All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 292, 3 February 1906, Page 3

All Sorts of People

MR Guinness, Speaker of the House, who is a lawyer, got a sly one on to the Bench the other day. His Honor said witnesses seemed to lose the power of speech as soon as they went into the witness-box. Mr Guinness retorted that it was frequently difficult for the court and counsel to hear the pearls of wisdom that fell from the Hps of the Bench. Ut course," he said, "I don't mean Your Honor!" Judge Connolly, the most indistinct of any judge who ever coughed and spluttered out law in New Zealand was the most constant complainant about indistinctness we remember. 'Twas ever thus. A visiting esfcanchero fr 10 ™ *{*■&" gentine was so taken with Nightfall s chance of winning the Wellington Cup that, on the mommg <rfth e s a^-'nn^' nn^ stood to win between £400 and £500 if G G's gee-gee got home— which it didn't. The Argentine is a great racing country, and at Buenos Ayres— the Paris of the Southern Hemispherethere is a raoe-meetmg every Sunday, not to mention week-dlay fixtures. . • * Ihere aie many in all parts of the colony who will iegaet to learn oftha illness ot Captain tfraithwaite, A.IJ.U to Hi* Excellency the Governor. Captain Braithwaue nas been, visnting Wellington with his mother and sister (lately from Home;, and all three were guests of lan Duncan, of Hobsonstreet. The whole party ware at the race* on Anniversary Day, and tbe Captain ot the Smiling Teeth was in capital form, but he felt off-colour that evening, and the next day was told he had pleurisy. The illness occurs at a rather awkward time, as His Excellency was about to shift southward from Auckland to Napier and Wellington (Where he will meet Admiral Fawkes, the new naval Commander-in-chief), and then he may establish himself a* "Claremont," Mr. Rhodes's fine estate at Timaru, for which place he has been in treaty. Now that the Governor has such a crack-a-jack motor-car, Timaru would be a handy centre to a great many interesting places. » * * "Tom" Tolley, who died on Saturday last, should have been, called 1 "the jolly blacksmith/ for he was one of the familiars about town, who gazed out on the world through a good-natured grin ■without losing a tittle of the respect due to one who was an efficient and honest tradesman and general good chap. Hardly a business man of longstanding in Wellington who has not had some dealings with Mr. Tolley when a lock went wrong, or a key was needed. He came out to Wellington when quite a boy, with his parenfo, and his father established a blacksmith's business (one of some consequence in the days prior to the Yale and other patent locks), and when the old man eassed away, "Tom" carried on the usiness. He tired of being his own "boss" in time, and' threw it up to take service under Mr. George Deoiton, of Willis-street, where he has worked for the past twenty-five years. Mr. Tblley's health has been very poorly for years past, and hfe death was not unexpected He leaves a wife and children to mourn the loss of a real good father to whom fa-be was hard.

Rev. Isaac Zaekariah, Rabbi of Christchuroh, who died on Saturday last, looked foreign, because he was foreign. He was a native of Jerusalem, and could trace his genealogy back along a lane of Rabbis ol the old, old faith that endures and whose members wax fat with the ages. Though he came to New Zealand! in the sixties, Mr. Zachariah never picked up English as she is spot© with any degree of perfection, but his innocent mistakes only made him the more loveable to those who knew the man underneath. In the early days, those of the faith, on > wold West Coast depended pretty exclusively on the services of the worthy deceased at births, deaths, and marriages, and it was known down there that when "Old' Zao" was in town, something was going to happen. • * • The reverend gentleman was an Oriental linguist of parts, and his services ■were, on several occasions, called into play when some puzzkng gentleman irom East o' Suez wanted to talk in the court in his own lingo. The Zacbariah family are pretty well known in isew Zealand. "Joe" is in the pawnbroking business, in Manners-street, and sells tea and cameras besides. "Charlie," of the Public Trust Office, is the comic singer, who went on the "Mapoairika" trip as a set-off to thie Minister in charge. Hyam and "Dolph" run a tailoring business in Gisborne, and "Alf" was in a stock and grain business in Christohuroh. There are also Musses ZaKihaalah. Esther, the elder, is so charming that she might have been .her Biblical namesake; Sophie has a lively disposition^ Miriam is the young wife of "Jakey" Schwartz (of the New York Equitable) ; and Kitty is the baby. Some years ago the late Rabbi paid a visit to Palestine, and only a few weeks ago migiht have been seen cladl in sober black. He was then seeking better health than he has enjoyed l for somie time past, and he had so far recovered! that he was to be here again this week to marry his son Adolphus (of Gisborne) to Miss Citron (sißter of Mrs. Harry Levy), but the God of Abraham has willed otherwise. The Countess of "Warwick, on© of the most beautiful and richly-endowed among peeresses, has been distinguished ever since heir marriage for her philanthropy and benevolence. A Socialist who owns 23,000 acres of Brifcislh land as a novelty, and the countens explained her position in an interesting speech. "I can't help owning those acres," she said apologetically; "the law of entail forces me to keep them. The remedy lies in an alteration of the law." As a Socialist, Lady Warwick enrolled herself a member of the Social Democratic Federation, the omly titled adherent of that organisation. Recently she toured England in her 40 h.p. motor-oar, which is painted a brilliant Socialistic red, in order to ©peak on behalf of the many Labour candidates preparing to contest seats at the general election. • • * Clement Wragge, the storm fiend, who left Australia because the Federal Government wouldn't pay enough for the weather he was sending, went to England, and then bolted suddenly to Kurraeliee, in India, where a comet was about to get hatched. After this, Clement went to America. Now, he writes to the Lance, saying, in picturesque language, that he has written a book, "The Romance of tthe South Seas," that it is only 7s 6d', is full of pictures, and humour, and all that sort of thing. But, this isn't the worst! Clement is coming back to New Zealand during this y^ear 1 Good Heavens ! Yes, very good, indeed. He reckons his new pictures of them are the best that were ever taken.

