All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 95, 26 April 1902, Page 3

All Sorts of People

THK hist meeting of the Mo\ able Committee of the 1.0 O.F. (M.U.), in Wellington, collected under one roof delegates from all parts of New Zealand, many of whom are ■north talking about. They lost no time in making Brother John McLeod, ot Auckland, Giand Master, and Jolui filled the bill with excellent resultfe. This genial, handsome brother, with the well-fitting black frock coat, the keen Isle of Skye eyes, and a smile ot good-fellowship, has resided in Auckland the best part of a busy life. He ha& been an Oddfellow for twenty-five \<?ats, and it does not seem to have done "him any harm, and he does not avail himself of the services of the doctor much -k * * Being an Oddfellow Grand Master is piett-i good, but. Mr McLeod has had greater honours He was one of the three Royal Commissioners who took charge of the Pi nice and Princess of Wales up North, made arrangements fot their entertainment while they were theif, and helped them to a p^ood time Hf- it. a!so a member of the Auckland C'it> Council. John is chairman of the Auckland City Schools Committee and it wa,s thiough his efforts that swimming is a school subject there. By the way. Mi McLeod is the premier basket-maker of Auckland His eldest son is with the Ninth Contingent. He was a sergeant in the Seventh but he atti acted Colonel Davies attention bv his soldierlike qualities, and he is a lieutenant — and a very vouug one -m the Ninth now. John i^ proud ot that boy We- don't blame him * « * The member of the Committee with the long white beard the thin nose, light blue eves and the bent back and who pan not get out of an ungraceful habit of reclining in his chair in corlect Parliamentary style, was farmer Richmond Hursthouse, of Motueka. He ma\ have learnt the trick in the House, foi he was an MHR as far back as 187() aaid continued so for ten. years. He is a native of New Plymouth, has been an Oddfellow (corresponding secretary) for thirty years was also Mayor of the borough* of Motueka, member of the Nelson Land and Education Boards, and has heal e\ erv other kind of public billet you can think of. *. # * Mi Hursthouse looks bored when a motion is before the Conference, and if he wants to say anything he upends himself m a tired fashion, gives his opinion as who should say. "I don't give a hang whether you believe it or no, that's my opinion," and relapses, satisfied He fought in the Maori War, and lias the medal The old "Taranakis" is, he sa-vs, the only* volunteer regiment with an honour on its colours He doesn't give a hang if we believe it or no. We don't. He was at school for nine months, but his sixty years of education out of school have taught him more than a great many Ms A. ever knew One of Mr Hursthouse's sons i<- out looking for a medal, too with the Fighth Contingent. * » • John Levdon, the humorous auctioneer, wid the ruddy locks, formerly of Ireland but for the past "quarther of a rinturv of Auckland disthrict," usually had a few wurruds to say on some motion that has been passed five minutes before When reprimanded for going over old ground. John L. asked "How

ua& Ito know \ou w going to sax what I intended to s.i\ .- And the t onfeience loaied * * ■* - Mi F. P Loasb\, ot GieUown is a comfortable-looking* delegate, with a well-gioomed appearance He lias been an Oddfellow secretary foi t\\cut\ veais He is piesident of the Gieytown Working; Men's Club for mam yeans and chauman of the Hoitieultural Society. He is a Svdneysidei win. left his native place when but seven A storekeeper b\ calling he has yet found time to fill even office Ins Order can confer * * * Mi. C X Belli mgei has the lefiected glory of coming from I 4".I 4 ". M. Smith's cit\ Fact is he was bom m New Pl\ mouth and lias, lived there ever since He is not ve>r\ big. but he is full of confidence and is hardly the kind of man who could see a. flaw in his own reasoning. He was president of the United Fne Brigades' Association, and captain of the local fire quenchers for years He 1^ a Past Master Mason of Mount Egmoirt Lodge Since he has gone out of the town clerk industry, he paints— houses, with hi= brother, who is also a mural artist That patriarchal Scot, Mr. Baumbei . one of Wamgaiiiui's delegates is a letired blacksmith, and does not lung now but good. He wasMa\or of Wanganui foi years and, like most Scots, handles facts and figuies very capably Mi. J. Kershaw, of Wellington, secictaiy of the Confeienee, tells us he came from Lancashire. He need net have mentioned it His accent pioclaimed the fact Some of Ins early recollections are of the cotton famine in 1860, and they are not pleasant. Were his people in the spinning line? W T ell, not cotton. Father wa« in thd gas industry, and son has been in the same line of business for the Wellington Gas Company these twentv-hve years , The keen-lookmg gentleman, with the unmistakably German head of great width across the top is Waahi's delegate. His name is Katz. but jou must not say it like that Call it Kates. Adolf has brains. He