LATE MR ADAM CAIRNS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 277, 2 December 1901, Page 1

LATE MR ADAM CAIRNS.

The Auckland Star has the following kindly reference to the late Mr Adam Cairns, a brother of Mr W. Cairns, of Gisborne :

A once very familiar and imposing figure disappears forever from our streetß / by the death of Mr Adam Cairns, one of the best-known and most popular bonifaces who ever lived in this city. How many acquaintances Cairns had it would be impossible to say. Travel whore you would—by steamer, coach, train, in Australia or New Zealand —you would assuredly meet a man who knew Cairns. Absolutely the handsomest man in Auckland, at all events, he was a landlord of a type seldom seen in this or any other colony, and rapidly disappearing from the country inns of the“ Old World. He took a personal interest in every guest, discovered his tastes and played up to them. By no means a coxcomb, he was yet conscious of the advantages his fine presence and aristocratic good looks gave him, . and used the most scrupulous care in exploiting the sarno by the addition of a perfect wardrobe. He was the best dressed man in the colony by a long way, and had a natural taste for quietness and good style in this respect, so that he was usually taken for some great iignitarv. His whole hearing bore out this idea, and those who have seen him waiting at the entrance of the Star Hotel on a mail da} - , cigar in mouth, frock-coated, top- hatted and patent-leather-booted, with the whitest of

spats, and the quietest of ties, and an entire absence of jewellery, could well sympathise with the several strangers who assumed him to be the Governor, as actually happened. . • • One of his hobbies was to entertain Crimean veterans on Balaclava Day, Exactly in i what capacity Cairns had been in the Crimea no one could ever possibly dis- | cover. It was on one of H.M. ships, one understood. Anyway, there was always a mighty spread on Balaclava Day, and after many bumpers had been pledged,

Vi Adam ” would, with sonorous eloquence, rouse the guests to frantic enthusiasm giving the toast of the dav- ,l rn Ql&mti!" »‘ V " ' me Heroes '' ' ot greater importance, . ot mgher social position, have lately died, but his good nature, his benevolence, and his kndness of heart will, perhaps, leave in certain circles as large a gap as any,