A Postponed Wedding.

Manawatu Herald, 30 August 1898, Page 2

A Postponed Wedding.

• The Duke of Manchester's sudden and unexpected departure for the Antipodes has caused a tremendous " talkee-talkee "in society. His Grace was just about to be married to Miss * Maud Wilson, and all the preparations for the wedding were in full swing. Now the ceremony is indefinitely postponed, and some good-natured people , even allege that the engagement has been ruptured. At Tandragee Castle in Ireland, where the newly-married couple were to have spent the autumn, there is loud lamentation. The Tandragee Castle people have had a lively time lately, and the Tandragee merchants have placed additional orders with their wholesale houses, and stood with open-mouthed expectancy, waiting for the great event of the coming of the young duke with his bride. The domestics at the castle had been hard at work on every square foot of the interior from the pantry to the newlyfitted billiard room. All this lively scene of activity and rejoicing has been transformed into one of desolation by the tick of the local ! telegraph instrument. A mandate ■ has come from the young duke |to stop all works immediately, with the further request to send on a

part of his outfit for a tour in New Zealand ! The young Duke is (according to one of the society papers, for the veracity of which I decline to vouch) very fond of being photographed which accounts tor a certain incident in the history of the Portadown Town Commissioners. These gentlemen held a piece of land from the Duke of Manchester, over which the landlord could have given them no little trouble and annoyance. The municipal wiseacres conceived the plan of gratifying the young Duke by having a group taken ..ith his Grace sitting in their midst as "one having authority." The bait was snapped at, and everything in connection with the trouble was smoothed over to their utmost satisfaction. The Duke is also known in Tandragee as something of a singer. Not long ago he sang with a very accomplished # young lady at a local concert in a village near Tandragee, called Gilford. The song was entitled ' Mulrooney's Dog, 1 and as an encore a French duet was rendered to the Irish nobility, gentry, and peasantry present