PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11, 18 March 1905, Page 43

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON.

(From Oar Special Correspondent.)

Z LONDON, January 27. 'About a dozen applicants have sent in their names to the Agent-General for the Chair of Physiology at Otago University, and the selection committee is now considering their qualifications. The candidates, I understand, show a high average of scholastic attainment.

. The International Postal Congress, Which was to have met in May, has been postponed at the instance of the Italian Government, and the new date has not yet been fixed. Sir Joseph Ward's projected trip to Europe will, therefore, in all probability be again deferred.

New Zealand papers are asked to reeord the death of Mrs Florence Frere at the Church House, Beyrout, Syria, on January Sth. Mrs Frere was the wife of the Venerable Archdeacon 11. C. Frere, and youngest daughter of the late Robert Gray, Bishop of Capetown and Metropolitan of South Africa.

Mr A. D. Henderson, who represented tho New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Association in Sydney and South Africa, is now in London as manager of the London office of the Association.

Mr E. G. Jellicoe, formerly of the New Zealand Bar, but now’ practising on the South Wales .Circuit, was on Tuesday evening unanimously adopted as the Liberal Candidate for the Walton Division of Liverpool at the General Election. In the course of a long speech to the members of the local Liberal organisation Mr Jellicoe said that the colonies eouid not, and would not, make a reduction of their tariffs in favour of English goods, and no one knew that better than Mr Chamberlain.

Callers at the Agency-General this week:—Mr-Lein. C. Hales, D.D.S. (Wellington), Mr V. Jensen (Wellington), Gunner W. Sanders (Christchurch), Mrs F. H. Suckling (Christchurch), Mr P. Parfitt (Wellington), Mr John Carter (Wellington), Mr F. P. Taiboys (Dunedin), Mr H. L. Lewis (Wellington), Mr Harry Wooldridge (Okato), Mr L. D. Dalton (Christchurch).

Ths New Zealand Shipping Company’s steamer Tongariro sailed from London on Thursday, and will leave Plymouth to-morrow (January 28) for New Zealand, via Capetown and Hobart, with the following passengers:—Mr and Mrs G. H. Briggs, Miss A. Dunean, Mr R. English, Mrs English and maid, Miss M. D. English, Miss W. E. English, Master H. R. English, Mr H. F. Fenn, Miss B. Haeon, Mr C. de C. Hamilton, Mr 8. B. Spaull, Mr C. F. Caddiek, Miss H. Cad* diek, Mrs F. J. Glendinning, Mr C- H. Hamilton, Mrs F. I. Lines, Mr E. Maliinsdn. Mb W. J. McClure, Mr 8. T- Napper, Mr C. A. Petts, Mrs A. Thomson, Mr H. B. Wackrill, and 73 third-class passengers.

Mr 8. Hetherington, of the Thames, and one of his daughters are returning to New Zealand this week by the Orient-liner ©rentes, after an extended Iroliday in the Old Country. Mr Hetherfngton’iJ other two -daughters are remaining behind, the one to take a course of nursing in the London Hospital, and the other (who is a B.A. of New Zealand University) to study for a Tripos at Girton College.

Signor Marconi has at length fallen a victim to Cupid’s dart. He is presently to marry the Hon. Beatrice O'Brien, one of the eight pretty sisters of the 15th Baron'lnchiquin, and a lady who can claim descent from the famous monarch Brian Boroilme, who was King of Ireland from 1002 till 1014, when he was slain at the head of his army at the battle of Clontarf. Brian’s grandson Turlogh, King of Munster, had four sons, whereof the third was the ancestor of the Barons Inchiquin. One of Tudlogh’s descendants, Connor O’Bryan, was King of Thomond at so comparatively recent a period as 1528, and it was his brother, Murrough, who usurped hiS kingship, and then surrendered to Henry VIII., who was made Earl of Thomond, and also given the Inchiquin barony. A century later the barony developed into an earldom, the fifth holder of which saw it converted into a marquessate, that of Thomond, which died, however, with the third holder while the other titles became dormant. It was Sir Lucius O’Brien, fifth baronet of an Irish creation 1686, in whose favour tho claim to ti>e Inchiquiu barony was made good a little over forty years ago; and his son was the father of Signor Marconi's bride.

