Pars About People

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 822, 29 September 1894, Page 3

Pars About People

L. J. Lohr has joined Charles Arnold. Firm will now be Lohr and Arnold. Lohr was a Fiji sugar-planter before he become a theatrical manager. He has made more ' sugar ' since then than fie ever made in Fiji. Mr T. Mackenzie said a few days since he was reminded that the ' unjust steward ' of the Bible, were he living now, would probably find congenial employment by the present Government, and would not have required to go outside to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness. Tarn Mackenzie and his friends have been there.

It is said that George Morpeth, formerly in Cruickshank, Miller and Co.'s ironmongery, took up an abandoned holding at Coolgardie with two young fellows from the Thames, and that after striking good gold, they sold out for £9,000. The former owners entered a civil action against them, but the Aucklanders won it. Captain O. T. Hearne's death will occasion regret to many friends. He was a good servant of the Education Board, and His percentage of passes was, on two occasions, the highest in the district. As an army captain, the deceased gentleman saw much active service, commencing with the troubles in Ireland in the sixties and subsequently in New Zealand. A few weeks ago, he was in Wellington for the benefit of his health, and carefully studied the system of technical education there. He was much opposed to it, believing that the results were small, and that a large expenditure was being incurred for the benefit of a favoured few.

Sir B. Richardson says that the Jewish Inspectors of meat reject as improproper food for their people 35 per cent, of oxen, 25 per cent of calves, and 25 per cent, of Bheep. The whole of this rejected sustenance finds its way into the Gentile ism.A good many yoars ago Richard Seddon, of Maqriland, was a member of a County Council in Westland. and the chairman, who didn't love Richard, used to rule him out of order almost every time he tried to say anything.- Now (says the Bulletin) Seddon is Premier, and the former chairman is a messenger attached to the House, and runs on little errands for his old enemy, and doesn't rule him oat of order any longer. Olive Schreiner, who is a capital talker, tells a wonderful story of a bright stone, which was one of the favourite playthings of herself and brothers and sisters. It was about the size of a walnut, and flashed in such an odd way they called it the ' candle-stone.' Not till she had quite grown up and the candle-stone had long been lost, did any of them realise that it was a diamond doubtless of immense value. The Kimberley mines were in the unknown future, but this stone must have been washed down somehow from there to the Karoo.

Maggie Moore, according to a Melbourne paper, is about to reappear at Melbourne Theatre Royal, in 'Little Jack Sheppard,' in which Maggie is to play 'Little Jack.' Fancy Maggie Moore playing little anything ! Dumas, the great novelist was interviewed once by an American reporter: ' Your father, then, Mr Dumas,' insinuated the man of brass, ' was a quadroon ?' ' Yes.' ' And your grandfather, pardon me, a negro.' ' Yes.' ' Yourgreat-grandfather then was — ' ' A monkey, Sir,' cried Dumas, roused past endurance. 'My pedigree begins where yours ends. Good day !' Poor old Maccabe, who was through Maoriland a few years ago, is once more 'on tour ' in England with ' Begone Dull Care.' This as the result of reverses. Frederick who mußt be 80, is said to be wonderfully young for- his age. But his comicalities strike the rising generation as slightly ' old-fashioned.'

Lane's idea of a communal settlement may be summed up in eight words : ' Let's all be equal, and I'll be boss.' ~ "When, he could no longer have that kind of equalityhe cleared out of New Australia. And so Harold Batgar has won a verdict (on appeal) against ma-in-law -for £25, Magistrate's Court costs, and £1 7s Od Appeal Court ditto. "Well done, Harold. This is better than hurdling. Harold seems to be making a business out of that - matrimonial affair of his. Mrs Caffyn, just now one of the literary lious, or lionesses, of London, thanks to her ' Yellow Aster,' which has brought her in bags of gold, is said to be at work on another thriller. By the way the colonial edition of ' A Yellow Aster ' was carefully expurgated. All the naughtiness was carefully left out. Sir Patrick Buckley, during the recent discussion over the Gaming Bill in the Legislative Council, said he had been astonished to find at one Maori racemeeting for which a totalisator permit had been issued, that the ' plate ' run for was half-a-crown — and two boxes of matches. But Sir Patrick ought to know that at some of these meetings the totalisator is of greater consequence even than the racehorses. Lady Augusta Boyle, while waiting for a friend whom she had driven to a residence in Wadestown, near Wellington, kindly took some little childien for a spin up and down the road. The favoured mites wear their Sunday best on week days now, and, according to Fair Play, will not speak to their former acquaintances, who are too common, don't-yer-know ! What, cads even at eight or nine. God help our young colonials. Parson Pascoe, of Christchurch, denounced McGregor's Divorce Bill from the Cathedral pulpit the other Sunday evening. He said in effect that if the law were altered so that women could obtain divorces from their husbands on the same ground as those for which husbands can get divorces from their wives it would leave the door open to the dissolution of half the marriages in Christchurch ! ! ! We are shocked. Seventh Day Adventist Daniells, speaking on ' Sunday observance ' at Sydney, said that one Robert Shannon, of Sydney, had been prosecuted for working on Sunday. Keeping any day holy was a matter of conscience with all. The State had no more right to interfere in matters of conscience than it had to step in and make all people undergo baptism by immersion, whether they believed in it or not. True, quite true. Hutchison, M.H.R., wants a clause introduced into the new Licensing Bill, prohibiting publicians from keeping billiard tables on their licensed premises. At the same time a Southern clergyman is advocating from the pulpit that there should be a billiard table in every private house. Yes, that is all right, but now are working men going to afford billiard tables at from £80 to £250 each. It is no use trying to abolish hotel attractions unless our reformers offer something to take their place. Mr William Cassidy, of Dunedin, recently got married and took his blushing bride on a honeymoon trip to Christchurch. But honeymooning is expensive work, and William ran short of money ere the blissful holiday was over. So, by way of raising the wind, he annexed R. Kent's bicycle and converted the same into coin of the realm. Which proceeding led to trouble, as R. Kent objected to contribute towards the expense of William's honeymoon, which came to an abrupt conclusion when the cat emerged from the bag. Lady Glasgow has made no secret of her indignation at the fact that in carrying her from Auckland to Wellington on her return from England, the Hinemoa had a small Government steam-launch from the Kaipara in tow. And small wonder. Just faney — Her Ladyship was again honouring the colony with her presence after seven months' absence, and instead of having a convoy of men-of-war to take her home in state, she and her friends had to put up with the Government steam-yacht, and, actually, to give a corner in it to some plebeian lighthouse-keepers and- their families, under transfer, not to mention that undignified trailing steam-launch. 'Tis said that Her Ladyship vented her righteous anger at ' the impertinence ' of the New Zealand Government in so treating her in no measured terms, and gave our colonial admiral a warm time on the trip down. What mattered it to this aristocratic dame that the Hinemoa had been taken off her regular work — of which there is enough to do in all conscience — for her accommodation, and was taking on the lighthouse folks somo hundreds of miles past their destination so as to hasten the reunion of the Government House family ? or that the steamer would have to spend two or three days in going back to land these people ? and all this purposely to do honour to and accommodate the Governor's wife?