ABOUT PEOPLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15920, 4 May 1912, Page 15

ABOUT PEOPLE.

SOME PERSONAL NOTES. STORIES ABOUT CELEBRITIES. Captain Frank Post, the commander of the Government steamer Tutanekai, is a devoteo of Bret Harte, as becomes a son of tho States. For Captain Post is an American by birth, and in his youth lie learned the business of tho soa in a big Yankeo clipper, the ship Three Brothers, and other Down East craft. Like many a sea captain—perhaps the solitary life predisposes to tho habit—Post can soliloquise in poetry by the fathom. Bret Harte is his great favourite, and oft in tho stilly. night when tho Tutanekai is shouldering the surges aside the moving and pathetic story of " Tho Societv upon tho Stanislaus," or "Tho Spelling Bee at Angel's" or tho immortal Address to tho Pliocene Skull and tho skull's reply thereto, may be heard in soft Vermont accents from tho high and lofty bridge. Luke, of .Colorado Park, too, and his scathing indictment of novels —

Wot's that you'ro reading?—a novel—well, darn my skins I ■,,•»•> You ft man grown nnd bearded and listm

such stuff as that in Stuff about gals and the sweethearts! JNo •wonder you'ro thin cz a kmle. Look at mo!—clear two hundred—and never read ono in my lifo!

Bret Harte always appeals to the man of tho open air. Richard John Soddon had a great liking for tho pact of tho Rockies. Tho Australians say their prayers to Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Lawson and "Banjo" Patterson, but the Australian brand of poetry does not "catch on ' with a Now Zealander to any extent, lhere are in the dominion sundry hush-dwel-lers who go to sleep with Bret Harte and Kipling—the earlier Kipling, not tho rubbishv "Pay, pay, pay!' KiplinE—on their bearded lips. A certain lank and sinewy six-foot baekblocks axeman knew Kipling's "Seven Seas and "Barrack-room Ballads" from cover to cover, and used to croon "The Three-decker" to a little hatMaori hymn of his own every night after his meal of pork and potatoes and "hard tack." The Urewera family who camped in the next tent to his used to imagine the white man was at his evening devotions, and would say to themselves, "Myl Isn't he the pious fellow 1" or Maori to that effect.

A Wellington man whose particular hobby, or crime, is the collecting, of curio's, Maori preferred, tells a little story against himself. He was up in the Hawke's Bay district, prowling round a deserted Maori settlement, near which there was an ancient bury-ing-o-round, seeking what he could annext in the shape of old carvings or axes or greenstones. (Those curiofiends have absolutely no conscience.) Scouting around in the same neighbourhood was an acquaintance of his, a rival amateur collector of antiquities. They were both after the same relics ill tho same graveyard. The Wellington man got there first, dug away with a. trowel he carried in his overcoat, and unearthed some really good axes, very big ones, of the ancient Maori. But hehad to pass through an inhabited Native villago a little way off, . and, knowing that he was under suspicion, he decided to re-bury his find m another grave and await a convenient dark night for returning and carrying them oft.

Ghoul No. 1 retires, and Ghoul No. 2 j conies on tho scene. The second collector, rooting around, camo upon the . articles which tho first one had buried , after the fashion of a dog "with a bone. : The villain chortled in his glee, and by i devious ways, avoiding the Maori vil- , lage, boro off his stolen goods in \ triumph. Picture the dismay of Ghoul • No. 1 when ho returned and found his arclueological cupboard bare 1 Presently \ tho two curio men met at a Napier j hotel, and the Second Ghoul, had tho cool audacity to haul out his prizes ' from under his bed and offer to sell ! them to tho original finder (or thief) at a good round figure. The sale camo off, too. Tho First Ghoul doesn't take j any chances now when he goos on his j

Sir Georgo Grey, as the public has' been reminded lately, acclimatised many animals on tho lovely island homo in the North where ho spent some of his, later years. It was away back in the '■ seventies that tho animals got him into troublo, and tho story is worth re-toll- j ing. It was in tho sixties that the : Governor imported some wallaby from Australia and turned them looso on tho island. Presently it was reported in the London papers that Grey and his wallabies were living happily aiid peacefully there on ocean-girt Kawau. Some of the Exeter Hall Puritans and philodarkey advocates sniffed something very wrong in this, and one of them wrote to tho "Times," so it is said, drawing the. attention of tho British public to the shocking fact that an ox-Governor , of Now Zealand was " livine in sin " on [

an island in the South Seas with a harem of Australian wallabies. The poor man had confused " wallaby " with "gin "I Grey, to his last days, always chuckled over that wallaby joke.

