LONDON. (From the Dunedin 'Evening Star's London Correspondent.)

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1893, 4 May 1892, Page 5

LONDON. (From the Dunedin 'Evening Star's London Correspondent.)

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

London, March 18.

TO MEET LORD GLASGOW,

Mr Perceval, whose daring departures from the established routine and traditions of Colonial Government Offices have already shocked the eminently Conservative denizens of Victoria street, gave the latter fresh cause for talk yesterday. Opining that the New Zealanders at Home, as well as the Anglo-colonial merchants, bankers, etc., wonld like to see something of the new Viceroy, he invited them to meet Lord Glasgow at his chambers [i c., the Government offices) on Thursday. The affair was a great success in all respects. The AgentGeneral had the heavy furniture cleared out of the way and the chambers tastefully decorated with flowers, etc. The late Mr Dry's wonderful inlaid picture was on view in one of the rooms, and light refreshments in another. "I never thought the old offices could look so well," was the universal observation. About eighty gentlemen altogether looked in daring the afternoon and shook hands with His Excellency, whose first appearance as a viee -regal pump this, of course, was. He bore the handshaking heroically, and managed, judicioußly prompted by Mr Perceval, to say something pleasant to most of the guests. Hon. Edward Boyle accompanied his brother (Colonel "Pat Boyle," Lord Glasgow's private secretary), and Captain H. Blair, A.D.C., was also in attendance. The other Agents-Generals came to marvel and admire, and amongst interesting persons present I may mention Sir Julius Yogel (very infirm and aged), the veteran Mr S. W. Silver, Hon. Walter Johnston, Mr George Cowie (of the Colonial Bank of New Zealand), Mr W. Savill (of Shaw, Savill), Major-general Steward, Mr W. H. Levin, Mr Brodie Hoare (National Bank of New Zealand), Mr Prideaux Selby (Bank of Australasia), Mr Percy Russell, Mr Heinrich Von Haast, Mr J. S. Nathan, Mr Charles W. Recce, Lieutenant Findlay, R.N., Dr Gerald Harper, Mr C. R. Carter, Mr Leonard Harper, Mr F. Nelson (Nelson Brothers), Mr R. R. Hunt, Mr W. H. Tyser (of the Tyser line), Sir James Anderson, Mr O. R. Strickland (N.Z.S. Company), Mr J ; Alexander (Redfern, Alexander), Mr Dorcat (Dalgetty, Henderson, and Co.), Mr John Blackett, M.1.C.E., Mr H. M. Paul (Bank of New Zealand), Dr H. W. Maunsell, Mr J. S. O'Halloran (Colonial Institute), Mr R. H. Glyn (Glyn, Mills, Ourrie, and Co.), Mr Owen Jones, Mr Arthur Clayden, Mr A. Nathan, Captain Thomas Salt, Mr J. M'Cosh Clark, Mr John Robb, Mr James Ewen, Mr Patrick Campbell, Mr Charles Cooper, Mr L. Rolleston, Mr W. H. Preece, Mr G. E. Saintsbury, Mr John Tinline, Mr J. M. Saunders, and many others. There were no speeches, but plenty of conversation, in fact the company generally voted the reunion most enjoyable. Those who came ,for ten minutes stayed over an hour, and colonial subjects generally were exhaustively discussed. Lady Knutsford has issued invitations for one evening next week to all the leading colonists in London and their wives. This will be an At Home " to meet Lord and Lady Glasgow," and is intended to do for the countess and the feminine portion of the community what Mr Perceval has done for the male. THE LAST STATISTICS. The Agent-General has not failed to draw public attention to the last batch of statistics from New Zealand, the favorable character of which is creating a very good effect in the City. The ' Daily Oracle ' contained a long article the other day on the subject, quoting