Pars about PEOPLE.

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 815, 11 August 1894, Page 3

Pars about PEOPLE.

Mr George Dixon, secretary of the Auckland Rugby Union, has recently been appointed to the position of business manager of the Observer. Mr Holmes, general manager of the Bank of New Zealand, is reported by a Wellingfconpaper to be at present Home on leave. Very critical time for 'leave,' is it not ? Sylvester, the Fakir of Oolu, is showing the entranced lady illusion at Napier. He was recently in Auckland. Years ago Sylvester's father, the original 'Fakir,' made hataful of money with the entranced lady at^tbe London music-halls.

Rev. Father HaOjkett's removal to Te Aroha will be sincerely regretted in Auckland. He has been a sincere and earnest worker amongst the Roman Catholic people of this city, and the temperence and otner reform movements owe much to his devoted and unselfish labours. He was esteemed and loved not only by his own people, but by all with whom he came in contact — no ""matter what their religion might be. Knott (formerly a cutler in Greystreet, Auckland, now a professional Blue Ribbon lecturer) is thus referred to in the Mosgiel paper: — 'It may interest some of our readers if we mention that Knott, the temperance lecturer, is no relation of Knott, of the Railway hotel, although the two were acquainted in the Wairarapa in early days. A*s Knott is not related to Knott, and as the Knott who is the Knott is the Knott who knew Knott was not the Knott that Knott who thought Knott knew Knott thought was Knott, we trust this explanation will relieve any misapprehension that previously existed as to the relationship of the parties mentioned.

Gov. Hopetoun says he believes men were sent into the world to be happy. So he ought to, with his rent roll. It would not take nearly as much to convince U3. The 'we' of the Tapanui paper went and did it the other day. His first par in that day's issue ran: 'Pleasure hefore business — owing to pressure of matrimonial affairs, this office will be closed today.' Mr A. Vyvyan Hunt left for Wellington this week to take up the position of manager in that city for the N.Z. Observer and Fbee Lance. Itris perhaps not generally known in Auckland that the Obsebver has a branch office in Wellington. A London correspondent tells us that Patti just dotes on ' coster ' songs and in the privacy of her Welsh castle may often be heard warbling ' Knocked 'Em in the Old Kent Road,' and ' Daisy Bell.' We shall be hearing of 'Arry Rickards singing in oratorio next. His Worship the Mayor of "Invercargill has a short, sharp way of bringing refractory Councillors to their senses. He bundled an obstreperous member of the municipal team into the back-yard the other night, and after the bumptious one had ' peeled off ' he received a couple of 1 baclr-handers ' which caused him to see things in quite a new light.

Captain Russell was contrasting in the House the other night the appearance of city artisans with that of countryworkers who ' breathed the free air of Heaven.' "Whereupon the member for "Wangamii :'lt is all very -well for men who own square miles of country to speak of the free air of heaven, but it is irony on their part to advocate free air for others while they themselves fence off the people from both the land and the free air.' Reggie Clayton, the much-lamented partner of Auctioneer Wilson, did not go to the South Sea Islands after all. He is now in Sydney, where he fraternises with hisexamplars, W. L. Mitchell, D. F. Evans & Co. Reggie gave it out that he had come across to extend the business of the firm, as there ■was not scope enough for it in New Zealand, but when he was shown a picture and a paragraph concerning himself in the Obsebveb, he said : 'My troubles on the Obsekveb,' and, blushing like a schoogirl, changed the subject. We are glad to say, however, that Reggie is mistaken. Hia troubles are ' not on the Observer.'

