People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19033, 31 March 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

Mr A. E. Smith Mistaken For Governor At Smith : Mr A. T. Donnelly's Long Tennis Set : A Racing And Sculling Combination : Some Centenarians.

THE KING AND QUEEN and Princess * Mary have added autographed sheets to the Golden Book of the Royal Horticul- 1 tural Society, writes our London correspondent. | His Majesty, when asked to select his j favourite flower, found difficulty in decid- s ing between his preference for carnations and gardenias, and accordingly a painting ( of these two flowers was made by Mr E. A- ] Bowles and was duly autographed by the 1 King. ' The Queen unhesitatingly selected roses, and for the same purpose a painting was 1 executed by Mr Frank Galsworthy. A picture of sweet peas was painted by ■ Sir Herbert Maxwell to represent Princess ] Mary’s choice, and all three paintings have j now been autographed and placed among the treasures of the society. W W 'J'O-DAY IN THE CHURCH of St. Clem- ! ent Danes the children of Danish descent will present oranges and lemons to children of London. This is in commemoration of an old custom related to the nursery rhyme, “Oranges and lemons, the bells of vSt. Clements . . ,” a tune that the bells still chime. The church, which stands on an island in the traffic between the Strand and Fleet Street, has part of its name from the fact that in a previous church upon that site a number of Danes were buried. The present structure is from designs by Wren and dates from 1681. A Roman bath which was discovered not far from the church is the property of the church clergy. 3? 3? M R A. E. SMITH, who has been a prominent figure in the motoring world in Christchurch for over a quarter of a century, and who was giving technical evidence in the Supreme Court yesterday, tells a good tale concerning himself. He was crossing the Atlantic a few years ago and radioed a hotel reservation at one of the big skyscrapers in New York. He arrived there and was given a wonderful reception. The manager met him and with profuse apologies, explained that he could not let him have a suite lower than the tenth floor. The suite was certainly luxurious. A few minutes after Mr Smith had taken occupation, a “bell-hop” arrived with hundreds of letters. “Your mail, sir,” he said. On looking at them, after he had got over his astonishment, Mr Smith found that he had been taken for Governor A 1 Smith, who happened to be aboard at the time and whose initials were the same as the New Zealander's. Explanations followed, but the change in the hotel manager’s attitude was remarkable. From servility, it rose to aloofness. The peculiar thing about the incident was that Mr Smith bears a striking resemblance to the ex-Governor of the State of New York.

£*HE DESPERATELY CLOSE finish in the Liverpool Grand National was disinctly unusual for a race of this descripion, in which there are a lot of fences to >e jumped and the distance is a long one. Sxciting finishes are not looked for in teeplechase meetings, although there have i >een a few cases in the New Zealand >rand National at least, in which the race las been won by a lengtn or two lengths, vith the three placed horses all under >ressure from the last fence. The race of 925 was a case in point, Tuki winning by wo lengths from Fireblight, who beat Erie >y a length. But there was a real thrill n the New Zealand Grand National of 1913, lercola, the Spaniard and Glenmore fightng out a desperate finish in that order, vith only heads between them. It is too early yet to think of Grand Naional prospects in New Zealand this year, rhe race has been won in the last two .'•ears by Wiltshire, owned by Mr T. Wilson, >f Waikato, and there is a definite possibilty that Wiltshire may be well fancied for ;he race again this year. The time recorded in a steeplechase has very little to do with the nature of the finsh. It is dependent rather on the state )f the course. If the Grand National meetng at Christchurch is preceded by a wet :pell the times generally are not as fast as f it is preceded by a mild or dry winter. m W JJR A. T. DONNELLY, Crown Solicitor for Canterbury, has had an unusual experience in tennis this year as far as long sets are concerned. In the final of a handicap singles at the United Club he played ! forty games in two j sets. The match was I started on one evening, j but the light failed i after the first set, -and ; the match was carried on unfinished to an- ; other evening. But de- ; spite an earlier start the light was again failing at the end of the set, which went to 12-10. The winner of the match, C. Macdonald, is regarded as a very promising player indeed, with a magnificent forehand. 3S? sj? jV£R SPENCER H. GOLLAN, who was mentioned as a winner of the Liverpool Grand National, with the New Zealand horse, Moifaa, won the New Zealand golf championship at Shirley very easily. He was not exactly a popular figure on the links, as he spent a great deal of time out of New Zealand and did not make a "clubable” man. His interest in rowing led to an association with Mr Tom Sullivan in England in some long rows on the River Thames. Regularly for several years in a double sculling boat they rowed right into the upper reaches of the Thames, making a record distance in a double sculling boat.

CABLEGRAM about Miss Gladys Grace, who crashed in an aeroplane from a height of 2000 feet and suffered nothing worse than a few cuts, records an event which must be almost unique in aviation history. The last fatal crash in the Dominion was from a height of much less than 2000 feet—it was more like 750. That was when Captain F. J. Horrell, of the Territorial Air Force, was killed at Papanui on March 17, 1926. He had two passengers with him at the time, Messrs T. L. Reid and P. A. Turner. Mr Reid died a few minutes after the crash, and Mr Turner received serious injuries,- from which he eventually recovered. There is ‘little hope for an airman who crashes if he is without a parachute. The machine attains a speed of about 150 miles 'an hour, depending on its height when it goes out of control. Even if the pilot jumped just before the point of impact, he would be travelling at about the same speed as the machine and would receive very severe injuries. In any case, it has been given as the opinion of Royal Air Force medical officers that in such circumstances, the pilot often loses consciousness. IiXRS ELIZABETH RORE, New Zealand’s oldest inhabitant, died at the age of 107 years. Not many people live longer than that, but in Cape Town recently, Josef Windovel, a 127-year-old Hottentot, married a third wife, aged forty-seven. One of the centenarian’s sons, who is more than eighty, attended the ceremony. There seems to be no doubt of Windovel’s age, as the Berlin Missionary Society has records which substantiate the claim. The Hottentot, at the age of six, was bought from slavery in Cape Colony for the price of a piece of meat by the De Jaeger family, of Hartebeesthoek, with whom he migrated to the Transvaal. e§jp PRISCILLA COUSINS is a centenarian who received a good deal of publicity in England on the occasion of her hundredth birthday. She wfts given 100 shillings and a birthday cake decorated with 100 candles. A newspaper paragraph led to a reunion with her son who is seventy-seven years old. Mother and son had not seen each other for thirty years and they had believed each other dead. 9 9 ® TOM SULLIVAN was at one time amateur champion of New Zealand, but he became a professional about 1890. He rowed in no races in Australia; but went to England, where he met Gollan. He became champion of England in 1893, and just missed being the first New Zealander ■ to win the -world’s sculling championship. I Spencer Gollan’s son, Dr L. Gollan, took up single sculling as an amateur. As a member of the Thames Rowing Club he took part in a large number of races in the Thames regattas, but he came out in 1914 and the war made a break in these events. When they were resumed again he seemed to have gone out of rowing.