ENGAGEMENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 5, 31 January 1912, Page 7

ENGAGEMENTS.

INo notice of Engagements or Starstages can be inserted unless Signed by Our Own Correspondent or by some reeponsible verson with Full Name and {Address. r lJie engagement is announced of Miss M. Park (Wellington), niece of Mrs Deans (Riccarton, Christchurch), to Mr K. Murchison (Lake Coleridge).

which brought her life to an end at the age of 55. “John _Strange Winter" was born at York*in 1856, her father having been rector of St. Margaret’s in that .city. Mr. Palmer’s forebears had been in the Army for three generations, and he himself before his ordination had held a commission in the Royal Artillery. She began to write stories as a child, and later on served an apprenticeship to the “Family Herald,” to which paper, under the pen-name of “Violet Whyte,” she contributed forty-two novelettes in about eight years. Her own relatives did not know that she wrote at all until her marriage in 1884 to Mr. Arthur Stannard, a civil engineer. The publishers of her book, “Cavalry Life," persuaded her to take a man’s name, and she chose “John Strange Winter,” the name she had given to one of the characters in the story. Both this and her next book, “Regimental Legends," were well received, but it was not until “Booties’ Baby” appeared that she achieved a real popular success. This story, like many other famous works, was rejected by six or seven firms, and was put aside in despair. Mr. Stannard it was who sent it to the “Graphic,” which accepted It at once. Its success was immediate and lasting, and dramatised the story achieved the same sort of popularity as “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

Mrs. Stannard was a tremendous worker, and altogether wrote between ninety and a hundred novels of one sort, and another, besides contributing shortstories and articles by the thousand to popular periodicals. According to some estimates the total sales of her book exceeded four million copies. Most of her works sold well on publication, but none of them came anywhere near to attaining the celebrity of “Booties’ Baby,” - nor vied with it in length of life as a readily saleable book. Ruskin paid Mrs. Stannard the compliment of being the author "to whom we owe the most finished and faithful rendering ever yet given of the character of the British soldier." He was disappointed to discover that the writer was a woman. Ruskin wrote: “I had not the least thought of your being awoman. (I ought to have had, for, really, women do everytKing now that s best, and they know more about soldiers than soldiers know of themselves.) But it had never come into my head, and I m a little sorry that the good soldier T had fancied is lost to me, for T have many delightful women friends, but no cavalry officers.” In the last sentence is to be found, perhaps, the reason for the great man s compliment to Mrs. Stannard. LONDON LAND ROMANCE. A quarrel between the Lambeth Borough Council and the rector and churchwardens of old Lambeth Parish Church as to the proper destination of tho £Bl,OOO paid by the London County Council to acquire a plot of land known as Pedlars Acre, has brought to light some interesting facts, and a large amount of romance in connection with the ground whereon London’s new county hall is now being erected. Pedlars Acre, which forms less than a sixth of the riverside site purchased by the L.C.C. is to-day of a rental value of at- least £l,BOO per annum. Four hundred years ago—in 1504 to be precise—the land was then returning only 2/8 a year! This plot of land was left to Lambeth Parish some time in the 15th century, but it is not quite certain who the actual donor was, or under precisely what conditions he left it. Hence the quarrel between church and council. The Council contended that the estate was vested entirely in the Borough Council for civil purposes only, whilst the Church claimed that a proportion of the £Bl,OOO should be devoted to ecclesiastical purposes. The L.C.C. was no party to the litigation, having paid the money into Chancery and left the Borough Council and the Parish Church to fight over the sharing of it. On behalf of the Church some romantic legends concerning the bequest of tho estate were unearthed by record searchers. According to one story the pedlar who gave this land to the old Lambeth parish made it conditional on a representation of his dog being kept in one Of the church windows. This finds some support in the fact that a window in tho south side of tho church has on it a painting of a pedlar with a long staff and a pack, accompanied by a dog. Another tradition or record telle how

the pedlar feel asleep near Farthing Ferry, and while he slept his dog scratched up the turf and discovered buried treasure. Yet another declares that the pedlar named Smith took shelter from a storm under the wall of old Lambeth Church, on the very spot which afterwards sheltered Queen Mary and the “Young Pretender” in their Hight. The priest finding the pedlar under the wall, observed, “Thou art early for vespers, my son.” “I am not for vespers, father,” replied Smith, “I am for the road when rain threatens no longer." “Art thou an honest man?” inquired the priest. “Hast thou much custom? Does thou mete out true measure?” “Yes,” answered the pedlar. “I mete out good measure to my detriment. It is tramp, tramp, tramp, for but little gain." The priest after much persuasion, induced the pedlar to join in the evening service, and the story runs that years later, when Smith, then a prosperous tradesman, was about to die. he left his acre of land to the church, praying that God might prosper the land as lie had prospered him. The action between C hurch and Council ended in the Judge holding that the estate was vested in the borough council for civil purposes only, and directed that the income of the £Bl,OOO should be paid to the council for the relief of the general rate of the borough and not for ecclesiastical purposes.