Sir Henry Parkes says he was never a J.P. 'He never sank so low as that.' j Three famous violinists recently performed in Christchurch on the jsame I evening— Camilla Urso, Bessie Doyle, and i Mr Wallace. [ Thus W. W. Collins, one of the members for Christchurch : — ' I think it is a monstrous shame that in this civilised age man must wait until he is dead before he can occupy a section of land of his own.' ; A. W. Hogg, the member for Masterton, ridicules the idea of a University education. 'It won't give a roan brains' contemptuously says A.W.H., who certainly cannot boast of having had a University I training himself. But few who know him I will deny that he has ' brains.' When the detectives informed Mrs Needle that poison had been discovered in the bodies of her husband and children she said with a sneer: 'A few more of mv friends have died lately. Do you want their names ? Let me know. You might like to dig them up, perhaps ?' Dr Innes, who passed away at ; Napier the other day at the age of 39, died a martyr to duty. While suffering severely from influenza he went out visiting ' urgent cases ' when his own case was as urgent as any of them, and he ought to have been in bed. Result: Inflammation of the tunes ! and death. 5 ' E. A. Haggen, editor of the Woodville paper, lectured the other night at WoodviUe on his gaol experiences (he was imprisoned for libel) in aid of the funds of the local Presbyterian church. By the wav a lecture by Mephistopheles on his experiences in another— and a warmer— place would be deeply interesting. Buick on the O'Kegan: 'He is a born single-taxer, he lives a single-taxer he will die a single-taxer ; he has single-tax for breakfast, single-tax for dinner, and single-tax for tea; when awake he talks single-tax, when asleep single-tar is with him m dreamland.' Joseph Livesey, a well-known speaker and worker among the pioneers of the Temperance movement in England is dead. He has a son in the Auckland' provincial district, a youth of versatile talents, answering to the name of John. The father is credited with the creation of the word ' teetotal,' which was derived from his stuttering pronunciation of ' t-t-t-total abstinence.' Sir P. A. Buckley says there are few people who do not consider themselves entitled to 'Esquire ;' for his part he always addressed a man as an esquire because he looked upon one man as being as good as another. The Hon. C. C. .Bowen thereupon observed: 'Esquire means nothing in these days.' Right you are, Mr Bowen. Every counter-jumper is addressed as 'Esquire ' now. Many people who do not care about being mistaken for counterjumpers request that they may be neither 'esquired' nor 'mistered,' but just addressed as 'John Smith,' or 'Thomas Brown.' Mrs Maybrick, whose death sentence for poisoning her husband was commuted to imprisonment for life, is still strnggling for freedom. She possesses powerful friends who are untiring in their efforts to get the case re-opened once more with a view to the liberation of the alleged murderess. Arsenic it was that killed Maybrick, and last month no fewer than seven affidavits were filed by various witnesses, all declaring that Mrs Maybrick was a large eater of arsenic, the theory sought to be established being that the bottles of the deadly drug found in the Maybricks' house had been purchased by the lady for her own consumption. But how the arsenic got into Maybrick's soup (assuming Mrs Maybrick to be innocent) is still a mystery. Our friend the Wellington Evening Post possesses in its cashier, Mr P. C. M. Georgeson a gentleman whose equal in feats of penmanship we do not think can be found within the colony. He must have the eye of a hawk, nerves of steel, the patience j of Job and the industry of the ant. Some I time ago he wrote out with a steel pen and with no artificial aid to his optics upwards of 200 of the poems of JRobt. Burns, together with a memoir of the poet's life, upon a sheet of paper not very much bigger than a page of the Obsekver, and the writing was so microscopically small that it required the aid of a good magnifying glass to read it. The caligraphy too was a model of neatness, perfect alignment and literal accuracy. The same gentleman has turned out another work of the same kind. Within a frame measuring 27.? inches by 17 inches he has written a complete account of the life of the Irish poet Thos. Moore, the memorial presented to him in the Theatre Royal, Dublin, on the 15th September, 1838, and no less than 266 of his poems, songs, odes and epistles. These caligraphic productions are quite unique curiosities in their way and we trust for Mr Georgeson's sake they will take the fancy of some curio-hunter who will be prepared to give for them a price that will fittingly reward the scribe for his labour of love.