lmpies^cs one at once with this, and he handles our language, although he has used it but sixteen yeans, with as much fluency and correctness as any man in the Conference. He has barely a trace of a German accent left. We innocently called him Cats " and asked him if he was a German. Sorrowfully he eyed us through his 'specks." "Yes T was made in Germany under protest." he said Adolf w as born at Pforzheim m the Black Forest (for pronunciation see him), and his fathei was a saw-mill-pi and a city councillor. * * * Mr. Katz is, of course, a loval^ Britisher, and a loyal unionist Was lie not as a w itness in the Waihi Company's conciliation case, the hardest nut the Board had to crack, and did he not occupy the box from 9 a.m. until 4.30 p.m 5 He did. He is a young Oddfellow — only five years' old in fact, but h« has held the highest district office, that of P.G.M.. represented his lodge as delegate on the Waihi Hospital Committee, and worked haa-d for the opening of lodges in Waitekauri and Te Aioha * * * Previous to taking up storekeeping, he was a working miner in the Waihi Company's employ, and before that ' bushwhacked"' considerably He does not play football, but he is the finest ' barracker" Waihi lias. He was a volunteer, and is a marksman There is no doubt that, as a newly-elected councillor of the brand nevr borough of Waihi, he will make things hum in that city and, if he is a fair sample of the Waihi councillor that place should quickly raise itself from the slough of despond into which it has fallen.

Mr Thomas Aitken, a delegate from Thames, is perhaps one of the best known men on the Hauiaki Peninsula At uoik, he is assistant postmaster, and at play he is the most persistent ban acker" who evei spuned a team of footballer*, to wctoiv In the old da\s Tom" had a habit of keeping Ins hands in his trousers pockets Even in Ins most excited bai lacking moments 1 c kept them thcie The habit led to a cunous controtomip 1 ; on one occasion He had been \ellin°; his hardest for a Thames football club, playing on tlhe old Waio-Karaka Flat ground (since buiit on), and, as ever, he had his hands jammed right in lii^ pockets * * * Suddenly, one of the players on the Hide he was barracking for secured the ball a,ud dashed for the line and a try As this meant victory, "Tom's" spirits grot beyond all control, he withdrew his hands suddenly, pockets and all. flung them up in his excitement, and showered siher all round, not intentionally of course, but to the huge delight of the small boy population, who scrambled gladly ''Tom's" name is a household word with sports on the Northern eoldfield He plays cricket vet and is not to be despised as a "flannelled fool." * * * Hone Hinni is a smart-looking and very adventurous half-caste, who has been seeang life of late, and has just had rather a narrow escape of an enforced holiday. It seems that, having run short of ready cash at Gisborne, Hone strolled into the office of Mr. Nolan the Crown Prosecutor, appropriated a cheoue, of which the body had been fiNed in, forced the signature, bought some goods with the spurious document, and incited down the change in refreshment and general dissipation. When they ran him in for forgery he said it was only his little ioke and that, moreover, he was drunk. * * * But that sort of plea did not avail. And so, after conviction, his lawyei put 111 a olaam for probation. Hone, he said, had but lecently returned from South Africa, and wa.s excited by the travelling His Honour the Judge did not seem to be impressed by that as an excuse for crime. "We have seait away 0000 men to South Africa," he remarked "Surely, you do not imply that the others are going to act like this?" The Crown Prosecutor spoke more effectively on Hone's behalf. He had known him from childhood, and this was the first time he had anything against his character. And so the accused was admitted to probation ordered to make restitution of the money, and pay expenses. Returned troopers mu?t be careful not to get too excited bv travelling, or they may loot in the w rone country. * * * Bernhard Walther, the long-haired Belgian violinist, who gave three concerts in the Sydney -street schoolroom, some months ago, rather scored off the musical critics in Melbourne. He certainly made some of them feel a bit sally. It seems that they dealt rather severely with his first concert usine a good deal of technical language, and that they praised up — in fact, gushed over — his second concert, at which, through nervousness, he didn't play so well. Then, he set a trap for them * * * One of the leading items of his third concert was programmed as parts of Godard's Concerto in A minor. And. after the critics had slashed it up, and explained how it should have been played, Bernhard was able to point the finger of scorn at them, and indulge in guffaws of Belgian mirth. He had not given the concerto' at all, but, in order to find out how much his critics knew, treated them to a romance and rondeau bv Wieniawski instead, which couldn't well be musically mistaken for a concerto bv Godard, or anybody else.

