In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 26

In the Public Eye

Captain F. H. Wyse,

There are not many seanicn alive today who have' sailed in the famous clipper ship Thermopylae, and one of that small band is Captain i7l. H. Wyse, marine superintendent' of the Ellerman Steamship Company. He has the distinction of having received his early training as a cadet on. ' board H.M.S. Worcester, on which ho was enrolled from August, 1873, to June, 1875. After leaving the Worcester he joined up as an apprentice on the Ther-

mopylae, and was

onjboaru that vessel when she passed through a typhoon on a voyage from Sydney to Hong Kong. Captain Wyse-completed his apprenticeship in the Kbseiuscko, also belonging to the same concern as the Thermopylae, and then in 1880 joined the : Gleubervie as second officer, later sailing on. several of the famous "Glen" ships of the- 'eighties. In 1885 he was • promoted to the command of the Glenbervis, and from that date until March, 1892, -he' served in that vessel in the Indian, American, Batiic, and Black Sea trades.. After commanding successively .■ the Kaffir,- Johannesburg, and Fort Salisbury, all trading to South' Africa, he became .imarins superintendent for Bueknall's, later merged into Ellerman and Bucknall's. During the South African "War he was in command of the Forfc Salisbury, which was used as a transport. Captain Wyse joined the Boyal Naval Beserve very darly in his career, and carried out, his first training™ H.M.S. Favourite ana Lord AVarden, the guardships to the East Coast of Scotland, lying off Queensferry and he recalls that the officers of those ships told him he was the first E.N.B. officer they had.ever helped to" train, laving previously had to handle, the local fishermen. Captain Wyse is not known among the shipmasters who visit New Zealand, but he has on a number of occasions visited Australian, ports.

Captain W. j. Felton,

Although the, risks and hardships of a sailor's life are generally 'acknowledged, there seems to be no dearth of those who, imbued with a love of adventure greater than that of the ordinary man, desire to make the sea their calling. Many men have become famous by their association with British shipping —"busy shuttles of an Empire 's loom." One of the best known so far as England id" concerned is Captain W. J. Felton, a popular marine superinten dent now Etationed in

Liverpool. Captain Felton was born at Liverpool some 47 years ago, hrst going to sea as an apprentice on the/barque Clwyd in 1889. It was while serving on that vessel: that he experienced his first shipwreck. Tho ship was trading to the Far East, and when in the China Seas she Vent ashore and became . a total loss on Pratas Shoals. The. crew had! to take to the boats, but. fortunately, although they suffered severe hardships, they reached Hong Kong.without losing one of their number. Captain Felton was sent home m the Orestes, and on arrival no joined up with the Dunloe, but in little more than a year he was again a' casualty, for the barque was dismasted in a hurricane off New York, and'had to be towed into port. ■ In 1902 he served, on various Bteamers in the West Indies, first as third officer and later as second officer of the Bankdale, and in April, 1908, he received his master's ticket for square-rigged, vessels. Twelve months later he became chief officer of the Harmonides, of which he eventually became' commander. In 1912 he went ashore at Liverpool to become assistant marine superintendent of the Houston Line, receiving promotion some twelve months'sgo. During the years of the Great "War he put in much valuable work around the coasts of England, as well as fulfilling innumerable duties at the port of Liverpool, at a time when any man with "sea sense" easily became an indispensable part of the picture in assisting to deal with the U-boat menace.

General Chang Tso-Lin.

Amid the changing fortunes of contending forces in China, ono of the most prominent figures is that of General Chang Tso-Lin, who, a year or two back, wag Inspector-General of Manchuria. For some time the I'ekin Government was practically in his control, but more recently he has lost a great deal of his sway, and Manchuria enters but little into the present troubles. Chang was formerly a brigand, in which China has aboun-

