PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XVII, 24 October 1903, Page 47

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

(From Our Special Correspondent.) September 11. The death at an advanced age is announced of Georgiana, Countess of Seafield, which occurred at Mayne House, near Elgin, last Monday. She was the daughter of the late Genera! Forestier Walker, and was married twice, first to the late Mr Vm. Stuart, of Aldenham Abbey, Herefordshire, and secondly in 1875 to the ninth Earl of Seafield. The latter had been twice a widower before espousing the late countess, whom he predeceased in 1888. The present Earl of Seafield (the 11th) is of course the step-grandson of the late countess, his father, Francis William, the 10th earl,

having been the only son of the 9th earl by his first wife, Caroline Louisa Evans, second daughter of Mr Eyre Evans, of Ashill Towers, Limerick. The 10th earl married in 1874 Miss Ann Trevor Corry Evans, daughter of Major Georgs Evans, and died in 1888.

Mr F. D’Arcy Hamilton, of Kawhia, who came to England for advice about his eyesight, has already benefited much from the treatment received. On the way over Mr Hamilton took malarial fever, but has since recovered. He is now arranging for a trip to Scotland, and will return to the colony about the end of the year.

Dr. James Brugh, of Otago, is Home with his wife. He intends walking the London hospitals and passing a British degree. He has already done post-gradu-ate work at Middlesex and University College Hospitals, and has passed the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Mr nnd Mrs Brugh intend returning by the Tongariro on October Ist.

During the week the following New Zealanders recorded their names in the visitors’ book at the Agent-General’s:—-From Wellington: Mr and Mrs W. H. Jackson, Miss H. M. Jackson, and Messrs P. J. Garvey and S. Grace. From Auckland: Rev. J. S. Smalley, Mr E. and Mrs Mary Owens, and Messrs T. W. M. Greenslade, William Jones, and William McCullough. From Christchurch: Mr T. H. Papps. From Paeroa: Mr Frederick C. Blyth. And from Timaru: Mr Ernest A. Westerman. The New Zealander, Mr A. F. Wilding, has been giving some exhibitions of his skill with the racquet at both Chichester and Brighton during the week. At the former place, in partnership with Mr Fellows, he won the Gentlemen’s Double Handicap from scratch, and in the Open Singles of the Sussex Championship Tournament at Hove he has reached the fourth and semi-final round. The prize at issue in this case is the Sussex Challenge Cup, emblematic of the championship of thet county.

Mr William M. Jones, of Auckland, who landed about a month ago, has been staying in Merionethshire for a fortnight with his relations. Mr Jones has been away about nineteen years in New Zealand, and was anxious to visit his birth-place in Wales and also look up his cousin, Mr William Jones, who is member for Carnarvon in Parliament. Before landing in England a fortniglnt was spent in “Gay Paree,” which city took his fancy very much. Mr Jones’ plans for the future include a run over to New York in a month’s time, returning to catch the first boat of the New Zealand Shipping Company sailing in November. At Capetown he will disembark, and go up country on a visit to all the battlefields of the Boer war. Altogether, Mr Jones will spread his trip over a year.

Owing to Mr Preston, the Immigration Commissioner for Canada, asserting that the Canadian butter sold in London was so inferior that he was obliged to purchase New Zealand butter for his own use, Mr Henderson, in the Dominion House of Commons, on Monday last,

denounced the statement as a libel on Canadian dairy products. Mr 3. A. Fisher. Minister of Agriculture and Statistics for Canada, has promised to go into the matter. From the “Manchester Guardian” I cull this picture of the Colonial Secretary in private life:— A couple of hundred yards from us are three -Igurcs on the lawn. One is a gardener at work, another is a lady looking on with interest, and the third is obviously her husband. He is in the light tweed suit of the country gentleman, he has a note-book and pencil in his hands, and as he gives the gardener directions he writes In his book. He half turns round, and we catch the single eye-glass. “My brother,” says Mr Arthur Chamberlain, quite simply, as we retire with out having been seen. “If people imagine that he is worrying all day and all night about fiscal controversy they are very much mistaken. He is laying out a new garden, and he throws himself heart and soul into it.”

