'KING COOK.'

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

'KING COOK.'

TfflDE TOURISTS' FRIEM). T;t

•DEATH OF MR JOHN MASON COOK

The death of Mr John Mason Cook, head of the great tourist agency, removes from among us the real originator of the 'personally conducted style of touring, which, though an abomination to the few, has proved a boon and a blessing to thousands._Mr Cook, who was born at Market Har■borough sixty-five years ago, began to follow \v his father's footsteps very early in life, and 'tis said that when but ten years old 'personally conducted' 500 small children from.Leicester to Syston, the 'tour' embracing a five mile railway journey and a .two mile walk across the fields to the. hills of Mount Sorrell. Soon after entering his teens young Cook became associated with the Midland Kailway Company. His abilities as an organiser, were speedily recognised, and when Still short of 18 he was responsible for the arrangements by which .165,000 excursipnists were brought up from the Midlands' to the great exhibition of 1851. At twenty-one he assumed the superintendentship of all the Midland excursion traffic, but resigned that post after three years to set up a tourist agency on his own account, which was later amalgamated - witn that conducted by his father, Thomas Cook. Since the retirement of the latter gentleman in. 1878, the entire management of Cook and Sons devolved on Mr John, but in recent years he has gradually left more and more of the practical detail to his three sons. ■. . .He was a marvellously energetic man, and to him more particularly is the. übiquitousness of 'Cooks to be traced. .His diary shows that.between 185S" and 1873 his yearly average, of .travel was 33,000 miles* and his out ot

bed nights approximated 100 a year. He founded the Egyptian branch of the agency, and it was a standing joke—a grim one, 'tis true —in Cairo in 1884 that the British .Government, despairing of being able to rescue Gordon, had commissioned Mr Cook to accomplish the task. When the laggard Government did decide to attempt the hero's relief, Messrs Cook's flotilla of steamers and dahabiehs were- at once placed at the service of the War Office. Shortly after that futile and costly expedition Mr John Cook, in concert with the Indian Government, arranged a scheme for the

conveyance of devout Moslems to Mecca, by which the sanitary evils of the pilgrimage were reduced to a minimum and the diffusion of cholera prevented.

To Mr Cook also tourists owe the funicular railway which takes them as near as is consistent with safety to the crater of Vesuvius. This railway was his property, and it was the use of it by the Kaiser which led to the details of the Palestine expedition being placed in Mr Cook's hands. The Emicror ascended the volcano eirly in .1896, and then mentioned his intended tour to the Holy Land, and intimated that he should place himself unreservedly in the hands of the English toiirist agent. The duty involved enormous responsibility and preparation. It necessitated three special trains from Jerusalem to Jaffa, and the same number from Bey rout to Damascus and back. For crossing the rough plains of Palestine, 1,430 riding horses, mules, and pack animals were required, and 116 carriages arid baggage carts; while for all purposes 800 muleteers and 290 waiters and attendants were engaged. Daily the Imperial dinner table was set for thirty to thirty-five persons, the service being of solid silver, sent from England. What all this meant tdvthe one brain answex-able for everything can be imagined. Mr Cook's health, which earlier in the year was delicate, gave way seriously. When the final day arrived the Kaiser expressed regret that his conductor was so unwell. Addressing him, His Majesty, said: 'On Vesuvius, Mr Cook, I made you a promise. On Vesuvius you made me a promise. We have both fulfilled them, and I am gratified.' His only disappointment was that there had been so much whitewashing at Jerusalem. 'I wanted,' he said, 'to have seen the city in its ordinary condition and no specially got up.' That fault lay, of course, with the Sultan and his officers. As a recognition of the admirable arrangements made by Mr Cook the Kaiser conferred upon him the Order of the Golden Crown of Prussia. He was also a knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Mr Cook, after returning from Palestine, remained seriously ill for a long time; but early last week showed such sig-ns of. improvement that his medical men allowed him to be removed from London to his residence at Mount Felix, . Walton-on-Thames. But the recovery was more of the nature of a last flicker, and on Saturday morning last the tourists' friend was found dead in his bed.