PERSONAL PARS.

West Coast Times, 19 February 1914, Page 2

PERSONAL PARS.

A cable message from Suva states that the Roman Catholic Association entertained by Mr. W. H. Redmond, the prominent Home Ruler. A Press Association message from Hobart states that Dean Stephen of Melbourne, has been elected Bishop of Tasmania in sucession to Dr. Mercer, resigned. Lord Rosebery, who recently underwent an operation, and has since been suffering noutoly front insomnia, is reported by a. London oahle message aa •* progressing favourably. n Mr Charles Roberts, Liberal M.P, for Lincoln, has been appointed as Undersecretary for India in place of the Hon K S. Montagu, who succeeds the Ht. Hon. C. F. C. Masterraan as Secretary to the Treasury, says a London cable message. Sir Ernest Rutherford, who is to attend the Science Congress in Australia, ■ will leave England with his wife ano family on July Ist for Australia. They will join the party which goes on to Now Zealand, and will spend two or three months in and about Christchurch. * The Rt. Hon. 11. C. MunrO-Ferguson, the new Governor-General of Australia, and the Hon Sydney Buxton, who in Mav will succeed Viscount Gladstone as Governor-General of South Africa, have been created Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. Geocc. A London cable message states that Mr. Munro- Ferguson declined a peerage. The following candidates have passim the Public Service Senior Examination held in January: M. Francis Duncan (Hokitika): Messrs Patrick Egan, Albert Elcock, William Roberts and Miss' Amy Tucker (Westport); and Messrs John Cairney anil Arthur McSbeny (Grey-mouth).

The Hon. NY. A. Holman (Premier of .New South Wales! arrived in Christchurch yesterday morning and was (accorded a civic reception by the Mayor and a largo gathering of c.tizens mchuling several M.P. s. Mr. Holman, in reply eaid great good would reset from the interchange of visits of pnbhc ' men. New Zealand as compared with ' Australia had all the essentials of solid ' and wholesome growth, which Was the ■ host prospect for the future. The peo- ‘ ule were not massed in one city as in ! New South NVales. Mr, Holman was entertained hy the Social-Democratic ? Party last night.

A Christchurch press message announces that Mr. B. M. NVilson general manager of the Department o Tourists and Health Resorts, arrived there from Wellington yesterday morning, and left for the South by the second express. Mr. NVilson informed a press representative that he was on J,is way to inspect the new Hermitage at Mt. Cook. Thence he would travel overland, by way of Copeland Pass, to the West Coast. He will go through Reettou and thence to the Marina Hot Springs, which he will inspect with the object of on the prospects of opening them up as a new attraction for tourists. Subsequently Jfr NVilson will proceed to Nelson and Wellington. A cable message from St. Petersburg announces that Maxim Gorky, the Russian realistic novelist, has sold the copyright of all his works for £20,000. Maxim Gorky, who is forty-five,years of age, was imprisoned as a political offender in 1905, and lias given the following thumb-nail and cryptic antoiifography to the world:-"!.. 1878 I was apprenticed to shoemaker; IH/fl. scullion on hoard a packet boat; 1883 I worked for a baker; 1884, 1 became « porter; 1885, baker; 1886, chorister in a troupe of strolling opera players' 1887, I sold apples in the streets; 1888, 1 attempted suicide; 1890, copyist in a lawyer's office; 1891. I crossed Russia on foot; 1892, 1 was a labourer in the workshops of the railway. In the same year 1 published my first siory.’’ .Mrs Sayles, wife of the late Air. Irving Saylos, who dropped dead in Christchurch a week ago, left for Sydney on Friday. Jit. Harry Thomas, stage door-keeper, at the Opera House, who came out to Australia in company with the late comedian, as a member of the Hicks-Sawver Minstrel Company, states that Sayles was one of the first piccaninny teams to be seen on the stage in America. . He camo out to Australia under the management of Chus. H. Hicks, in 1888, and on that oectfsion gave the first exhibitions of baseball in New Zealand. NVheu in Wellington tbe Warn played at the Basin Reserve, and Styles wa- the first pitcher seen in action in NVellington. Mr. Thomas says that Sayles must have been almut 48 years of age. H is rather a strange coincidence that three o {the original members of ths Hicks-Snwyer Minstrels have died in New Zealand. Jack Connor, one of the team of acrobats, who subsequently lived in Wellington, was tabon to the Hosptial one day and died within 48 hours. Little Dixie, the drummer, died suddenly in h.s room at Napier, andSayles dropped dead in the "street in Christchurch.