most comforting figures, and admitting frankly that Mr Ballance's fiscal policy does not seem to be injuring the colony in the manner predicted. ' A NEW FREEZING PROCESS. The newest thing in refrigerating machines, for either aboard ship or ashore, is the patent carbonic anhydride apparatus made by Messrs J. and E. Hall, Limited, of Dartford. This firm has already fitted up the Britannic and Germanic, of the White Star line, each of which will carry some 2,500 quarters of beef, and four vessels for the River Plate trade, carrying some 50,000 frozen sheep each. Messrs Hall have, I understand, received several big orders from New Zealand. The makers claim that their carbonic anhydride system is preferable to all others (what new invention isn't ?), for whilst being economic and efficient, this material has the advantage of being nonpoisonous, odorless, non-inflammable, and has no action on metals or any form of jointing. The result attained by this process is procured on one-fifth of the consumption of coal required by the dry-air system of refrigeration. BUTTER, ETC. During the past week there has been a slight shortage in the best class of New Zealand butter, but the lonic and the Duke of Fife, which are both due about Saturday, will remedy this state of affairs. Prices have ruled very good of late, and the beat claBS of factory butter has Bold readily at from 114s- to 1188. Good cbeesejias sold during the last week at 56s and 58s, but there is only a very slow demand for inferior qualities. In company with an expert I made a tour of several importers' depots' last Wednesday. We tasted cheeses innumerable, and my friend declared some of the New Zealand cheese to be equal to the finest Cheddar. In many cases the vicissitudes of the voyage had affected the cheeses to a Blight extent, the principal fault having been too great a degree of cold. Taken all round, however, we found a very even lot of stuff, and ample evidence of the tremendous strides your manufactures have made in the last two years. A GLASGOW OPINION. With regard to the shortage in good New Zealand butter, I may mention that Mr Arthur M'Kinnon, a Glasgow provision merchant of repute, came up to town specially to get a fresh stock of butter, but had to return with much less than he wanted. Mr M'Kinnon has some half dozen depots in Glasgow, and is agent for the " Anchor " brand (Mesßrs Reynolds and Co.). He has a very high opinion of New Zealand produce, and declares that the butter supplied him by the firm mentioned is quite equal to the finest Danish or the very best Irish. " Folks who deal with me," he said, " are beginning to insist on having the New Zealand article, and next season I expect to be able to sell six times as much a week as I am doing now." This, the candid opinion of a man who certainly knows what he is talking about, is, I think, mOBt satisfactory to everyone interested in the progress of the industry. With regard to the tinned meats and fish which have found their way from New Zealand to London, there is nothing very cheering to report. New Zealand packers cannot hope yet awhile to compete with the big American firms like Armours and Libbys, j but they will make better bid for public favor if they spend a little more money on the outside of their tins. An attractive label often goes a long way with the housewife, especially the young one. The male species is also very liable to the same influence. New Zealand honey, ticketed " Finost Ruapehu," is exposed for sale in several first-claBS City and West End emporiums. The prices demanded are 9d to 10d per lib glass jar, and doable that quantity can be

