PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XVII, 25 April 1903, Page 1178

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

(From Our London Correspondent.) LONDON, March 6. Miss F. Irvine (Dunedin) played at a concert lately with the Junior Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music. Mrs Sievewright (Dunedin) is at present staying on the Riviera, on the South Coast of France. Mr Claude Shillitoe has come Home to see relatives and intends to take a run through Canada on his way back to New Zealand.

The Anglican Bishop of Wellington preaches this next Sunday at St. Stephen’s, Westbourne Grove, of which the Bishop-Designate of Auckland is at present vicar.

Miss Stoddart (Christchurch) has just gone to St. Ives, in Cornwall. I hear that some of her work has sold very satisfactorily lately.

Mr John Baillie (Wellington) is becoming quite a fashionable art-dealer at his gallery in Bayswater. His exhibition of drawings in black and white by Academicians and other well-known artists closed last Wednesday, and Mr Baillie is well pleased with the result.

The Board of Trinity College, London, has decided to despatch Mr Charles Edwards to conduct this year’s examination in practical musical subjects in New Zealand, and to give to Dr. Creser the task of putting Australian aspirants to musical honours through their fsi ings.

Mr and Mrs Addison J. Newbold, who came Home by the Oroya last year, have been staying with relations up at Darlington, in Yorkshire, hunting and golfing in the neighbourhood. They are now in town and intend staying here for the season, then go to Devonshire, then for a couple of months abroad, and back to London, where they intend to live for a time.

Last Sunday afternoon at her studio in St. John’s Wood, Miss Grace Joel (Dunedin) had eighteen pictures to show to her friends. She certainly excels in painting the nude, and it is not surprising that her mastery of the subtleties of flesh-tints was highly praised when she was working in Paris. A full-length portrait of a boy was perhaps the most attractive of her collection last Sunday, and Miss Joel has already been rewarded by a commission to paint the boy’s sister.

Amongst this week’s visitors at the oilices of the Agent-General have been Miss Dora Barron, from Caversham (Dunedin) and Miss Ella Adams (Blenheim), who are both staying in Leinster Square, Bayswater. Mr Arthur H. Adams also called; Mr Walter Hislop (Dunedin), Air Claude Shillitoe, and Mr Joshua Whiting (Paraparauma); Airs Smith, Air Claude Welsby, Miss Lettie Hassell (Timaru); Mr Kenneth Thomson (Gisborne); Air Bartteman of Dunedin; Air Wright (Alt. Somers), and Miss Napier Hitchings.

Airs Percy Ray (Auckland) is at present undergoing a course of treatment at Buxton, in Derbyshire, and intends to return to New Zealand in October. Mrs Ray came Home by the Medic •early a year ago to consult specialists, and until she settled down at the Buxton Hydropathic had been visiting friends and trying several health resorts. Since living at Buxton she has become strongc r and better, and hopes to be completely recovered before her voyage back to Auckland.

Dr. Arnold Izard (Wellington) sails on the 13th by the Shaw Saville s.s. Gothic. He has seen a good deal of the world since he left New Zealand. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was afterwards House Surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, under the famous surgeon Air Walsham. Last week he took his AI.B. degree at Cambridge, the thesis which he read on that occasion being “Appendicitis.”

It will be remembered that Dr. Arnold Izard served with the Rifle Brigade in

South Africa, and now wears the medal with two clasps.

Airs Sunderland, who lived at Gisborne for many years, and came Home to England in February, 1896, has settled down now in the west of London. Aliss Joan Sunderland is acting as one of the secretaries to the wellknown Miss Octavia Hill, who has taken up so keenly the problem of the housing of the poor, and works on the Committees of the Charity Organization Society, the Kyrle Society, and the National Trust for protecting places of history, interest and beauty. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have handed over the management and some of the small tenement houses on their London estates to Aliss Octavia Hill, so her lady secretaries, amongst other experiences, have to do rent-collecting in the slums. In spite of all such unpleasant tasks, Miss Sunderland may well be congratulated upon coming under such training and influence as that of Aliss Octavia Hill, and whatever career she may eventually adopt, her present experiences will be of life-long value.

The Agents-General for New South Wales and New Zealand were present at a dinner last week, got up to “push” the proposed Capetown Exhibition. The Duke of Argyll, who was in the chair, explained that the show was to be held, primarily, if not exclusively, for the benefit of British and colonial exhibitors. During the post prandial flow of verbosity, some very hot speeches were made against the “shipping-ring,” and one of the speakers accused Alessrs Donald Currie and Co. of bringing goods from New York to the Cape for 12/ a ton whilst charging British manufacturers up to 40/ a ton. The loud applause which followed the demand of another speaker that subsidised shipping companies should be made common carriers, showed what the majority present thought of “the ring.”