Mr. V. Jensen, of Wellington, who is making a tour round the world, is in London at present, and expects to reach Wellington again at the end of March. He left that city early in March last year, visiting bn bis way Home Australia, Natal, the Transvaal, Portuguese, and German East Africa, and thence via Suez, Italy, Switzerland, and the Rhine to Ostend, where he took the mail-packet lor London. The trip to London had occupied five months. After spending a couple of weeks here Mr Jensen visited Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, returning via Kiel, Hamburg, and Berlin, a route which enabled him to see a good deal of industrial Central Germany. Then he toured Holland and Belgium, returning to London via Paris a week ago. Mr. Jensen remains here another week or two, and then sails from Liverpool for New York, returning by the San Francisco route to New Zealand —“bright, sunnv New Zealand,” he calls it, “free from the keen industrial w T ars of the Continent, free from strikes and revolutions, free from the starving thousands of the great cities of these foggy, wintry countries.” “I have seen in my travels,” added Mr. Jensen, ‘‘the treasures of rhe great museums and galleries of most of the leading cities in the Old World, I have seen their great churches, monuments, palaces, and castles, their rivers, and mountains, their armies and battleships, their vast trade and commerce. And I have also seen the poverty, degradation, and wretchedness of thousands of human beings in the slums and alleys of the great cities often within a stone’s throw of their splendid buildings. I have felt proud of the wonders of art and commerce, and miserable at the sight

of so much poverty and suffering, and I am happy to’think that althongh New Zealand may not • possess the great things of theee older countries, we are also free from the great misery prevalent here, and we can feel sure that we possess one of the finest countries in the world.”

There arrived in Liverpool last Monday a Yankee named George M. Schilling, who is reported to be a genuine “globe trotter,” having undertaken the absolutely impossible task of walking round the world. According to the “Liverpool Post,” the intrepid pedestrian, who is a fine, sturdily-built man, standing six feet, left New York in August, 1897, and, without any money in his poeket, he travelled thence through Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ulina, Asia Minor, Turkey, and other European countries. Naturally, he met with many strange adventures, some of them being of a highly exciting character, but he reached this country safely in November, landing at Gravesend. Mr. Schilling set out with the intention of encompassing the globe within seven years, but owing to a long Imprisonment by the Turks he has been unable to fulfil that condition, and, it is said, has lost a substantial wager in consequence. He is now, therefore, taking his lime in perambulating the United Kingdom, but he hopes to complete his tour by -May next. Mr. Schilling has already visited Brighton, Southampton, Bristol, and Birmingham, and at each of these towns the testimony as to his bona tides has been given by the chief magistrates. Strange to say, Mr. Schilling lias not favoured London with a visit, so far as we in the metropolis know. Perhaps tho perambulating Yankee has heard something concerning the scepticism of Londoners anent ‘round-the-.world-for-a-bet” travellers. In the last ten or twelve years we have entertained a good many of this variety of wayfarer, and, if the truth must be told, most of them have been proved arrant humbugs. Mr. Schilling may, of course, be an exception to the rule, but it would be interesting to know the nature of bls wager and with whom it was made; also how it came about that he found it necessary to ‘‘fool round” in the realms of Abdul the Shadow when alternative routes were open to him. Also it would be instructive to learn where and how Mr. Schilling found the money to pay for what musthave been, on his own shp-qing, somewhat frequent trips across the ocean. Likewise, I should like to know how it comes that “chief magistrates” of decent sized English cities have found themselves in a position to testify to the bona tides of a man they have never seen before, of whom they cannot possibly know anything, save what he chooses to tell them, and who has no earthly claim te their attention in their public capacity.