SAL A. HIS ARRIVAL IN KUMARA.

Kumara Times, Issue 2834, 31 October 1885, Page 2

SAL A. HIS ARRIVAL IN KUMARA.

Mr George Augustus Sala, author of " Twice Round the Clock," the writer of "Echoes of the Week" in the Illustrated London News, the iutimate friend of Dickens and Thackeray, and the famous leader-writer of the London Daily Telegraph, which boasts of the largest circulation in the world, arrived at noon from Hokitika, so that Kumara to-night would contain within its walls, if it had any, the most remarkable Englishman that has visited this part ot the world.

Mr Sala is looking exceedingly well ; and both he and Mrs Sala, who accompanies hitn, are eojoying their New Zealand tour immensely. Everywhere the brilliant journalist is lecturing to delighted audiences, which must be highly gratifying to his friends in all parts of the world, for George Augustus Sala is a most genial and pleasant gentleman, an altogether different sort of man from some of the special correspondents who have come to the Antipodes to lecture. The Wellington correspondent of the Australasian says : '• Talking about entertainments, George Augustus Sala has been here for uearly a week, and has met with unqualified success both socially and professionally. He gave three lectures to crammed houses, and immensely delighted all classes of his hearers. Otherwise, too, Sala had a good time of it. The Governor dined him, members of Parliament lunched him, the Wellington Club supped him, everybody welcomed him and did their best to spoil him. But his popularity grew daily, and when he went away the day before yesterday he left a host of friends behind, and no enemies. Well—only one enemy, if I may call him so. Wybert Reeve has just opened a comedy season at the Theatre Royal when Sala arrived; and, though the plays were excellent, Sala got the audiences. Wybert Reeve is a great favourite here, as he deserves to be, but the attraction to Sala's lecture was irresistible. His visit here has been a most agreeable episode in the social life of the place, and bis return will be looked forward to eagerly. The irrepressible Exhibition Committee have asked him to give two lectures under their roof, and if he does, the walls will not hold the people." To-night, as everybody knows, Mr Sala will give his famous lecture on " Russia," (a country which he knows as well as he does .Fleet street), in the Theatre Royal. It will be his only appearance in Kumara, for he lectures in Grey mouth on Monday.