ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 48, 1 June 1901, Page 3

ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE

WHAT a narrow escape from a world-wide sensation on Wednesday last week! If King Edward had delayed just for one little moment to shift his seat on the clipper yacht Shamrock 11. that squall-smashed boom would have brought swift death to the British monarch. The Empire would have been plunged anew in mourning, the Duke ot York would have been recalled at once to England to ascend the throne, the promised visit to New Zealand would never be paid, and all our noisy preparations, our ways and means meetings, and deputations about routes, and our worries ,about seats and addresses and Commissioners would have gone for nought. So easily upset are all our best-laid plans and wisest calculations. Naturally, everyone rejoices at the escape ot the King, but why "sympathy' should be expressed for him in France, as the cable man reports, bothers one's comprehension. Gratification at hearing he was uninjured is the natural sentiment under the circumstances, but if there s any "sympathy" to spare— well, fcsir Thomas Lipton is the man most entitled to it. Not only will he sustain a loss of some £4000 or £5000 through the damage done by that sensational squall, bub the partial destruction of the beautiful craft, which he had had built to race for that coveted American Cup, must be a severe disappointment to his hopes. Mr. George L. Watson delayed the actual building of Shamrock 11. as long as possible, so that her essential dimensions should not get abroad until such time as the defending yachts were advanced beyond the possibility of radical change. The plates used in her construction were of manganese bronze, polished smooth as glass. This material was used from keel to rail, and was so highly polished that at any part it felt like plate-glass^ under the fingers. Sir Thomas Lipton was determined that the three countries of the United Kingdom shoud be mutually interested in this challenge. Captain Sycamore and his crew of forty-five were all Englishmen. Scotland supplied the builders and designers, and Ireland furnished the name, the owner, and the yacht club under whose colours Shamrock 11. was to sail. Let us hope that when, like the phoenix, she rises from her ruins the American eagle will be obliged to confess that he has been beaten at last, and that the whole art of yacht building is not confined to the "Yew-mted States." # Mr. Charles Hudson's- appointment as General Manager of Tasmanian Railways, at a salary of £1000 a year, deprives New Zealand of another able public servant. We do not seem to pay for skill and expert knowledge in the Railways and Public Works departments on the scale which obtains throughout the sister colonies. And the consequence is there is a continual hiving-off in those directions. Western Australia and Tasmania have relieved us of quite a number of wellknown officers. It was to the land of the sandgropers that Mr. C. Y. O'Conor went to look after its railway and public works systems, and he has been followed thither, within the last two or three years, by Mr. Rotheram, our former locomotive superintendent, and Mr. R. E. Triggs, one of the smartest officers in the locomotive department.

It was to Tasmania that Mr. Back went from the New Zealand Railway Department, and now that Mr. Back has been lured away to Queensland to manage a railway there, at the splendid salary of £2250 a year, Tasmania fills the vacancy by snapping up Mr. Hudson from us. He certainly deserves his preferment, for his heart and soul have been in his work. In fact, his zeal has been mi&understood in. some quarters, and people who judged superficially have caught the notion that he was a martinet. Since leaving school. Mr. Hudson has given up his undivided attention to railways. The first ten years he spent in the service of the Great Western Railway Company, in England, rising from the lowest rung of the ladder to the position of station-master. Three years of his childhood had been spent in New Zealand, and he returned to this colony at the end of 1879, and, early next year, entered our railway service as relieving officer. • ♦ * At Wanganui, he was raised to the post of chief clerk to the North Island Commissioner, and, subsequently, became chief auditor. In 1884, he was made District Traffic Manager at Auckland, and won the reputation of being the best manager, they have ever had up there. It was in 1895 that he was appointed Assistant General Manager, and shifted to Wellington. Domestic sorrow has laid a heavy hand upon Mr. Hudson. Within the last two or three years he has lost both wife and youngest child by death. May he have more of the sunshine of life in the land to which he is going. • * * Mr. Thomas William Waite, who, in consequence of the changes necessitated by Mr. Hudson's withdrawal, rises from the position of Chief Clerk to that of District Traffic Manager at Christohurch, has well and worthily earned his promotion. His career curiously resembles that of the Assistant General Manager at various points. „ Like him, Mr. Waite first became associated with railways in England. Upon leaving school, he gained a situation under the North Eastern Railway Company and, in the course of eighti years, rose to a post in the office of the General Passenger Superintendent. • * # Like Mr. Hudson, he came to the colony in 1879. In 1881 he entered the Railway Department as clerk in the traffic branch, and, like him again, Mr. Waite became chief clerk under the Commissioners' regime, and was confirmed in that position when the Government resumed control. Mr. Waite is well known in Wellington and Auckland. In physique, he is a splendid specimen of the Yorkshireman, and, strange to say. although he has the proportions of a grenadier, and the winning ways of a model railway official, and must, therefore, have attracted the admiring notice of many a fair lady, Thomas William is still a bachelor. At least, we have not heard that he has thrown the handkerclu'ef yet. • * • As for Mr. Grant, who has been traffic manager in Wellington since January, 1900, he is getting moved about pretty frequently. First to Auckland, then to Wellington, and ,aow to Dunedin, and all these changes within the compass of a few years. He is certainly gaining experience. • * * "What is the Duke like?" a member of the Federal Contingent wat, asked on landing from the Monowai last week. "Well, now, look here," was the reply — "you just go along Willis-street and have a good look at John Duthie. The Duke's just like John, only Duthie's the bigger man of the two'" "And the Duchess?" "Oh, she's all right I can't compare her to any of our girls. She's rather nice-looking, and very pleasant. I didn't have the honour of a chat with her, but she struck me as being a pleasant, agreeable sort of lady." That was the opinion of a ranker in our Federal Escort.