The friends of Dr. Grattan Guinness, tli© eminent evangelist and medico, will be grieved to hear, by marconigraph , that', in consequence of the' big collections falling off, he has commenced the practice ot medicine m Waihi. There is something of the Jekyll and Hyde business about Dr. Grattan Guinness, if the Southern paper that gives this information is to be believed. The paper i-j unkind in suggesting he had to fall back on medicine when collections slumped for the eminent one was sent out bv the London Missionary Society in search of health. Also, the said society is a wealthy one, and i® not dependent on New Zealand collections. • Where the paper stumbles is in the fact that there is another Dr. Guinness in Waiha, who never preached a sermon in his life, and was never within a thousand miles of Central Africa. * • ♦ Rev. W. R. Tuck, the young Wesleyan parson, who has recently come from Wanganui to minister at Petone, dropped across us the other day, and said he hoped to stay in Petone for four years or so, to cultivate that corner of the vineyard. Mr. Tuck's intimates call him "Billy," and they remember him just a very few years ago as a comparatively callow youth with a penchant for his present calling, but with duty, in the shape of an accountant's desk, to hinder him in his ambition. Mr. Tuck comes from the Waikato, and for some years added up figures, three; columns at a time, for the big coaching firm of Short and Co., of Paeroa. "Billy" was not above looking for passengers, or driving a coach, and nobody knew that he had threatened to become a parson * • » He burnt the midnight oil with excellent effect, took every occasion to sneak in public, and blossomed forth into a white choker while most of his old friends believed him grinding away at his columns of figures. Lately, the Wesleyans of Aramoho church, Wanganui, gave him a very fine send off, and a tiny bag of sovereigns. Mr. Tuck has the gift of very fluent speech, he has earnestness 1 and youth, and excellent business capabilities. There is no foundation for the ' cloth" like a good business one, and this young clergyman is eminently and clever Iv businesslike. * * * Fire Superintendent Hugo has been to Sydney and elsewhere on the Austral Continent looking for methods of escape that are ahead of everything used in Wellington. He hasn't found any. He hasn't increased his knowledge of fire-quenching matters materially, but his trip has not done him any harm. He gives the palm among fire brigades to the Adelaide men. Says they have phenomenal skill or phenomenal luck. During fourteen years in that city, winch is as dry as a chip, with a "brickfielder" blowing twice a week, there have been but three fires that have done any considerable damage. * ♦ * Adelaide Fire Brigade is the one that ''turned out" in 6 5-10 sec. for the Prince of Wales. George, of that ilk, told Superintendent Booker he would let the London County Council know about it, so that they could copy South Australia's methods. Mr. Hugo says they do things in style in Adelaide. There were 3200 invites issued for the mayoral banquet in welcome to General Sir Edward Hutton, and everybody turned up' Fire Superintendent Booker's rank is something akin to that of the Governor. Drives a carriage and pair, and was given the place of honour in the Duke of York conflagration. * ♦ ♦ In the Adelaide Fire Brigade, Mr. Hugo found that the secretary and senior firemen were returned African Contingenters. Also, thab two other firemen had seen service. These warriors, with others and our Inspector, foregathered to talk Boer one day. All agreed that, barring Canadians, New Zealanders were