Chief Inspector Dinnie, who has accepted the position of Chief of Police for New Zealand, granted me a very brief interview at Scotland Yard the other day. He is a fine, healthy, firmlooking man, just the type for the work he has undertaken. In answer to enquiries as to his past experiences, Air Dinnie said that, for the present, his mouth was closed, as he was still in an official position here, and it would be against all rules and regulations for him to talk to the press. As soon as he is out of harness here, he promised, however, to call upon me, and no doubt we shall then be of mutual assistance to each other.

“Scotland Yard,” where I saw Air Dinnie, is no longer the mean little courtyard out of Whitehall of the old days—the site of that corner of the old palace where our forefathers used to keep troublesome Scotch kings in a sort of back yard. The present police headquarters is as fine a modern building as we have in all London, a huge place—with just the suggestion of a mediaeval Scottish stronghold—facing on to the river and not a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament. The architect was Norman Shaw, and his design is well worthy of the admiration it gets on all hands.

Air T. Al. Wilford, AI.H.R., and Airs Wilford reached Plymouth last Wednesday week by the Gothic, much depressed by the two cases of suicide that happened on the voyage. After landing they first went to Land’s End and saw Marconi’s wireless telegraph station at Poldhu. They had a talk with Marconi himself, and he expressed himself as being greatly interested in New Zealand. Then they came on to London by way of Bath. Air Wilford is amongst the many New Zealanders who have had to come Home to consult specialists. He has been making inquiries all round as to who is the best man to con. suit, and he says he cannot get two people to agree on that point. Dr. Sinclair Thompson being away, Air Wilford is going to see Dr. Henry Taylor next week. Both Air and Mrs Wilford say they feel the effects of our delightfully variegated climate very much, but ns this last winter has been one of the mildest we have suffered for years, they have something for which to be thankful. They wisely defer sight-see-ing until after the business of consulting doctors is over. Mr Henniker Hca-

ton, ALP., the post-office reformer, and Colonel Denny, M.P., have both shown them much kindness, and they have dined in the Members’ Diningroom at the House of Commons. If it turns out that any operation is necessary for Air Wilford’s throat, they will go down afterwards to the South of France as soon as the journey can be made with safety, meanwhile they remain at the Grand Hotel in Trafalgar Square. Mr Wilford’s last word to me had a true human touch in it, “I never knew how dear New Zealand was to me until I came to leave it.”

Alany New Zealanders will remember Air Hugh Frere, who first came out to farm there, and settled in Canterbury, near Kirwce. He then went down South, and was ordained by Bishop Neville, of Dunedin. Then he held a district on the Waitaki, and, later, came Home and took up church work in Palestine. Last year he was made an archdeacon, with jurisdiction over the whole of Palestine and Egypt. Some months ago he returned to Beirut, and appears to be having lively times of it there. The anarchy in that part of the Sultan of Turkey’s dominions seems to be about as bad as can well be imagined. Alurder and robberies take place every day, and the nominal governor of “Vali” and every official under him are utterly corrupt. Complaints are worse than useless; indeed, it is dangerous to make any. Even, Europeans are in danger. Archdeacon Frere was stopped and fired at some time ago whilst driving through Beirut,

but, as all his old friends know, he is about the last man in the world to know what fear means. He is just the man for the place—calm, determined, and absolutely fearless. The respect in which he is held by all the betterclass natives, Alohammedans, or Christians, is great; he is no hot-headed proselytising fanatic like many Christian emissaries which the West so rashly and foolishly keeps sending to the East. Of course, the present anarchy is disgraceful, and will have to be put an end to, but all the same, if all Christian teachers were as level-headed as our old New Zealand friend, Archdeacon Frere, Alacedonian agitations would soon cease to keep the whole of Europe in a quiver of apprehension. Speaking of that, it is exasperating to find that though the Powers have already intervened, we have the “Daily News” still making mischief by screaming out the most un-Christian lines that Alilton ever wrote, “Avenge, oh Lord, Thy slaughtered saints.” Archdeacon Frere, we have little doubt, could tell us some very ugly facts about those same “saints.” The Turk cannot govern, but we must give him his due, aud see what sort of people his “Christian” subjects too often are.