Page 3 Advertisements Column 2

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 133, 15 June 1901, Page 3

Some people want to know why the Commandant of our Forces has made | such a lengthy stay in Australia, whilst there has been so much detail work to bo done with regard to the military part of our own preparations for the coming of the Duke and Duchess. The Cromwell Argus hears that litigation betweon Messrs A. and T. Burt and the Gentle Annie Company is imminent. The original contract was that the machinery should be put aboard at the site the dredge was built, but after the pontoons were launched the Meg and Annie Company gave the Gentle Annie Company notice to shift their pontoons, which were on the claim of the former company. The pontoons were accordingly shifted down to the Annie bridge, where the machinery was placed. Messrs A. and T. Burt now want .£4OO extra for putting on the machinery.

A lady writer in Melbourne says : « There is nothing about the Duchess of York of the stilted dignity always associated with Royalties on the stage and in novels of high life, written by sentimental footmeu or people of the kind. She is graceful and easy in her bearing, her habitual expression is pleasant, and her manners are exactly those of a middle-class gentle-woman who has native sense and no affectations. Under all circumstances, Her Highness gives the impression of being quietly confident, a characteristic anything but marked in the Duke. The Duchoss has the rare quality pf being, or appearing to be,' pleasantly interested in all things, and whether standing quietly under the gaze of thirty thousand eyes at the opening ceremony, or smilingly ac- ! cepting ■' a little gift from a trembling Mayoress, she seemed always to be charmed with the proceeding, and unaffectedly pleased. One Melbourne matron who has met her several times has described her in an eloquent sentence: “ She is one of those nice women to whom you can talk about baby."