Mr Arthur Balfour, the most conspicuous instance of voluntary Tetire- j ment since the Emperor Charles V., is not at all. likely t(j suffer from the usual malady of retired persons—the malady of boredom (writes Mr Harold Spender in the " Pall Mall Magazine "). The daily Press has resounded with his achievements at lawn bennis in the South of Franco. " Punch " has amplified these accounts by a fancy sketch of his possible achievements in other lines of life—such as billiards, " spillikins," chess and so forth. Really, Mr " Punch" is not very far from the actual truth. For the real feature about Mr Balfour. has always been not that he lacks " hobbies," but that he has so many. One of his most absorbing interests, as all' the world knows, is music. As a musician, indeed, Mr Balfour is not a mere amateur, but a musician among musicians.

It was a pleasant trait of Mr Balfour that He never carried politics to the point of personal hatred (adds Mr Spender). He was on friendly personal terms with almost all the men he fought in public—not only with Mr Lloyd George, but with Mr Asquith, who was a fellow-member of that remarkable little club known as "The Souk." and perhaps even more with Sir William Harcourt, who always spoke of him as "Arthur," and entertained for him a stronger feeling of affection than he entertained for—may we say?—Lord Roseberyj I remember Sir Vv : illiam saying to me once in regard to Mr Balfour: " His temper is wonderful. I only saw him angry onco, and that was when we selected as candidate for the Speakership a man whom he did not know by sight." On another occasion that friendship played a great part in the history of England. When the full story is told it will probably be found-that _it. was the close personal understanding between Mr Balfour and Sir William Harcourt which alone saved England from a great war at the time when Russia seized Port Arthur.

Mr Balfour is_ a very good landlord. Mr Spender says that he remembers once meeting a Radical canvasser who had been canvassing in Mr Balfour s own village. " I am hound to say I was docpiv impressed," he said. "I found that Mr Balfour had left his people complete freedom. He brings no influence to bear. He lets them vote as thev like." Perhaps in his own village he likes to escape. . It used_ to be one of the vexations of the wirepullers that Mr Balfour could always gnt away from them to Whittinghame. Once there, he settled down to an. easy scheme of family lite almost always with his sister or his brother Gerald Balfour and Lady Betty Balfour and their children staying.in the house-d----reading, golfing, walking, talkine. At those timo3 Mr Balfour threw aside th*> partisan, and seemed, to open his mind to new impressions. 'For that is what always prevents Mr Balfour from being a narrow man—the openness to new impressions.

The lat* Mr W. T. Stead, themost distinguished of the victims of the 11tanio disaster, held a unique position in the world of journalism. Ho had unbounded confidence in himself and m the righteousness of tho causes that n© upheld, and he constituted himself the candid friend as well as the keen critic and the searching recorder of the greatest people of Europe and America. His methods of work can best be shown by an illustration. Last year he went to Turkey with the intention of finding out the truth about the trouble in Albania and making personal representations upon tho subject to the Sultan. Ho performed his self-imposed task in its entirety, and his own account of hiß interview with the Sultan was characteristic in its tone. " It was clear tome from the outset," wrote Mr Stead, " that tho Sultan had nothing particular to say to me. He had received me as a matter of courtesy at the request of the Grand Vizier, and if he had any thought at all about the audience it was probably one of mild curiosity as to what kind of a creature I might be, and why in the world I should come to see him. But this, although it did not promise well for an interview such as are common when a Sovereign or his Ministers seek to obtain expression of their views through the columns of a newspaper, left me all the freer field in which to deliver my message. For I have never sought an audience with any ruler of mankind from any motive of idlo curiosity or of professional ambition. I have_ never undertaken to spare timo which I did not intend to uso to the best of my ability in saying what I thought it would be useful for them to hear." , "I felt that if I were allowed a' chance I should regard it as a 'Thus saith the Lord,' " added Mr Stead, " and that I would spare no effort to deliver my message as farthfully as I could. Whether it was heeded or whether it was disregarded did not lie in my hands. I would at least deliver my own soul. My interview with tho Sultan was much more tho delivery of a message to his Majesty than any catechising of tho Sovereign for information or as to opinion." Mr Stead delivered his message to the ruler of tho Ottoman Empire with entire frankness. Ho expounded tho doctrines of constitutional monarchy and ministerial responsibility to a Sultan who probably was tho most surprised man in all Europe. " It was to mo an interesting, and to the Sultan an unprecedented, experience to hear the most advanced doctrines of proper Imperialism discussed in the Dolma Bagtcho Palaoo," added Mr Stead. " That truo loyalty to his Majesty might sometimes bo best shown by offering a resolute opposition to ovil advisers who might at times surround his throne waß obviously to him something of a paradox. Not less interesting was tho discussion as to tho best way of treating disaffection. Tho South African Union on one sido and tho Albanian rising on tho other came in as apt illustrations. Tho Sultan deplored the censures pronounced upon j his troops and his generals in tho English Press. I said that in future we j should have a double reason for censuring atrocities, for not only were they bad in themselves, but I now knew from his-Majesty's own lips that they wore direct acts of disobedience to his commands. I assured him that I should deal as faithfully with all Turkish genorals as I had done with British commanders, no moro and no less." In one sense the whole interview was a display '