got for Is 4d or Is 6d. The manager of one City provision house told me that he had disposed of nearly 5001 bof New Zealand honey since he first commenced to sell it a year ago. What the morning papers call " a novel and interesting development of the frozen meat and dairy produce trade between Europe and New Zealand " has been furnished by the arrival in Liverpool of the steamer Duke of Buckingham with 33,800 carcasses mutton, 600 cases of preserved meat, 880 packages of butter, and 440 packages of cheese. The development of the trade in the North will be specially interesting to all New Zealandera, and to Sir Walter Bnller (amongst others) speoially, for he was the leading spirit in the much canvassed but ill-fated M'lver Company, which was intended to open up thia part of England to the food stuffs of New Zealand, NEW STEAMERS, The P. and O. Company's new steamer Himalaya will be a vessel of 7,000 tons, and able to carry no fewer than 413 saloon passengers. She has three double-ended and three single-ended boilers and twenty furnaces, which drive engines of 10,080 horsepower, and should enable the vessel to keep up an average of eighteen knots, or nearly twenty-one miles an hour. The saloons, library, music room, etc., are being decorated with beautiful carvings by Signor Carlo - Cambi, the famous Italian artist, from designs of Mr T. E. Callcutt, architect of the Imperial Institute, A special feature, both in thia ship and her sister — the new Australia — will be spray rooms, fitted with spray, douche, wave, and needle baths, for use in hot climates. The old Australia and Himalaya have been converted into sailing ships. The Fort Stuart which leaves for Australia in a few days is the largest sailing vessel afloat. She was built by the Sunderland Shipbuilding Company for Messrs Stuart and Douglas, of Liverpool, and is 2,312 tons register, 302 ft long, and 42ft broad. She has full poop, monkey, and forecastle, and deadweight capacity of 3,825 tons. Captain J. H. Vanstone is skipper. Whaling in Arctic seas having been overdone and whalebone growing more and more expensive every year, a company is being formed to scour Antarctic regions in search of the sprightly behemoth. Captain J. D. Gray, of Peterhead (a famous whaler), is promoter, and the Board consists of this expert, Rear-admiral Colomb, Mr K. S. Anderson, Captain Inglis, and Mr Edward Rosenwald. I was under the impression that there were already a good many New Zealand whalers at work in Southern waters. NEW ZEALAND MIDLAND RAILWAY. The secretary of the New Zealand Midland Railway Company has addressed the following letter to the trustees of the 5 per cent, first mortgage debentures of the company :—": — " lam instructed by my directors to hand you a cheque for LIO,OOO received from the Land Trust for the Springfield section, and also a cheque for L 5.000 from traffic and other sources, making sufficient for interest on debentures during the year 1892. lam also desired to inform you that before the close of the year 1892 my directors intend to transfer to you the following sums :— L25,000, LS.OOO, and Lll,ooo, being payments for sales of land, for which agreements are already made. These amounts more than provide interest for the year 1893. For the year 1894 provision can be made by the use of existing short period mortgages to the amount of L 46.000. Beyond this there will remain to be dealt with land of the estimated value of about L 120,000, which will be available for further interest or sinking fund, but by that time the income from traffics, royalties, sales of timber, rents, etc, should suffice to pay the debentures interest. The expenses of administration and theinterest on the ordinary shares can be provided during the period of three years from traffics, interests on balances, rents, interests on mortgages, and royalties on timber and coal. The completion of the east and west route will largely increase the traffic receipts of the railway." PERSONAL AND GENERAL. Dr Barry is one of the heroes of the hour at Oxford just now. To the surprise of many he was selected as Bampton lecturer for the year, and last Sunday commenced his series of discourses at St. Mary's. The sermon lasted an hour, and was listened to throughout with profound attention by a representative 'Varsity congregation, including many London visitors. The subject was the reconcilement of science and religion, and Bishop Barry took up a comparatively new standpoint. 'Tie already freely predicted that Dr Barry's Bampton lectures will rival in sensational interest those of Canon Gore of ' Lux Mundi ' celebrity. Lord Knutsford has just laid on the table of the House an important little Bill to persons owning property both in England and New Zealand. Up to now, when such folk died, it has been necessary for their executors to take out letters of administration both in England and the colonies. Henceforward letters taken out in any British colony will be recognised by the Home courts, and vice versa. Madame Melba is too true a lady to make capital, as Viscountess Dunlo did, out of her divorce suit. Sir Augustus Harris offered the prima donna L2OO a night to sing at Covent Garden this coming season ; but, fearing she would be the object of vulgar curiosity, she declined. Sir Charles Russell haa been duly briefed on behalf of the Duke of Orleans. Mr J. H. Every, who came Home in April last year, has booked for Christchurch by the Tainui, sailing in IMay. Mr Every is at present located in the neighborhood of Burton-on-Trent. The Rev. Frank Melville Jones has booked for Napier by the Massilia, but whether on a pleasure trip or to stay deponent knoweth not. Mr Jones was educated at Nelson College, and haß been curate of the Holy Trinity Church at Cheltenham. By the same boat Mr Thomson returns to Auckland. The Hon. W. Johnston, brother-in-law of the Agent-General, has arrived Home, and has joined his wife and family at Runnymede, near Egham. Mrs Perceval, by the* way, has not, I am sorry to say, been in the best of health lately. Lord Glasgow has been spending much of hiß time since the announcement of his appointment to New Zealand in inquiring into the frozen meat and dairy produce trades, in both of which he haß conceived a lively interest. In company with the AgentGeneral, Lord Glasgow visited the new frozen meat stores erected by Messrs Nelson, at Blackfriars, last week. I gave you a description of these stores some months back, and when they were only in a very incomplete state. Lord Glasgow saw them in completed form, and expressed himself much pleased with the enterprise displayed by Messrs Nelson. Mr H. Von Haast, who has been sampling the pleasures of life in England pretty thoroughly since hiß arrival Home last year, has decided to return to the colony by the next direct steamer. The late Mr Dry's picture, which was Ml view yesterday at the Agent-General's, ana which has recently been exhibited at the Agricultural Hall, is to be sent to the Chicago Exhibition. The late Earl of Denbigh, who died last week, was the pioneer peer in the matter of Australian land investment, and, like most pioneers, he did not profit so much by his enterprise as those who followed in his footsteps. He was at on time largely interested