Mr. E. S. Grogan, who has kindly consented to lecture at the Opera House to-night for the benefit of the Maori Girls' College Fund, is an African traveller of some repute. People who have been brought into contact with' him here in Wellington speak warmly of his conversational powers. Although only twenty-eight years of age, he has managed to see and take an active part in many interesting phases of life since ho came to man's estate. In 1894 he went through the rigours of the Matabele war in South Africa, serving under Baden-Powell. After that campaign, he came out to New Zealand on a visit to Mr. E. Watt, the well - known station-owner, of Hawke's Bay, with whom he had been a fellow student and chum in their University days in England. • • • i Mr. Grogan went straight back to South Africa, and boldly embarked upon the project of travelling right through the Dark Continent, from the Zambesi to Cairo. No white man had ever before performed that feat. During the first part of the journey he was accompanied by a Mr. Sharp, who had to part company with Mr. Grogan when they got to the Uganda railway. From that point Mr. Grogan continued his course, by easy stages, onward to Cairo. He was for nine months among the blacks — absolutely cut off from all intercourse with people of his own colour or raee — traversing the great African swamps, penetrating its dense bush and jungles, and steadily groping; his way northward. At last he struck the Nile at a point where people are engaged cutting the "sud," a weed that greatly obstructs the navigation of the great river. Last year Mr. Grogan married, in London, Miss Watt, the sister of his old college chum. He has a most interesting story to tell, and he has the knack of telling it well. • • • So Major Perry, of the Salvation Army, has come over from Australia, under engagement by the Government, to take a full set of kinematograph views in connection with the approaching visit of the Royal couple. King Dick has ever a keen eye to the advantages of advertising. The Major is an old officer of the Salvation Army, and is widely known in New Zealand. After several years' service as an Army officer in this colony, he was drafted to Melbourne, where his undoubted abilities as a demonstrator of "dark-room" mysteries were speedily recognised. As a consequence, he was appointed to the sole control and management, for Au&tralasia, of all matters connected with the photographic, limelight, and kinematograph department of the Army. At different times the Major has toured the colonies, on behalf of the Army work, with kinematographs and other "graphs." In selecting such a warrior to supply the "living pictures," the Government have certainly paid a high compliment to the Army, and to the talent of one of those enlisted in its ranks — a fact, no doubt, which will still further popularise this bustling religious, organisation. • • • A prominent figure at the Heretaunga sports last week was Trooper Blair, one of the smartest members* of the "H.M.R." Blair went out to South Africa with our First Contingent, and won the admiration of Imperials and colonials alike by his fearless riding over wire fences. It takes a good horse and a good rider to do ' wirejumping successfully. Last Friday, Blair, who came back with "the Orient crowd," showed the Wellington public some fine horsemanship, and was greatly admired for his circus ■ trick of riding round the Park at a gallop, and jumping off his horse and on again at a bound. It is recorded of Trooper Blair that during the South African campaign he never missed a parade of our First from the start out until he finished at Barberton.