of unbounded cheek on the part of the journalist. But Mr Stead could say and do the things that were impossible to less gifted men, and it is not impossible that he did more for Turkey in the course of his chat with the Sultan than a whole regiment of statesmen could have achieved.

Some reminiscences of Parnell are contained in a« xecent number of "T.P.'s Magazine." The Irish leader hated being interviewed, and the American interviewer in particular is said to have been his abomination. A crowd of newspaper men once called to him at Brighton during a time of political strain, and had all been refused interviews. Thoy, however, remained outside the house in the hope of gleaning some news. After dinner Parnell gently stole on to the balcony with _ a pepper caster and slowly emptied it on to the heads of the unsuspecting men below. When he came in he looked hugely delighted over the joke. Ho extremely disliked the colour green. Parnell himself could only say that green meant " forsaken." He often speculated as to whether Ireland's long-continued bad luck had not come through her national colour being green, and one of his favourite schemes was that under Home Rule ho would change the national colour to something else. Another superstition of Parnell's was that lie never, if- he could avoid it, travelled on a Friday. He had neither soul nor ear for musio. His favourite musical instrument was the barrel organ.

Lord Charles Beresford, speakingat Peckham. recently, related an amusing reminiscence. _ When he was in _an armoured train at Alexandria a sailor was asked not to occupy such a hj~'T position, as it was dangerous for Elm. His reply was that he could see the enemy better from where he was. " Presently a bullet came and shot him," added Lord Charles. "Well, I don't know how to describe it. 'but it was in the part he sat upon, and it bowled him over. He was unconcerned, and, turning, said, "They've got the range, sir.' "

From Port au Prince, Hayti, it is announced that General Jules Coicou, the former military tyrant of that black republic, has been condemned to death'. Still, this dusky despot had some redeeming traits, as witness the following_ story:—A British war vessel once arrived at Port au Prince, and, as usual, saluted the territorial flag, but was surprised to find that the republican shore battery failed to return the salute. So the captain sent his flag-lieutenant ashore to inquire into the meaning of this monstrous discourtesy. The President was profuse in his apologies, and pleaded that he had barely gunpowder enough left to suppress a revolution which fie was expecting to break out at any moment!

Tang-shao-yi, the first Prime Minister of the Chinese republic, is a selfmade man. In the early nineties ho was earning a precarious living as a sort of clerk-interpreter, and many Europeans in China might remember his accepting small commissions for_ a few dallars. His rise has been meteoric. To-day he is the foremost living # Chinaman after Yuan-Shi-Kai, who, in fact, " discovered "" him. • Tang is a graduate of Columbia University, a splendid linguist, and almost more Western than Westerners themselves. His first appearance in public life was as " foreign secretary" to Yuan. In those davs he used to go about in foreign clothes, wore foreign spectacles, occasionally carried a sporting gun, and used even to drive about in a dogcart accompanied by a prize bulldog. These eccentricities disappeared, however, as he entered upon higher respon- / sibilities. i

Lady Warwick, the " Socialist Countess," is on a lecturing tour in America. She gave her first address in New York, and. the select "four hundred" were pre'sorifin full force and heard her allude to the British monarch in the following sentence: " King George's future is in the lap of the gods, but he has inherited his father's high sense of duty. I am sure that, however it may turn out; he will have done his best." The lecturer referred to Queen Victoria as "the-little lady of majestic mien," and King Edward as not insular, but cosmopolitan. She drew an amusing picture of afternoon tea at Arlington Street, where she found Lord Salisbury nursing a toothache. Gladstone was there too. He would not'rest till he had hurried out of the house, and return ed with some lotion from a local chemist's, which he insisted on applying to Lord Salisbury's face himself. . She also described Mr "Arthur Balfour growing warm in the sunshine of the grounds of Warwick Castle trying to teach Mr Asquith the principles of equilibrium on the bicycle.