AUSTRALIAN AND FOREIGN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5115, 24 November 1894, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN AND FOREIGN.

The history of Throstle, the winner of the St Leger, aeems (aaya the Yorkshire Post) like a romance. She ia by Petrarch, whose three year old career was a sensasational one, out of Thistle, the dam of that good horse, Common, and when she wao foaled she had- a film over her eyes which made her totally blind. Sh^e wag bred by Lord Alington, and when hia lordship was informed of her blindness he gave instructions that she should he destroyed. When he learnt that thesa instructions bad' not been carried out, he said the filly was to bo given away. She was actually offered as a gift in accordance with his directions, but the man to whom Bhe was given never went for her, and 80 she remained to become a trained racer, and to rob Lord Rosebery's horse of the "triple crown." Throstle continued blind for three months, and then she got her eight, and in due course was put into training.

Our London correspondent wrote on Sept. 29 as follows : — The current Pink 'Un contains, as might be expected, an interesting and sympathetic obituary notice of the redoubtable ".Shifter" from the pen ot" " Master." Mr Gorlett may well mourn his brilliant and erratic contributor. He and " Peter BioWbs" (Reginald Shirley Brooks) did more to give the popular sporting weekly its unique character than anyone else. Both are gone now, in fact of the original staff " Gubbinß/' the " Talepitcher," and "Master-" alone remain. After "Willie Goldberg took his B.A. at Oxford he entered tho Foreign Office, (but says Mr Corlett) routine work was hateful to him, and he quickly resigned in order to lead that Bohemian life whioh he loved. The manner in whioh he became a member of the staff of this paper was curious. We were walking, about fourteen years ago, with the late B. Shirley Brooks, near Leybourne, in Kent, and had lost our way. Presently we met a gentleman reading the Pink 'Un, who put us on the right path. The following week "Peter Blobbs " inserted a "notice to correspondents " to the effect that" if the little man with the long noße, reading the Pink 'Un, who guided two gentlemen to Aylsford Station, will call at this office he will be well treated." " Shifter, " aB he afterwards became known, called, and seemed to fit in so well to the inannerß of the place that he at once became a member of! the staff, and it is not too much to say that his sobriquet became known all over the Englißh-Bpeaking world. He was a genius of the most erratic character, and his pluck knew no bounds. Kib account

of a journey in a balloon was the finest and most graphic we ever read, and Mb " Office Boy a Diary" waa unique. No matter how big a man might be he would tackle him, and wherever there wag any danger he loved to be in it. He was one of the fonndera of the old Pelican Club, and was a patron of the Bcience of boxing until it degenerated. Two or three years ago he went out one winter's day in a lifeboat. He was very thinly clad for such a journey, and through streßß of circumstances the lifeboat, which had encountered haavy weather, waa out for thirty-six hours. This was too much for his frail physique, and he was landed nearly dead. From the exposure he experienced on that occasion he never fairly recovered, and the lung diEease set in to which he has now succumbed. The pen fell from his hand as he was writing the laßt diary of the " Office Boy," and hia last word was a farewell. There were in him the makings of a great man, as he was gifted to a degree, was a brilliant scholar, and a moat caustic and witty speaker, but without one atom of reverence. He could not endure discipline of any sort, and waa indeed a rover* We never knew from one week to another from which capital he would next write us. He was remarkable, as was his bosom friend, the late Shirley Brooks, becter known to this paper aa "Petar Blobbs/* for bis knowledge and worship of Charles Dickens and hia works. The characters drawn by the author they would fit in to men and women of every-day life, and apply them in a manner that was as complimentary to the genius of the author as it was to their own sense of perception, wit, and humour. On his death bed a friend read to him the " Bagman's Story " from "Pickwick." The look on his face showed the gratification ho experienced ; but to the last he was jealoua and critical, and in a whisper that the reader could only faintly hear, said : " Thanks, old man ; but you have not quite caught the right emphasis ?" Hia death leaves Mr Frank Lockwood, Q.C., without a rival as an authority on Dickens, the eons of the great novelist, of course, excepted. To us he was a warm friend, and he loved his work on the paper. . Sorrowfully we bid him farewell.