Wellington has had two ministering angels of an unusual kind within her gates during the past few months, in the persons of Sisters Miriam and Winnie. They are Victorian ladies, youthful and educated, and belonging to an order founded by the Young Women's Christian Association of Melbourne. The order has several training homes, at which its members are prepared for evangelical, social, and nursing work. Some members become preachers, others nurses, others slum workers, and teachers in the Christian sphere. * * * Sisters Miriam and Winnie are gifted all round, in that they are capable musicians (both vocal and instrumental), earnest preachers, and good nurses. Sister Miriam is of a Wesleyan family, whdst Sister Winnie is the daughter of a Victorian Baptist minister. Their vocal duets are well worth listening to. They have been in the colony since Christmastide, and have conducted missions in Nelson for the Anglican, Wesleyan, and Baptist sects. During their stay in Wellington they have conducted missions in the Baptist and Primitive Methodist churches. * • # Malcolm Ross got back from festive Melbourne by the Monowai last week, and seems quite unspoilt by champagne and civic pageants. On the day of the Royal entry into the Victorian metropolis, Malcolm was perched high on the battlemented turrets of one of the arches, and boldly snapshotted everything notable that came within his range of vision. The show beats anything in the public-rejoicing line that had previously happened on the Australian continent, and one of the English "specials" privately assured Mr. Ross that the illuminations were far ahead of London's brilliant record on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee. * * • It is pretty well known amongst, the Royal entourage that the Duke and Duchess and the leading members of their suite are looking forward with exceptional interest to their visit to New Zealand. None, of them, of course, have been here before, and they have heard so much of glowing report about this tight little island colony that they are most anxious to see it. More than that, they are all quite a-tip-toe with expectation about the great Maori gathering, which they perfectly understand is being arranged in their honour at Rotorua. New Zealand is frequently on their lips, and they are anticipating a real good time in the wonderland of the South Pacific. * * • Mr. Henry Phillips, of the Railway Hotel, Lower Hutt, who died last week, and was laid to rest in the Sydney-street Cemetery on Thursday, was a wellknown Boniface in these parts. Like the Hon. Mr. Shrimski, he was a Polish Jew, and like him, too, Mr. Phillips, as a very young man, girded up his loins, and pushed out from the land of his birth in search of a freer field tor his exertions. He came to this colony in the good ship Bombay, and launched himself into business as a haberdasher in the Dunedin Arcade. After two years there, he tried other parts of the South Island, and, finally, he said "good-bye" to the South, and broke ground in the North, as a storekeeper at Greytown. * • • There he had tho misfortune to be burnt out, and a similar experience befel him at Palmerston North whore he next experimented in the storekeeping line. After this, Mr. Phillips tried a change of occupation, as well as scene. It was successful. He came to Wellington, and conducted the Prince of Wales Hotel for some years. In 1885, he purchased the Occidental Hotel, at Masterton, and made it a very popular hostelry. Four years ago he sold out, and went into the Railway Hotel, at the Lower Hutt, of which he was still the licensee at the time of his death.

Mr. Phillips was twice married, but leaves no children. He married the second time some five or six years ago, hi 9 bride being a daughter of the late Mr. Jacob Frankel, who, as Miss Frankel, w at> well known in local musical circles. Mr. Phillips was an active member of the Masonic fraternity, and was generally esteemed for his genial spirit. He was between sixty and seventy veai& ot age, and death was due to heart-failure, following congestion of the lungs. ♦ » • There \\ ere no less than four officers of our various Contingents present at the Heretaunga Mounted Rifles' sports, at Newtown, on Friday last. And", strange to relate, each of those officers represented different Contingents. They were Colonel Robin, of the First, Major Crawshaw, of the Second, Captain Bourn, of the Third . and Captain Todd, of the Fourth. Further, they were from different parts of the colony, and all were native-born. The ColoneJ hails from. Dunedin, the Major from Timaru, Captain Bourn from Temuka, and Captain Todd from Wellington. They did not stay more than half-an-hour at the Park, a stiff southerly freezing the b'ood which, as the Colonel put it, had been thinned out in Africa. Later in the day another high-rank Contingenter, Colonel New all, put in an appearance, and later still the Minister for Defence (Mr Seddon) strolled on to the ground, took a couple of turns up and down, and the southerly and the cabby drove him home shivering also. • * * The Hon James McGowan, Minister Mines and also of Justice, has been getting far more than, his fair share of chaff ever since Mrs. J. X Hart, at that Havelock banquet, expiessed her wonder that such a miserable creature as a bachelor should ever be allowed to sit in Parliament. They are now saying that Mr. McGowan has taken that rebuke to heart, and is looking quite a new man. The "Observer" has heard — source of information not stated — that ever since .that memorable banquet the Hon. James is never without a dainty buttonhole, that he trims up his goatee with extra care to make it look as nice as possible, and that he has had his photo taken in various poses. If this be all true, it is not surprising to learn that people are already asking who the damsel is, and when it is coming off. * « • Mr. Ferguson, a member of the NewSouth Wales Legislative Assembly, tells an anecdote which amusingly illustrates the vanity of the late Sir Henry Parkes. Said Sir 'Enery, in the lobby, one day — "I see you are a smoker, Mr. Ferguson." "Oh, yes, Sir Henry ; I smoke a cigar sometimes." "Ah — me and Gladstone have never smoked," remarked the old warrior. "Indeed," responded Mr. Fergu&on, "Tennyson and I have always smoked." « * * By the way. there has been a bit of a fuss on the "other side" about an alleged slight to the relatives of the late Sir Henry. It was reported that they w ere deliberately ignored in the invitations that were issued for the opening of the Federal Parliament. It now transpires, however, that Lady Parkes (Sir Henry's third and last wife) did get an invite, but it was for herself only. She then applied for an invitation for the late Sir Henry Parkes' young children, and, as no response was made to this request, the lady herself declined to attend. * * * Cordial felicitations to Mrs. Seddon on her birthday, which was celebrated on Tuesday last. It was a happy inspiration which prompted the West Coasters, among whom Mr. and Mrs. Seddon have spent so much of their lives, to seize the occasion for a complimentary presentation. And, appropriately enough, the golden opinions which are entertained of the Premier's wife assumed the subbtantiaJ form of some forty or fifty ounces* of gold, taken from Seddon's Terrace, Westland. The accompanying addre&s paid a glowing tribute to Mrs. Seddon's many endearing qualities — hei sympathy for those in suffering or distress, her devotion to her husband and family, her active interest in the young soldiers who have gone forth from this land in the cause of the Empire, her womanly kindness of heart. * * * Throughout the storm and stress of Mr Seddon's strenuous public life, and even when political feeling assumed its bitterest phases, no one has ever had an unkind word to say of Mrs. Seddon. The most malignant scandal-monger has never dared to call in question her fair fame and untarnished reputation. The Premier has been blest in his domestic relations, and much of his ability to compass the arduous tasks that he has voluntarily imposed upon himself during the last decade has proceeded from the loving care with which his faithful helpmate relieved him of private worry and anxiety. A model wife and mother, Mrs. Seddon deserves to be highly honoured among a peop'e who have ever set high store upon the domestic virtues.

