MR PROCTOR’S FAREWELL.

Patea Mail, 9 December 1880, Page 3

MR PROCTOR’S FAREWELL.

In a letter to the N.Z. Times , Mill. A. Proctor, the astronomer, says he is tired of public lecturing and the irksomeness of continual travel. Ho bad intended visiting parts of this colony again, whore bis reception bad been exceptionally cordial, but has suddenly changed bis plans. He says :— t; I find that two feelings—home sickness and a sense (which has always been strong with me) of the irksomeness of lecturing —grow so much upon me that I am at last compelled to assign an early date for the close of my lecture work. I have decided to lot the course of lectures I am to give at Auckland (ending December 24th) conclude not only my colonial lectures, but my lecturing career. This will have lasted eleven years, during which time I shall have given 1,123 lectures in all, 501 out of Great Britain, and of these 11G in Australia. In saying I have received as kindly a greeting in Australasia as in America, I should have thought three mouths ago I was saying all that could bo said, for I can hardly express my sense of the kindness and general warmth of my reception in the United States and Canada. But New Zealand lias certainly gone a little ahead (she could not possibly have gone far ahead) even of America, Australia, and Tasmania in this respect. I shall always retain the warmest recollection of the kindness of my welcome in this colony.”