AFTER THIRTY YEARS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3820, 19 July 1928, Page 2

AFTER THIRTY YEARS

RECOGNITION OF A FACE

TWO' INTERESTING MEETINGS,

Apparently thirty strenuous years have not left much mark upon the Governor - General of Australia, Lord Stonehaven. Miss Nora Donavan, a patient at Weeniala Home tor Incurables, at Ryde, says the Sydney Morning Herald, recognised him immediately she saw him recently, first time since 1895, or thereabouts. Then she was on the staff of Sir Robert Due, Governor of New South Wales. Lord Stonehaven was delighted to find someone else who remembered those far days. Lord Stonehaven was visiting informally, the Home for Incurables and learning how an institution, which exists only upon public subscription, manages to find the £IO,OOO, its expenses demand each year. Scarcely less interesting than this information was his encounter with Mr J. H. Ricketts, aged 99, an old journalist, who knew Charles Dickens intimately, and accompanied him on many of his lecturing tours. “I’m an older man than you,” said Mr Ricketts proudly. The two branches of the home were inspected. Moorong, where people afflicted with cancer live out their time with all the comfort that ingenuity and solicitude can devise; and Weeniala, refuge of those who can scarcely hope to recover from their maladies.

The home has grown from a single room in Redfern, where a blind lady, Miss Shard, started the work. In the 23 years since then Miss Shard has collected £30,000, and to-day the institution has room for 120 people. The cost of maintaining the cancer home, where 30 patients live at the moment, is about £125 per head, and the expenses for the other branch are about £ls per head less. The institution is not exactly buried in gold. It finds that many collectors have to work very hard for the £IO,OOO it requires every year, and that does not leave much room for extension.