PERSONAL NOTES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1095, 8 November 1883, Page 2

PERSONAL NOTES.

Archibald Forbes arrived Home about a month ago, and is now busily engaged preparing a series of lectures on his Antipodean experiences. One lecture will be wholly devoted to New Zealand. Miss Alice Dunning, the lady known throughout Australia and New Zealand as “ Mrs Lingard,” only became legally entitled to that c ignomen on August 11, when she was privately wedded to William Needham alias William Horace Lingard at Trinity Church, Gray’s Inn. The marriage was prominently announced in all the theatricil papers, and caused considerable gibing. The Referee says “ it is to be hoped the young and interesting couple studied the eternal fitness of things, and spent at least a part of the honeymoon ‘ on the beaph at Brighton. ’ ” The Rev. John Aldis, cf Westbury,

Wilts, father of Professor Steadman Aldis, the newly appointed Principal of Auckland University, was the perceptor who gaae the Right Hon. John Bright his first practical lessons in oratory. Mr Bright acknowledged the obligation in one of his reoonc speeches. Mr Clarence Holt, father of the Melbourne manager, Bland Holt, and himself a well-known actor in our part of the world, has just been the hero of a domestic drama in real life Some six weeks ago he met with an accident in his theatre, and was conveyed to the neighboring Angel Hotel. There he was tended most assiduously by the principal chambermaid, and an attachment sprang up between them, with the result that the. other day Mr Holt led his nurse to the altar of the parish church of Merrie Islington and made her his “ till death do them part. ” Mr Holt is not exactly a “ chicken’’ and some of his relatives (more.especially

a charming creature till recently known as “ Mrs ” Holt) are much incensed, and talk angrily of “ undue influence,” etc. The happy couple have, however, gone to Margate for their honeymoon, and seem from all accounts to get on amazingly well together. Mr R. T. Booth, leader of the Blue Ribbon movement, has decided to visit New Zealand on a proselytising tour. He will be accompanied by Mr T. W. Glover,

Southampton agent of the United Kmgdoiq Alliance, and must not be confounded with the Booths of Salvation

Army notoriety, whose style of working he strongly disapproves. Mr Frederick Young, honorary ifecretary of the Colonial Institute, read a paper on the “ Political relations of Mother Countries and Colonies ” at the Amsterdam Exhibition the day bpfore yesterday (Sep. 19). Mr George Yesey Stewart took advantage of a paragraph in the Standard stating that the kea did great damage in the Lake districts of New Zealand, to write and point out that the southern and not the northern (or hot) Lakes were meant. Ho also “joboed” in a neat little reference to the Rotorua railway, of which,

by the way, nothing seams to have been heard in finmcial circles as yet. Mr G. G. Stead’s Splendor did not run for the Doncaster St. Leger, which seems rather a pity, for in his best form the New Z aa^an d owned colt would have nearly won. At Newmarket, in the spripg, Splendor mat Osaian at even weights, and beat him by a length and a half; last Wednesday Osaian won the Leger by three lengths. The jacket of Mr W. A. Long (the Antipodean turfite) is becoming quite familiar to regular race-goers in itngland. His colt, Condar, was one of the four that ran for the time-honoured Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, and Tonans is sudposed by good judges to have a chance of winning the Cesarewitch second only ?o Corrie Roys.