John Barr, of the "New Zealand Times" staff, journalist, poet, and general good fellow, is the last daily scribbler to be lassooed by the Sydney "Daily Telegraph," which newspaper has made Wellington its recruiting ground for some years past. Within the past eighteen months it has secured three senior reporters from Wellington dailies — Louis. ,Woolcott ("Post"), and Paddy Nolan and Jack Barr ("Times") — and Wellington pressmen are beginning to ask one another, "Who'll be the next?" as it is said! there are at present a couple- of vacancies on the staff of the great Sydney paper. * , # * There is quite a contingent of New Zealanders connected' with the Sydney press, who have been tempted 1 from, island to continent by the higher salaries and better conditions enjoyed by journalists in Australia, particularly in Sydney. In adkJition to those mteai'tioned, Ohaaies Marter, chief sub-edT-toir of the "Daily Telegraph," was just a reporter on the local "Times," and Harry Taperell, , leader writer of the "Telegraph" was also on the "New Zealand Times." On one occasion he came back to the editorship of that paper, but the strain of having to write other people's views got on his nerves, and he returned to Sydney and freedom in a few weeks. * • * In the case of "Jack" Barr, the ''Telegraph." has secured the best writer of "specials" in this colony. Who in Wellington does not remember the powerful picture of the Salivation Army's doss-house, which "Jack" wrote up from a self-sought experience gained by disguising himself as a "dead-beat" and dossing in with the rest of the shady 'uns. He did several police court sketches inimitably, went to Lyttelton in the stoke-hold of a coolie-manned liner, and told) about it in graphic phrases ; etoxvoedl with the fishermen at Makara beach, and Wrote of the peril and loneliness of their grey lives. * * ♦ In verse, Mr. Ban- is strong and virile, but just a little inclined to be morbid, and mostly anything he wrote the "Bulletin" accepted, and) on one occasion he wrote a yarn called "The Man who was Raffled," for the "Evening Post," and months afterwardls came a handful of dollars and a request to be allowed to publish the story, from the "Boston Cosmopolitan," who wanted more from the_same pen. So that the "Telegraph" has secured! a gifted writer, from whom Wellington pressmen part with a 'choke in the throat and misty eyes. "Jack" leaves for Sydney on Saturday week, and Mrs. Barr and the Barnlet travel west a few weeks later. * • • Rushing round) for a sample of "Jack's" stuff, we struck 'Idyllic Napier," a rhapsody forced out of, him by that picturesque spot: "You who grub in the big city for money . . . will read this as a man would 1 read a railway time-table. You will not be thrilled. You will not shout 'This is no place for me !' You will not rush home and pack up," etc. But you are going to, "Jack," just because youi have got to "swatch in the mdre for pelf." Even a Bohemian grubs. The "Post" loses a brilliant man because the "Times" offers him a few shillings a week extra, and the 'Dai 1 - Telegiraph' gets a man the country cannot 'spare because it offers a living wage. Ah, well, as "Jack' says, "When I die— when I escape from the thresh and clamour of things— take me to the Land of the Honey of the Sun, where I may sleep softly beneath a thousand fragrances." That's the worst of these poets, "When I die." Why not "While I live"— in SydweyP

