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Old Students' Column.

A very gallant action was performed by Mr. Max Cleghorn at Opunake recently.

Three Maoris had gone fishing in a very rough sea, and. when about a quarter of a mile from the shore, their boat overturned. Two of them struggled ashore, and the other was left hanging to an oar. A sympathetic crowd had gathered on the beach, when Cleghorn arrived on the scene and called for volunteers to man a boat and go with him to the rescue. A crew being forthcoming, two attempts were made before the drowning man was reached. All went well on the return journey till they were within a couple of hundred yards from the shore, when a huge breaking wave completely overturned the boat and threw all its occupants into the water. Two of them got safely ashore; Cleghorn, two of the crew, and the drowning man, remained in the water. Cleghorn first brought the drowning man to land, through tremendous surf, and then, though himself nearly done, swam out again and rescued the other two.

The "Opunake Times," in a leading article devoted to the event, said that Cleghorn had proved the heights to which selflessness can rise, and that it was a fine thing for a community to have such a one among them.

Messrs. H. H. Ostler and F. E. Mackenzie have returned safely from a successful big game shooting expedition in East Africa.

Among their victims they numbered elephants, lions, bison, hippopotami, zebras, all kinds of gazelles and antelopes, and one giraffe shot in mistake for a lion. The last-named fell to the gun of Mackenzie, and in explaining his error when being fined for the deed, he is understood to have said that it made a noise like a lion.

Before they departed on their journey, our professional ode manufacturer was commissioned by one of them to write a farewell. This is it:

Farewell to Ostler! He's going to take it easy,

A-singing down, a-swinging down, the jungle-fringed Zambesi.

Farewell to Ostler! He's going to Nicaragua.

To crock the creaky crocodile and jag the jolly jaguar.

Farewell to Ostler! He's going off to Zion

To stick the unconsecrated pig and kill the kosher lion;

And if he meets a Rabbi there in holy Hebrew habit.

He'll simply add a "t" to him and pot him for a rabbit.

The commission, consisting of one zebra skin done in stripes, is still, we understand, outstanding.

Mr. F. L. G. West has been admitted into partnership in the legal firm of Messrs. Jackson, Russell, Tunks and Ostler, Auckland, and has also been elected a member of the Council of the Auckland Law Society. He and Mr. Mackenzie have a "bach" decorated with the heads, skins, and tails of wild animals.

Old students recently in Wellington included Messrs. A. H. Johnston, H. H. Ostler, and W. H. Wilson, all of Auckland, who were down for the Court of Appeal sittings; and A. H. Bogle, of Wanganui. The latter is now busily engaged in surveying the backblocks around the upper reaches of the Wanganui River.

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A recent publication of interest to Victoria University College is that by Dr. Diamond Jenness, embodying the results of his anthropological researches in New Guinea. This book he has written together with another authority on the subject. Dr. Jenness. it will be remembered, was sent out by Oxford University in charge of an anthropological expedition some years ago, before he accompanied Dr. Steffanson on his expedition to the Far North.

He has now received an important appointment from the Canadian Government in Canada, in connection with his particular subject.

"The Spike" wishes to congratulate Miss L. Leitch and Mr. Les. Day, who recently joined fortunes, and hopes they will meet the best of good fortune in their future life.

Mrs. John Hannah (nee Marjory Nicholls) has left for a trip to England.

Mr. Arthur Fair, M.C., has been appointed one of the Crown Solicitors at Wellington.

Mr. H. A. Mackenzie, who has been studying at the Sorbonne under a soldier's scholarship, has postponed his scholarship in order to study at Prague. He is now teaching English at the Czecho-Slovakian University in that city.