PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 39, 14 February 1913, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Doctor Adeny, chairman of the Congregational Union, will shortly visit Australia. The New Zealand ladies, Miss T. D. Meek, 8.A., of the Thames High School, and Miss H. Smith, M.A., have been appointed to the staff of the Methodist Ladies’ College at Hawthorn, Victoria. Mr W. E. Hart, the Australian a.uitor, is to be the recipient of an illuminated address, gold souvenir, and a purse of sovereigns in recognition of the services he bad rendered to the of aviation in Australia. Mr G. M. Prendergast, leader of the Victorian State Labor Party, and the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, has been presented with £SOO, subscribed by the various unions affiliated with the Trades-hall. Mr Prendergast shortly leaves on a trip to England via Japan. The Bishop of Waipu will leave Gisborne in the middle of this month for an extended tour round the outskirts of hie diocese, and will travel on horseback up the East Coast into the Bayj of Plenty. The Bishop hopes to spend; Good Friday at Te Puke, and Easter at TaUranga. Three new Maori churches are to lie dedicated in the Bay of Plenty. Rotorua will be subsequently visited, and the Taupo district, and the Bishop expects* to be back in Napier about the middle of April.

The Rev. William Gittos, at eightythree years of age, has just laid down the duties of superintendent of Methodist Maori Missions. The New Zealand Times says that eulogistic references to his unselfish and valued labors* were made by the Rev. C. H. Garland in his speech at the Methodist gathering in the Wellington Town Hall on Wednesday night. Mr Garland declared his conviction that if the statesmen of thirty years ago were still alive to-day William Gittos would not be allowed to go into re tirement without some State recognition of what he had done. (Applause). There had been times when hostile

tribes all ready for war had quietly gone away at the gentle command of ./. the veteran missionary, while the settlers of the Waikato lived for years in security and peace because they knew that he was moving about and using his mana on their behalf. Over a long period of years ,and often amid much suffering, he had proved himself a true hero of the Church and the Dominion.

The Prince of Wales has attained to

manhood from the royal point of view, and he is beginning to enter into the

kingdom as heir to the Throne. Amongst other things, he has joined the Marlborough Club, like his father and his grandfather before him. He has become a clubman earlier than did King George or King Edward, but in his case, as in that of all royal personages, the coming of age is at 18, and not 21. The Prince has not yet entered the club (says the. London correspondent of the Melbourne Age), but when he does so he will be received theoretically in the same way as any other member. His royal rank falls automatically from his shoulders as he passes the stalwart and bright-ly-caparisoned commissionaire at the door, but it is an understood thing H ' that no one must speak to him unless he first addresses them. Needless to say, the Marlborough Club is probably the most exclusive in Europe. As an American said who tried to force open its doors by weight of gold: “It is easier to shove a sovereign through the eye of a needle than for an outsider to enter the Marlborough Club.”