Pan about Notabilities.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 299, 16 December 1911, Page 15

Pan about Notabilities.

Mrs Mary Carter, of Shffaldhtnn I Thorpe, near King's Lynn, who recently celebrated her KHet birthday, has never seen a railway train. The venerable My has never Heft Shouldhsm TTiorpe since lier marriage, except on one occasion, when she had to go to Norwich Assizes as a witness. That was nearly seventy years ago, and the journey of about fifty miles was accomplished by road.

It is not easy to imagine Mr Thomas Hardy, the famous novelist, who has generously given a number of bis manuscripts to various museums, as a writer of love-letters for illiterate village maiden.?. Some time ago, however, he confessed to a friend, who marvelled at his wonderful knowledge of the English country girl, that when he was a young irran he used to write love-letters for the village girls to their soldier sweethearts an India. "That, naturally," said Mr Hardy, "gave me a good insight into their nature and characteristics." Unlike •the majority of writers, Mr Hardy did not begin Ms 'iterary labours until fairly late in life. He was thirty-two when his first successful 'book, "Under the Greenwood Tree," was published. Prior to that he was an architect.

The Duke of Devonshire is to be Mayor of Chesterfield during the coming municipal year. It is practically certain also that the Earl of Derby will he Lord Mayor of Liverpool, so the peerage will be well represented among the chief magistrates of 1912. During the last few years there have been an unusual number of titled mayors. The Earl of Dudley set the fashion a decade or so ago by becoming Mayor of Dudley. Sheffield's first Lord Mayor, the Duke of Norfolk, had previously been Mayor of •that city and also IVfayor of Arundel and first Mayor of th° City of Westminster. Lord Cheylesmore served Westminster twice, and the Duke of Marlborough oocupied the civic chair of Woodstock foftwo yeaTs in succession.

The career of Sir William Edward Smith, the new Director of Naval Construction at the Admiralty, reads like a romance. Sir William began life in a Portsmouth rope-making factory at the age of eleven. The rope-walk was 440 yards Bong, and he tramped this 112 times every day—a walk of twenty-eigbi miles for a. boy of eleven. After four years of this he became an apprentice in the Royal Dockyard at Portsmouth, ultimately entering the Naval Construction Department after spending some years at the Royal School of Architecture at South Kensington. In the early 'eighties his "lectures on the armouring of battleships, published by the Admiralty, became the recognised text book on the subject, and later Sir William was appointed superintendent of the building of battleships in private yards all over the country.

An interesting incident in. the life of Lord Kitchener was recorded some years ago by Mr Hermann Klein in the "Century Magazine." Referring to the rehearsals of "Human Nature" at Drury Lane, in the days of the late Sir Augustus Harris, Mr TTlgm says: "Actively assisting in arranging an African fight was a gentleman in a frock-coat and tall hat, of undeniable military appearance, who impressed me by both bis quiet, masterful manner and the imperturbable patience with which he directed manoeuvres to be repeated over-and-.-over again until they were satisfactorily executed. After the rehearsal was concluded I -went upon the stage. Augustus Harris was talking to .his military adviser. He beckoned me to approach. ■Klein, I want to introduce you to my friend, Major Kitchener, who has been kind enough to come and help me with this "soldiery" work. Whai do yon thfnk of it? Did you ever see such fighting; and marching on the stage before?* "

The history of modern .business and commerce contains many striking examples of men who, commencing life with scarcely a penny in their pockets, have in the coarse of years accmnnmlateci vast fortunes. None of their careers has been so varied and extraordinary, however, as that of Mr. Joseph Pulitzer, the proprietor of the "New York World," who has just died at the age of sixty-four, leaving a fortune of £6,000,000 sterling. He was seventeen years of ago when he decided that there was no opening for him in his native country, Hungary. He therefore tramped through Germany to the coast, sailed in an emigrant ship for New York, and when he reached Boston harbour jumped overboard and swam to shore because he had not sufficient to. pay the head-tax on aliens. Ultimately he arrived in New York with just twenty cents in his pocket. However, he managed to enlist as a private in the Lincoln Cavalry, and served through the last year of the Civil War. After his regiment was disbanded he began his fierce struggle for existence. He worked at anything that came his way—coal-heaver, coachman, waiter, butler, and stoker on a Missouri ferry-boat. It was while engaged in the latter occupation that he strolled one night into a small saloon in St. Louis where a game of chess was in progress. Pulitzer possessed a perfect genius for chess, and that night he beat the best man in the saloon. His play attraseed the attention of a German journalist who was proprietor of a paper in St. Louis. He gave him a job, and within a few years Pulitzer was managing editor and part-proprietor of that newspaper. This was the turning of the tide. In 1878 he was able to buy the "St. Louis Dispatch," and, amalgamating it with his first newspaper, he formed the "St. Louis Post Dispatch," now one of the most prosperous journals in the United States. Five years later he acquired the "New York World" from Jay Gould, a paper which soon developed into one of the most influential journals in America under the guidance of Pulitzer. Its power may be judged from the fact that Grover Cleveland declared that but for its campaign on his behalf he would never have been President. Pulitzer, having shown what he could do in the newspaper world, turned his attention to larw and politics, and soon became' a great force on the platform. He had an extraordinary command of English, although when he first landed in America he could not speak a ! word of the language. Every spare moment, however, was spent in the public libraries, and within four years he could write trenchant English. At the height of his fame and. prosperity, however, a great misfortune befell him. Early in the 'nineties he became quite Hind. During his last years he'.spent most of his time globe-trotting. He was known in all the chief European capitals, particularly among musicians, for his one great passion was nrusic, and he never travelled without his private pianist. A" striking illustration of his energy is furnished by the fact that, in spite of liis affliction, and no matter where he might be, he would cable to New York entire leading articles and statements of policy.