Personal.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 22, 26 January 1914, Page 5

Personal.

Mr J. B. Campbell, stationmaster, resumed duty this morning after his annual holiday. Mr Bennett Burleigh, the wellknown war correspondent, is critically ill. Madame Bernard left for Wellington to-day to make arrangements for securing thepictures taken on Scott's Polar Qj expedition. The death of Sir David Gill, K.C.8., the noted astronomer, and organiser of numerous astronomical expeditions, j is reported from London. Mr J. Craigie, M.P. for Timaru, who is to propose "The Immortal Memory" at the Burns supper this evening, arrived in Stratford on Saturday even-, iug.

The Gazette announces the reappointment of the Hons. John Barr, of Christchurch, and John Thomas Paul, of Dunedin, to the Legislative Council, as from the 23rd instant—Press Association.

A son born to Prince Victor Napoleon is, the first direct Bonapartist •heir since the Prince Imperial (states a Brussels cablegram.) The event has been received with the greatest delight in Bonaparte circles.

Mr Forbes Robertson Avas farewelled from the stage at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, amid a storm of enthusiasm and innumerable floral and other tributes, states the cables.

Prince Philip of Hohenlohei-Schil-lingfurst, the Kaiser's kinsman, secretly married Henriette Gendra, an actress, daughter of a Viennese tradesman. The Prince intends asking the Bavarian Government to ennoble the bride, states a Berlin cablegram.

Ensign Gibbs, officer in command of the New Plymouth corps of the Salvation Army, has been selected as one of thirty representatives from New Zealand to attend the Salvation Army's International Congress, which takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in June. Witji the others, Ensign Gibbs will leave for England early in April, after the New Zealand Congress has concluded its session.

Mr J. S. Woolcott, of Brighton, one of the oldest residents of Australia (states a Melbourne cablegram) told an interviewer, that he acted as copy boy to Charles Dickens, and that he carried his manuscripts to Chapman Hall's wrapped in brown paper and loosely tied. On one occasion he undid the string and read the manuscripts. It was the scene between San Weller and his father, where Sam read his valentine. Woolcott came to Australia in. 1851. r . i

The death is announced from Sydney of Mr Daniel O'Connor, ex-Post-master-General. .. The Hon. Dan O'Connor was one of the-best known characters in Australia, especially in New South Wales. Of late years he fell on evil times, and became known in America and London. His arrival in that city with the manuscripts of his autobiography was wickedly alleged to have brought about the 'Frisco earthquake. He was later mixed up in a lawsuit in London in which a countess figured, and returned to Australia in the midst of it. He was a Minister of the Crown thirty years ago, and must be of considerable age, but it is a thing he did not reveal. Originally a pork butcher, he rose to be arbiter of State Education and art, to put up the notorious Sydney Post Office carvings, and to address Sarah Bernhardt officially in French—with a brogue which he never permitted to leave him, and was as much a part of his personality as the patriarchal snow-white beard which flowed to his waist, and his habit of kissing every attractive girl within reach when the railway stations were crowded on his Ministerial tours.

Mr Holman, Premier of New South "Wales, who has accepted the invitation of the Science Congress to visit New Zealand, is a self-made man in every way, and one of those who, when young, left his country for his own good and has done better than well in the land of his adoption. A young man—he is still in the thirties of his life—he has reached the highest post in the gift of his fellows. Succeeding to the Premiership by the force of his own will and the grace of the Labour Caucus, he has just been re-elected to that position by vox populi. A cabinetmaker by trade when in London, he saw the possibilities of self-education and public life when he landed in Sydney in his twentieth year. A course of re* porting on a country paper, some platform work, a political contest, a failure, yet another fight—and he has been in Parliament ever since. On entering Parliament, he still devoted himself to educating Holman, studied for the law, and passed his examinations brilliantly. He has not done much practice at the Bar, although in the very first flight amongst the orators of the Commonwealth. Tho political game quite absorbs him. His wife is also a journalist (states a contemporary), and on her return from England recently published a very interesting book on her travel impressions. .