the best tioops m Afnca It is a. wea.i\ theme but so main ha\ c gi\ en us the pioud ik>mUou ot second place tluit it ma\ be collect. * * * You nun take bubonic luggage o\ ci land throughout Austiaha, and no one \ou na\ but iust tiv to go b\ steamer in \oui ordinal v disinfected state 1 S\dney is infected. It \ou want to come home to New" Zealand horn that port \ou have tiouble. both betoie and attei fumigation. Hop on to the train, therefoie boaid the boat at Melbourne —which is not infected— and come home without ten The Westraha did hei record tup when Mr. Hugo took his berth in hei- i>7\ houis is hei timetiom Hobait to the Bluff Some passengeis got hold of the Wellington hie t|uenchei and made him talk of his first whisky 'Twas awa> back in 187.5, when Mr. Hugo was a ships apprentice on board a baique tiading from New York to Rangoon Old of lope-ends and canvas weir the appi entices' P elks - TT lhe , , S sold them foi dollais. Hugo and his mates raised two dollais one tup. \\ hat would they do with it? They would taste then first whisky, like giown men Done Whisky was a quartei a nip in better-class New York. Too deal . It was five cents in the lower -ait of the town They bore down on the Ulcl Quaint v" slip, to a manners' saloon 'Two whi-kies," said Hugo to the terorious ruffian behind the bar. * * * They got them It was the vilest snake-juice, bug-poison, tanglefoot, or whatever othei Amencaji title you can think of. The boys waited No change! Say. kids " said the bar-tonder ' What v^r waitan' fci ?" Change," quoth they. Change'" the bully veiled 'What change?" 'Why, mv ninety cents: of couise." said one of the kids. "See here kids," stormed the gentleman, feeling for a "gun," "gif" And they got. That is why Mr. Hugo thinks that the aveiage bar-tender is not vastly superior to the Senate-Prohibit-ed barmaid from a moral standpoint. Also, why he is not frantically gone on strange brands of liquor. « * * Phineas Sehg, manager of the Chnstchurch Press" Company, is one of the old boys of the Thorndon public school, who was refened to when Mr. Marcus Marks was pouring Ins reminiscences mto ooir receptive ear the other day . It was not Marcus's fault that the printer transferred Mr. Sehg's services to the other Chnstchurch newspaper company, butt the fact remains that he never was on the "Times," and is still manager of the "Press." He has- not told us whether he bears, somewhere on his- body, the supplejack rampant which Marcus assured us is to be found tanned into the skin of all the Thorndon boys of his own era, but, at any rate he letains lively recollections of those devil-may-care day*. * * * Mi*. Sehg says oui parable accoiding to St. Mark brought up memories of olden times, when he lemembeied the present Central Club as the Oddfellows' Hall, with the sea-beach washing un not far a,way from it. and on which he has speared many a flounder at low tide There was no reclaimed land in those (Uvfe, when the old Independent" and "Tommy" McKenzie flourished He tackled the Caxtoman profession at the Government Punting Office, in Didsburv's time, a>s leader bo\ 01 copv-hold-ei. Many a time in the dead of the night, had lie to go to Parliament House with pi oofs of speeches etc , to Vooreil and others Scales McGla^han, and Warren weie leadeis in those day « and the two fiist named weie topnot chers" in then calling.