Mr. W. J. Napier, the senior member for Auckland City, arrived in Wellington on Saturday last, and his dapper figure has been moving actively about the landscape during this week. As Mr. Napier's recent address to his constituents has attracted considerable attention throughout the colony, it is just as well to point out that the honorable member did not assert, as a local paper has stated, that party government did not exist in New Zealand. What he did was to point out the defects of the party system and to show that the cooperation of the House of Representatives as a whole was not secured, and was not sought, in the making of our laws. * * * But, at the same time, Mr. Napier took care to make it quite plain that this was not the fault of the Government, but of the system. He maintains that the Conservatives when in power did exactly the same thing, and that Sir Harry Atkinson was accustomed ever and anon to put on his "hobnailed boots." Mr. Napier gives an instance from last session, to show the insincerity of the Opposition. He happened to be in charge of a bill in committee, about one clause of which the leading members of the Opposition were making speecheb expressive of the most dramatic indignation, and, in the most impressive tones, were painting the lurid consequences of such an enactment. * * * The senior member tor Auckland was quite new to the game. He did not suspect that this was the merest party acting. In bewilderment he scanned his innocent bill for these signs of sinister and malevolent purpose, and, failing to find any, he crossed over to the front Opposition benches with the bill in his hand, and said, "Look here, just show me how you would like the clause altered to avert the evils you foresee,

and we may save any further waste of time." They smiled cheerfully. "Not a bit of it," they replied. "We don't accept any responsibility in the matter." And then an older member showed him it was pure make-believe, and that all the noble sentiments, the extreme concern, the solemn warnings of the Opposition, were so much fudge and fustian. These are some of the defects against which Mr. Napier has lifted up his voice in condemnation. *■ * » A propos of that yacht accident in which King Edward "might have" lost the number of his mess, as the cableman told us, it is remarkable that "Cheiro," the mysterious palmist, who has been the European vogue during recent years, put up a prophecy which, in the light of that sea - scape, is of some interest. The trouble is that "Cheiro" was too specific. He should, have followed the example of good old Mother Ship ton, and protected his prophetic reputation by cautious generalisation. Here is the exact wording of his "tip," as recorded by him on 23rd January last : — "The prediction I make now about the King is that near the month of May to June of this year there will be an attempt made upon his life, and it will be a close shave if he gets through it. A startling Socialist plot against the reigning family will also be discovered at about the same time." # * * Now, as to the latter portion of the "tip," how about the police searching that foreign-going steamer on the "other side" the other day for an Anarchist? "Cheiro," on the occasion upon which he spread himself as above recorded, also prophesied to this effect — "A rebellion in Cape Colony will take place twice in the year 1901, between April and June, and more serious still between October and December." Get your Eighth Contingent ready, Mr. Seddon!