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 mahana, were blown up in 1886; but the district, whose natural facilities for cooking are applied by the Maories to their potatoes as well as by the invalid to his lumbago, has been proclaimed a National Park.

Society, of course, radiates from Government House, Wellington, where resides his Excellency the Governor, the Earl of Ranfurly, K.C.M.G. New Zealand has of late years been particularly fortunate in its Governors. Lord Glasgow, who preceded the Earl of Ranfurly, was esteemed by all classes of society for his kindly and unassuming manner, and his genial yet dignified bearing. It was no easy task to follow such an one in the Governorship of the colony. But the Earl of Ranfurly is already displaying qualities which cannot fail to make him popular; and his hospitality is of the most generous description.

Next in importance to the Governor is the Premier, the Right Hon. R. J. Seddon, LL.D,, P.C. (to give him his full title; "Digger Dick" he used to be called in his gold-mining days on the West Coast): a man who forced his way to the front rank of New Zealand politics by sheer strength of brain and will, and has for years retained his position by the exercise of the same valuable qualities. Tall, upright, of portly habit, with a commanding presence, Mr Seddon knows exactly what he wants, and generally manages to get it. (It is a thing worth observing, that most successful colonial statesmen are portly, and most of them are also bluff.) As a politician, he stands head and shoulders above all his Ministers, while his tactics are the dismay of the Opposition. "Unscrupulous" his political enemies call him; but for all that they admire his strength of will and ability as a party leader, and the untiring energy he displays in the prosecution of his plans. Next to him comes the Minister of Lands, the Hon. John