Fiom the position oi fop<»-holdei in the Government Fruiting Office, young Sohg ohnibud into tlie leadei's cluui at the Lj ttelton Times" office m I'hnstcliurch, and the\ found him to answei >o wtvll a<s readei* that they tued him as importer, with luglilv sa,tisfaetoi\ iesults He did" foi the papei the opening of the railway line to Dunedin, but tho trip cost him an attack of congestion of the lungs, and he went to Sydney to lecuperate. He lemainod there for a few years, and, on loturning to New Zealand, he staited se^eial papers, the last of which was the 'New Zealand Referee." It was founded at C'luistchurch, in 1884, and Mi Sehg wa.s joined in the ventuie b\ that, wellknown sporting w liter the late Mr. A. X Bird ( Sir Launcelot ") *■ * ■* In 1891, the Referee" was bought by the Press" Company and became merged in the Weekly Press," Mi Sehg himself going over as managing, editor. His gossip on athletics, under the pen name of Vaulter," had a great vogue, and he has done a areat deal since as president of the New Zealand Trotting Asociation to elevate the turf, and to forw ard the interests of that form of sport. He was bom in Victoria, but that, early blazon of the supplejack rampant stamps him as a ical Welhngtoman, of the Thoindon brand And, by his speaking likeness on this page, you will see that like Marcus, he- is one of the Cho<=en People. • * * Mr. Hogg, M.H.R., lias been positnelv exuberant lately. He iokes about surplueses, rifle shots, education, and every conceivable subject. His latest subiect is "trousers." He was At a Hamua dinner not long since, and a gentleman who affects kilts was in the chair. The chairman, with the bare legs, proposed 'The Ladies," and, of course, Mr. Hogg had a suggestion to mak^. He said, "the ladies have bee-i honoured, we have drunk their health, and now-, seeing the chairman has no trousers, and is therefore: the best representative of the ladies amongst our sex. it is surely his duty to lespond on their behalf." * * * Captain Angus Smith, who lecentlv che<l of blood-poisoning at Opotilu won the New- Zealand Cross in the Maori War. Reported that some cavalrymen under him were surprised at Opene b\ Te Kooti He was badly hit in the foot, but set out to warn his commanding officei He was captured, stupned, and tied to a tiee. He wriggled clear in four days and was for fourteen days without food or clothing. It is solemnly

a\owed that duimg those fouiteen days lie swain tno livers, with his wounded foot, and crawled where he could not walk ultimately leaching Fort Galatea. The gentleman who is responsible for the tale has not yet applied for the New Zoalanid Cioss, but he deserves to pet it. * # * Troopei Chaihe Cross, of the Third Contingent, who was wounded, captured, released, touied Europe, and is now going with the Coronation Contingent, is to leceive the Royal Humane Societ\'s medaJ befoie he goes. Cross, it will be lemembeied, saved a Lieutenant Walkei from drowning, at East London fcVigeant Dick Cholmondeley got the medal foi* the act, which he shaied with Cio-ft Lieutenant O'Farrell, who also assisted, is getting ai medal, too. Oriajina.lh' reported as a one man "save," b\ Cholmondelev, three men are now concerned in it These three are all men of the colonial contingent who rescued Walker from a w atery gi aye. Goodness only knows how many ordinary Tommies were looking for medals the day the much-saved young man was fished out bv Cross and others. » * * The friends of Mr. F. Qumtiell, foi meily a, Wesley an minister in the South Island and at Palmerston North, will probably be interested, to know that he has settled down to farm life at OrmondvilJe, Hawke's Bay. Although he has discarded the clerical robe, and now follows the plough, the ex-parson is still a sower of Gospel =eeds, and has not altogether d>eseited his old love. He has thrown in his lot with the Anglican body, and i<- considered to be Canon Webbs ii?ht-hand man. If you chance near Ormondville on a Sunday, you ma\ ?ee Mr Quintrell journeying to the outlwnq; settlements, and conducting re 1 ""lou 1 ? sen-ices with his old-time lgour. * * • Duiing last week, the Arbitration Court, consisting of Judge Cooper and Me^sis. Brown and Slater, visited the countn districts, for the purnose, amongst other business, of taking evidence in that long-delayed printers' dispute, much to the gratification of the comics " The towns visited were Masterton, Wanganui, Palmerston North, and Napier. Mr. Henricks, the pushing secretary of the Wellington Typographical Union, represented the empl&vees. A good deal of interest has been taken in the dispute at Palmerston bv tihe interested parties. Mr. Fi ed Pirani, M.H.R., was "counsel" for the printers of the Manawatu.