General Sir John McNeill, V.C., who is at present entertaining a big shooting party in Argyllshire, has seen as much of our little wars as most men of bis time.

He entered the army fifty-three years ago, and fought through the Indian Mutiny, the Maori campaign, the Red River and Ashanti (1873-4) expeditions, being very severely wounded in the latter, and finally in the Egyptian (1882) and Soudan (1885) expeditions. He was a favourite witl) Queen Victoria, to whom he acted as equerry. He had, by the way, one bloodless campaign, namely, in 1886, during the Fenian troubles, when he commanded the Tipperary Flying Column. it was during the Maori War that Sir John, then a colonel, won the Victoria Cross, He and a trooper had been watching the enemy, when they were Suddenly attacked. They put spurs to their steeds, but that of the trooper fell, and threw its rider, whose death at the moment appeared certain. Colonel McNeill, however, rode back in the face of a withering fire, caught the horse, and helped the man to remount. By great good luck both the colonel and his trooper escaped from the ordeal scathless.

Sir Redvers Buller, on dit, is likely to be a candidate for Parliamentary honours, which recalls the fact that many famous military leaders have sat in the House of Commons.

Sir John Burgoyne defended from his place in the House of Commons the campaign in the War of the American Independence of the army in his command, which terminated in the surrender of Saratoga. Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna; Sir Ralph Abercromby, the father of the Speaker of the House of Commons, who fell in the Egyptian campaign in 1801; the Duke of Wellington, as Sir Arthur Wellesley, have all been members while in high military commands of the House of Commons.

Mr W. Weddel, who has recently returned from a round trip in South Africa, has not a very encouraging account to give of the present business position there. He found things extremely dull all round. The military authorities are “queering the pitch” of mercantile houses by selling at bankrupt stock prices the stores left over from the war, and labour for the mines is very scarce, in spite of the faet that the wages offered even are higher than those paid before the war. Mr Weddel attributes the objection of the Kaffirs to mine work to the high rate of mortality from pneumonia among those occupied in getting gold on the Rand. As a farming country Mr Weddel does not think South Africa will at all compare with Australia or New Zealand, except in a few favoured spots, and he thinks that for some years It will have to draw upon those colonies for meat and; dairy produce at any rate. la the matter of maize, wheat, and forage it may be independent in a year or two, but the prevalence in South Africa of cattle diseases will, Mr Weddel opines, give Australia and New Zealand a profitable market there for meat and dairy produce for a good many years. _

Paul Gauguin, the artist who recently died at Otaheite from leprosy, was the son of a Breton sea-captain and a halfbred Peruvian mother. From Uh brush have come many beautiful pictures of typical Breton scenery, and liis wqrk found so much favour in France that the "Gauguin” school sprang up. The artist grew tired of adulation And admiration, and drifted off to New Zealand, where I believe he dwe't fat 12 years, living chiefly among the Maoris. Afterwards he went to Otaheite. where ho did some of his best work, which was exhibited in different French salons.

Dr. James Brugh. of Otago, is Hopie with his wife. He intends walking the London hospitals and passing a British degree. He has already done post graduate work at Middlesex and University College Hospitals, and has pass ed the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Dr. and Mrs Brugh intend returning by the Tongariro on October 1.

Mr T. 11. Papps, of Christchurch, who has been Home the last three months on a combined business and pleasure trip, is at present on a visit to his sister, Mrs Linzey, at Trowbridge. During his stay over here he has managed to do Ireland and Scotland, and have a short visit to the . Little Smoke.” Mr I’apps is returning by the Oroya leaving to-mor-row, and is taking out with him his nephew, Mr Edgar Linzey. He expects to be in Christchurch, about the middle of November.

Mr Francis Gerard, son of Mr Gerard, of Lyttelton, made up his mind to return by the Ruapehu, which sailed yesterday. After six years of varied experience and wanderings in Canada, the United States and Scotland, fie is of opinion that “there is no place like home,” and intends to settle down near his people.