Personal,

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 532, 2 March 1889, Page 11

Personal,

—The 'Braid's own Archibald Forbes has gone to the front ! — Jay Gold — we mean Gould— is worth 55 millions sterling. —Mrs Hutchinson will shortly leave us. We can ill spare her. — Mr Herbert Maxwell Bradbury is en- i treated to return home to his Ma. — Ask that telegraph operator whether Sir Fred. Whitaker keeps a dog ? — The only genuine and original Sir Eoger is appearing at a Southampton music-hall. —Mr G. B. Lilly, late editor of the Auck- ) and Mouse is now proprietor and editor of the Queanbeyan (N.S.W.) Times. — ' Strike me greasy !' was the refined exclamation of one lady-like young thing at the butchers' picnic the other day. — Mr Wife Poisoner Hall has learned a trade since he was sent to chokee. He is now the smartest mason in Mount Eden gaol. — Our Thames correspondent's letter in last issue re Sullivan, the ' brother of the renowned J . L.,' created a bit of a sensation. — A well-known Auckland masher has just taken unto himself a wife. ' Query ' : Will marriage be a failure or a success in this case 'i —Mr B. B. Williams, of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, is studying for the bar, and if successful will settle down in Sydney. Already he has taken his B.A. degree, and is now working for the L.L.B. — A baby was born the other day during the passage from Flushing to Queensboro. On arrival at the latter place the mamma had to make a statutory declaration that the little one was not of German manufacture. — Two 'JSrald fellows went for a yachting cruise down the harbour the other day. They went to Hunt for the Watchman, and although one of them had a good Head they ran slap into the island before they knew what they were about. — A newly- married man residing somewhere in the vicinity of Wairanga is reported to have tied his briae to the bed and to have kept her in that uncomfortable position while he was away from home. That was only for the first day or two however. He is getting better now. — Fergus Hume, of 'Hansom Cab' fame, served his articles with Sieve wright and Stout, solicitors of JDunedin, and duly passed his exam, as barrister and solicitor. His new play ' Indiscretion ' was produced with only moderate success by amateurs at Folkestone the other day. — The Rev. John Paxton, writing to the New York Herald, considers that it is idle to suppose we are to wave palm-trees to aii eternity in heaven. The Key. Dr. Talmage, possessed of later and fuller intelligence, writes ; ' Heaven is always improving, and is altogether a different place to what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago.' How the dickens the Eev. gentleman Unows is what gets us. — It is rumoured that Gladstone is going to introduce a .bill to bring about a revision ot the law affecting divorce. He desires to place husband and wife on an equal footing, by making unfaithfulness in the husband a ground for divorce at the hands of the wite. At present the wife has to prove the further offence of cruelty before she can get the knot severed. — A well-known Prohibitionist was discussing the defeat of his party afc Ponsonby with certain equally well-known Moderates last week. The latter banteringly told the cold water cure man that Prohibition would never win the day. He replied that it would if he had his way. ' So long as you put up Sir William Fox,' he was told, ' you will never have your way.' Perhaps this is beginning to dawn on the minds of the more intelligent teetotallers. —Melbourne Punch says that a brother of the well-known novelist, B. L. Farjeon, is in Melbourne in very straitened circumstances, and follows the occupation of a notepaper-pen-and-pencil merchant, hawking his goods irom door to door in the suburbs. He varies the monotony of his life by supering at theatres. At one time he held a very fair position on the stage in JNew Zealand. His stage name, by the way, is J Howe. — The juvenile thieves who were birched at the lock-up on Monday richly deserved their 1 switching,' but what of the man who sold them that horse 't The Star reports Mr (Jooper to have told the Bench that the animal was not worth a shilling. It had a petrified back, was entirely useless, and it submitted to auction would not draw a single bid. Ana yet the enterprising bimpson got one pound sterling out of those boys, the youngest of whom was under seven years of age. —We have been interviewed by Capt. Farquhar, the popular skipper of the ' Clansman,' in reference to a • personal ' in last week's issue wherein it was stated that ' Billy ' Farquhar was engaged in loading mud barges in Sydney. Capt. Farquhar, Mr William Farquhar 'stather, informs us that the statement is utterly without foundation, his son being the holder of a responsible position in the Sydney Government Survey Office, and at present btationed on the Maclean Kiver. \V c take the earliest possible opportunity ot expressing our regret at the appearance of the paragraph. The ittsm was furnished to us from what we were led to believe was a reliable source. Even had the statement been true, however, we fail to see that any disgrace need have attached to Mr Jb'arquhar junr. Fellows of good position are frequtntly compelled to tackle manual work m the colonies, aud when, instead of loafing, they pull off their coats and go in for ' hard graft' they prove they are made of the right stuff. We are pleased, however, to learn that Mr Farquhar has never had to do this.