Richard Marriott and Polly Richards.

Like many successful actresses, Alice was as good-hearted as she was clever. Only one instance of this matters to this story. When she was playing at Liverpool once, she met a small-part actress and dancer, Mary Jane Blair, whose stage name was Polly Richards. Born in 1843, she was a ballet dancer in her early twenties, when she married a merchant service skipper. He died of an obscure malady on his next voyage and left her unprovided for and soon to have a child. Polly went back to the boards to support herself and the child. She had touched the depths of

(From ‘Early Wellington.’)
Entertainment to Maori Chiefs at the Pipitea Street Hospital, Wellington, in 1849, to celebrate the receipt from Earl Grey of a framed portrait of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
(Reproduced from the original copper plate engraved by Mr. J. H. Marriott and used by the “Illustrated London News” in 1849.

Richard Horatio Edgar.
(From the biography of Edgar Wallace, by Margaret Lane.)

disillusionment and poverty, and was almost starving when she met Alice Marriott in Liverpool. Alice at once gave her employment, and for the rest of her life Polly Richards was a member of her company, combining the duties of small-part actress and dresser. Sometimes she had complete control of the tragedienne's wardrobe. She was a close friend of Alice Marriott's two daughters all their lives. She was also more friendly than they knew with the son, Richard Edgar, to whom the added name of Horatio had been given out of deference to Alice's partiality for Hamlet.

And so life went on. Polly Richards page 30 page 31 was almost a member of the Edgar household and always of the Edgar troupe.

In 1874 a tragedy fell upon her. While playing at the Old Greenwich Theatre in London Street she stayed at rather shabby lodgings in Ashburnham Grove. One night in December, 1874, “she let herself out and walked home to the lodging house to await—with little enough enthusiasm—the birth of her second child.” During recent months Polly Richards had assisted her employer to find a wife for her way-ward son, and she was the means of finding Richard a very satisfactory wife, a charming young actress named Jenny Taylor. With extraordinary loyalty and reserve, Polly did not even allow Alice Marriott to know of her own trouble. Alice died (in 1900) unaware that Polly had had a son, and therefore unaware of the existence of her own first grandchild. Polly does not even seem to have told the impeccable Richard what had happened. She hid her shame, had her child in secret and provided for it by the best means she could devise, without allowing the woman to whom she owed everything

(From a drawing by W. Le Couteur.)
One of the new “J” class (4–8–2) locomotives being built for service on the New Zealand Railways. The overall length of these locomotives is 66ft. 9 in.; total weight in working order, 108 1/4 tons; tractive effort, 24,960 lbs.; water capacity of tender, 4,000 gallons; fuel capacity, 6 tons.

in the world to know of its existence. This grandchild of Miss Marriott's was the great grandson of James Henry Marriott, of Wellington.

He was taken to a Catholic priest for baptism, and the name that Polly Richards gave to him was Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace. She gave the fictitious name of “Wallace Wallace, comedian,” as that of the father, and thus saved Richard Edgar and his mother any embarrassment.

When I read Margaret Lane's biography of the great novelist Edgar Wallace, I found myself putting two and two together from fragments of biographical information which had come to me in the compilation of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Here was the first confirmation of the statement which had appeared in some of our old Wellington newspapers that James Henry Marriott was the father of Alice Marriott, the Sadler's Wells actress.

The whole story appears in Miss Lane's fine biography. To which I might add that no doubt Edgar Wallace, the colourful author of our own time, drew some of his inspiration in letters and artistry from his great grandfather, just as he did some of his speculative tendencies from his unknown grand-father Robert Edgar.

Contests for smokers are all the go in Belgium just now. Pipe Clubs, as they are called, have been established in connection with many of the Cafes, and a prize is awarded to the man who keeps his pipe going the longest. In one such contest sixteen of the contestants smoked steadily for upwards of an hour, without “striking a light” a second time, this being one of the rules of the game. But the champion kept his clay in full blast for an hour thirty-seven minutes! He deserved his win! —and if he had smoked “toasted” he'd have doubtless done better still, because this beautiful tobacco being virtually free from nicotine (eliminated by toasting) can be smoked for almost any length of time without a break. There's no “bite” in toasted; And the quality is simply unequalled! There's nothing quite so good! Flavour and bouquet are glorious!—hence the popularity of the five genuine toasted brands: Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold.^*