in the development of Northern Queensland, but I believe his speculations in that quarter did not enrich him to any appreciable extent. The late Duke of Manchester, the late Earl of Carnarvon, and Lordß Rosebery, Brassey, and Winchelseamade very remunerative investments in Australia and New Zealand. Nor must one forget poor old Lord Sherbrooke (how long ago it seems since he was a political power), who, as Robert Lowe, forty years ago invested a few pounds in Sydney suburban blocks that are now covered with houses and returning him thousands.

Sir William Anderson Ogg, of the Anglocolonial firm of Prince and Ogg, has been elected a director of the English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered Bank in plaoe of Mr Hankey.

Mr Joseph Thomson, the well-known African traveller, whom some of your readers no doubt met when he was out in the colonies a few years back, lies in Edinburgh seriously ill. He had originally an iron constitution, and boasts (I think I told you once) that he is the only living man who ever took a bottle of brandy — amongst other medicines — to the heart of Afrida with him and brought it bach untouched. To realise the full force of this feat you require to understand what the stomachic agonies occasioned by the climate are.

A special colonial edition of Mr J. F. Hogan's ' Convict King ' is being despatched to Tasmania (for Australasian distribution) by to-day's New Zealand steamer.

Mrs Stanley's statement that the boys of Dunedin are the "sturdiest and rosiestcheeked children she had ever seen " is being quoted far and wide. The ' Star ' had a "par" on the subject, and the provincial weeklies have all copied it, some with comments, some without. It seems a trifle, yet I daresay will weigh down the scale with many a family man about to emigrate and doubtful which Australasian province to select.

The failure of Sir Thomas Elder's Australian exploring expedition is discussed in one or two of the Home papers this week. A scientific weekly says :—": — " From the little the colonial Press tells us, internal dissensions of the same sort that disgraced Stanley's rear guard appear to have rendered the whole of Sir T. Elder's outlay and public spirit abortive. The greatest possible care ought to be exercised in the selection of officers for exploration expeditions. The introduction of even one well-meaning but unsuitable maD, like, say, Major Barttelot, may, when troubles or sickness or differences of opinion arise, wreck all."

* The Times ' is concerned, as well it may be, at the inroads which the German steamship lines have in a few years made upon the Atlantic and Australian passenger trades, once wholly ours. Not much harm is done on the Australian side yet perhaps, but the German lines are steadily eating out the English on the Atlantic. "In 1891 the North German Lloyd's carried 738,668; Hamburg-American 525,900 ; giving a total of 1,264,568." The Cunard and White Star Companies apparently can't touch that.

By the steamer of the 25th inst. another Gaiety company, piloted by Walter Raynham, leaves for Australia. The impresario this time is George Musgrove, and the "stars" E, J. Lonnenand another "auld acquaintance," Marion Hood. Beauty will be represented by Katie Barry and Alice Lethbridge, and Terpsichore by Addie Cony era. E. H. Haslem, Robert Courtrudge, and Foster Courtenay (provincial celebrities) support Lonnen. The company will be further strengthened before starting. Mr Musgrove would like to secure Fanny Leslie, but Harris won't let her go, and Florence St. John's terms are too high. There is no truth as yet in the statement that Mr Musgrove has arranged with the one' and only Roberts — I don't mean Lord Roberts, but the comic atomy yclept " Awthur " — for a tour. "Our only comedian" would like to visit both America and Australia, but, whiht he can make so much money in London, scarcely feels justified in travelling. By the way, Mr E. J. Lonnen will, if not anticipated, introduce ' Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay' to Australian audiences. Miss Lottie Collins, I may mention, is actually to receive L6O a week for warbling this distracting ditty at the Gaiety ; whilst from the Tivoli and Pavilion she gets L 35 each.

The Rev. Charles Clark is at last beginning to make a bit of a name as a lecturer here. Lectures are really out of date in England. Only a notoriety draws, and even notorieties {vide Stanley) often fall flat in most unexpected places. This makes the fact of Ciark being able to crowd the Birbeck Institute last night distinctly remarkable. , Miss Alice Leamar, who goes out as principal girl of Musgrove's afore-mentioned No. 2 Gaiety company, is the elder of the " renowned sisters Leamar," who some nine or ten years ago were the joy of music hall masherdom. They first made a hit in a duet * Mind you inform your father,' which was sung to the tune of then popular 'My Queen ' waltz. This proved the ditty of its day, and raised the two very young and very pretty sisters at a bound to the front rank of serio-comic vocalists. Mr Harris engaged them for Drury Lane pantomime about '84 or '85, and they were in a fair way of earning a comfortable fortune when Nellie Leamar, the younger and more chic of the pair, married Lord Feversham's son and the Duchess of Leinster's brother, Captain Duncombe. The match proved as unfortunate as such mesalliances usually do, and ended not many months ago in the inevitable divorce, Nellie Leamar returned to the stage sometime back, and before the trial played in pantomime as the " Hon. Mrs Duncombe." When her sister married, Alice Leamar started singing by herself at the halls, and has done well, I should think, on the whole. She certainly scored last year with a burlesque sea song ' Susian-ian-ioh !' which hojd a taking chorus, and which I fully expect you'll soon make the acquaintance of. Miss Leamar, I am told (I don't know it) is married, and a very respectable person. Ten years' hard work has no doubt rubbed off an indescribable youthful charm she once had, and which really made her and her Bister the vogue. In its place, however, we get artistic experience, which is a good exchange.