a fine lad, j and commanded general respect. Deep j sympathy will be felt in this district: for his widowed mother, whose only j son he was, and for his wife. News has been received at "VVhangarei of the death of the well-known llarawa chief, Ria Pohipi, of Kaitaia (reports the "Northern Advocate"). Ria, who was only about 48 years of age, had at three different times unsuccessfully contested the Northera Maori seat in Parliament. It is claimed that Private W. L. Bennett, son of Mrs. M. H. Bennett, of Wanganui, was the youngest New Zealand soldier to servo in the war. He enlisted at Christehureh on March 25th, 1915, at the age of 15 years 10 months, and sailed with the Fifth Reinforcements. He first came under fire in the Suvla Bay landing of August, 1915. He was wounded in the leg at Anncntieres on August sth, 1916, and received a bayonet wound in the thigh at Passchendaele. He returned to the front after a brief spell, and at Cambrai on September 27th, 1918, a high explosive shell blew away his bottom jaw and chin and half his tongue. He was for seven or eight months in hospital in England, and has isow returned to New Zealand in his filth year of service, but still in his "teens." He wears three Allied decorations, the Medaiile Militaire of France, the trench Croix de Guerre, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. The French honours were received at the hands of 1 resident Poincare, in the Boulevard de la Concorde. The Belgian Croix de Guerre was given to him by Kintr \\.\ bert while he was in hospital at Boulogne Private Bennett wears his medals, m accordance with the French tradition, and he is proudest of the little suver Medaiile Militaire, inscribed on the reverse "Faleur et Disci- ? !i ,ft, is the Freilch equivalent for the V.C., and as in the case of the V.L, every officer is called upon to Ml®. I** so m t]l° ease of the Medaiile Mihtaire, no French civilian will pass the wearer without uncovering. )