ded. for hundreds

of years, but he was a very scientific brigand, for his army of freebooters was always equipped with the latest thing in ma-chine-guns, and he was not above using aeroplanes in some of his schemes. General Chang Tso-Lin is small and gentle-spoken, quite the antithesis of what one conjurers up in the mind when brigands are spoken of. He dresses simply and lives simply. He knows his China by heart, and not so long ago stated that the present chaos was not in any way a new state of affairs. "In fact," he said, "Chinese affairs always get worse before they get better, but the future will see better things for China." General Chang does not appear very prominently before the world's reading public at the present time by way of the, cabled messages in relation to the existing trouble, but his huge following and the influence ho has wielded for so many years makes, his presence at the back of the scenes a very decisive factor in the final settlement of the trouble. He is full of ambition, and sees a now Manchu-Mongol Empire reaching from the sea to the core of Asia. On Manchuria and Mongolia General Chang would rebuilt the throne of China, using Japan to further his aims. Already he has given to Japanese traders many concessions, and it was stated a year or_ two ago that he had agreed that on his coronation day Japan shall occupy peaceably a wedge 2400 miles long, giving them interior communication allowing them to dominate both China and Siberia. The Japanese backed the Anfuites some years ago, and lost. By backing General Chang TsoLin they hope to win. This clever schemer was reported recently to have control of an army totalling over 300,000 trained and well-equipped soldiers, and his %s the overshadowing force which is likely to play a prominent part in the very near future especially in opposition to Bussia and Bolshevik activity.

Lord Lovat.

The name of Lovat is remembered wherever the Boer War is remembered, for it was during that period that Lord Lovat commanded a body of men known as Lovat'a Scouts, who rendered sterling service to the British cause during the war. Lord Lovat, who has been appointed this week to the Dominions Office, is the fourteenth holder of the barony,-v.-hich was created- about 1458. Hugh Fraser, one of the hostages for James I. of

Scotland's ran

• som when set at liberty iv England in 1424/ was given by that monarch the barony of Kinnell, which is considered by some to have constituted his first lordship. His grandson of the same name, who married a daughter of Lord Glamis, was created Lord Lovafc, or Lord Fraser of Lovat. An unhappy episode in the family history was enacted by the eleventh lord and the eldest daughter of the ninth. They eloped together, but the lady, who on her father's death had styled herself baroness, returned to her. mother and later married someone else. The Court of Session eventually deprived her of her title and gave it to her former lover. He, however, had in the interim, of over thirty years distinguished himself by many, acts of violence, and in 1698 he was attainted and sentenced to death for seizing the estates of his intended spouse, and eventually was outlawed in 1701. Taking part in-the rebellion, of 1745, he was impeached and executed on Tower Hill. After jtho: death of his youngest son, who never assumed the title, the succession passed- to a descendant of the_ fourth Lord Lovat, upon whom the United . Kingdom, barony was conferred, it having previously been a Scotch title only. "The present Lord Lovat assisted in raising a large number of troops during the Great War, and .took part ia the operations on Gallipoli and in France and Flanders, for which he received the additional honour of K.C.M.G. He is one of the largest landowners in ' Great Britain, owning over 181,000 acres.. In 1910 Lord Lovat married the second daughter 'of Lord Kibblesdale, said to be one of the wittiest men in' England, and there are three children of the union. Madame Curie. Not many women have earned the thanks of the world to the same extent as lias Madame Curie, the discoverer, with her' husband, Professor Curie of- radium. ■ The French Government; recently awarded her a pension of 12,----500 francs (at the par rate of exchange about £500, but now only equal to approxi m a t c 1 y £100). Of recent years ' Madame Curie, has found it a struggle to keep her Radium Institute going, and until a little while ago , , ■ her allowance was only 12 000 francs a year, though her coal bill alone came to 5000 francs fc>ne was hampered, too, in her. experiments by.an inadequate stock of radium. This was later augmented as a result of a visit to the United States m * Jf ,' f h£ tt Bhe received-at the hands of the late President Harding a gramme of iradium presented to her by the women, of America. Madame: Curie was once-the victim of a strange rebuff in London, as she had been in Paris. Soon after the discovery of radium. a famous British scientific society decided to. honour Professor Curie and his wife They both accepted the visit to London, but it was discovered at the last minute that:the rules of the society pronibiTed women being present at: its meetings. So Professor Curie was alone permitted to enter the chamber tn hoar the president's,eulogy of his wife, the actual discoverer of radium, whijj <=n 0 had to remain outside. In 1911 Madame Curie was a candidate for election to the French Academy of Science, though no woman had previously been a member, but.the anti-feminists ana strict guardians of tradition were too strong, and her nomination was rejected. Madame Curie, who -was a daughter of Professor Sklodowska, married Professor Pierre Curie in 1887, but he died in 1906 as a result of over-contact with radium, the powers of which were hardly realised when first discovered. Madame Curie over a lengthy period has carried out exhaustive research work in connection with* radio-activity, and the result of her discoveries has played a very prominent part in modern scientific research.