In a scrupulously-clean, kitchen, in am obscure street of Wellington', sat an old, a very old, man. Though old, his spirits and actions were not greatly affected, for his, bright, blue eyes sparkled as lie told, in capital language, and with many a happy chuckle, Bis story of the way-hack days, sitting comfortably by the fire, though the diay was warm, in a big easy chair. The ancient was old "Bill" Reeve, whaler, seaman, and one of the very earliest of colonists. Indeed, this old man, »» eager to tell his story, andi so pathetically excited at the novelty of living over again the sights and scenes _or primitive times in these waters, sailed in through the Wellingtoni HeaVte two years before Wellington! was established — in 1839 — when the native means of reaching Petone from Pipitea was by paddle and l canoe and the trees of the primeval forests swished 1 their lower branches in the harbour foam at highwater. • • • It seems a little strange to us — the "we" that have a reasonable prospect of years of life — that the people could not foresee the Wellington of to-day, and there and then settle dtowni and hang on. for a rise mi values. But that is vain, and, anyhow. Reeve was one of the orew of the trading brig Ann and Mary, who were out to "take the natives down" with beads, tin trumpets, and highly-colouired blankets. But, the Ann and Mary came to grief at tlhe Chathams (where it arrived juafc after the Morioris had massacred and eaten the crew, of the French whaler, John Barr), and 1 the crew tihere and then squatted 1 on the delandls. • • ♦ In 1841, Mr. Reeve tripped up to Wellington, and chose a wife from among the immigrant girls who had arrived from the Old Country by the ship Stains Castle, and was married to her in St. Paul's Church on Janizary 22nd, 1841, by the Rev. Mr. Cole, the first Anglican minister established^ in Wellington. The old sailor remained at the Chathams until 1844, when he again went a-whaling, this time to the frozen North, off the bitter coasts of Siberia and Alaska. On 'his retrain he began to think that "a life on the ocean main" was a bit of a blank, and so settled down in Johnsonville, where he stayed for twenty-five yeans. Then, hie shifted up to Foxton, where another quarter of a century was spent. • • • In 1896, he came again to Wellington to spend the evening of his days with his "children"— most of whom show the grey hairs of mature age. Wiliam Reeve will be ninety-six years of age in June, which just about makes him the senior colonist living, and whem he dlies a bit of living history (of that time when New Zealand was tortured with tihe pains of giving birth to her present capital city) will be lost for ever. "Bill" Reeve looks good for the century, though. • • • Miss Florence Lloyd, the lady who wears trousers in the "J.P.," and who recently screamed her way through here, is fond of adventure, and hadonle in WaM (where the gold comes from). Waihi refuses to permit women down its mines, because one lady, who was going down the Waihi shaft in the cao'e fainted, and was a trouble. Florence wamtedi to see the big mine, as she had seen a Ballaxat mine, and liked it, so she donned) man's attire blue dungarees and! that sort of thing, and got down. The keen, eye of the shift-boss, however, penetrated the disguise, and he threatened to send her up. The leader of the party, Mr. Dallas, would have put the show away, anyhow, by asking the shSftrboss if he couldn't see that "she" was a man?

A nmmber of gentlemen with pronounced features, thick voices, and unlimited wealth are alleged to be looking for two youn^ Wellingtonians in order to buy an invention for half-a-crown that is wGrth a fortune. You laugh, but the assertion stands. Young Arthur Allen and Garnet Holmes are the inventors of a nonfouhng trolley-bead for tram-cars, and you will pardon, us for saying that even if it was a less valuable invention, Mr. John Holmes, father of young "Edison" Holmes, would insist on a market for it. • • • Arthur Allen is a fluent young Irishman, with a broad head. He wears specs, amd humps the invention round in a bag. Arthur was educated at Epsom College, Surrey, and went to a Technical School in London. As far as engineering was concerned, he lay perdu in Wellington until the crash of cars came, filling in the time oairpentermg and doing other useful things. He is a fine draughtsman, and, indeed, made the first plan of the preliminary section of the tramways. As for Garnet Holmes, he's the enthusiastic son of John Holmes, Trade Plenipotentiary to Britain and Commissioner for Royalty in New Zealand. He hajs the 'weddedi brows" of the hot-headed brilliant Celt, and was one of Mr. MoM'orran's boys at the Terrace School once. Also, was he one of Mr. Firth's boys at Wellington College, and! both gentlemen are glad that Garnet has come to light. Garnet went to Cable'© foundry, and, afterwards to the Manawatu Railway Company's workshops, wihere he invented! a laboursaving tool which isi still in use, and fox whioh he received a very few thousand pounds indeed. • • • Arthur also has invented an electric device, the name of which Arthur will tell' you. The joint invention of these two clever Wellingtonians is a trolleyhead'that doesn't catch the cross wires and pull the top off the cars, and kill people. The average of burst trolleyneads pear day in Wellington is one. A car earns about £5 a-day, ant. the average burst costs a bit under £20. The Allen-Holmes head) hangs like the head of a man with his throat out. In this position it catches nothing. Everything slides off it. It doesn't run on the wire in this out-throat fashion, for the conductor, bv pulling the trolleycord straightens the head, whioh is on a strong spring, and the head forced against the wire keeps the spring depressed and the head upright. • • • Jerk the head off the wire, and, the throat is cut. When the head falls back, the motor-man's bell rings, so he knows something is wrong. He -ulls up, and avoids even the possibility of fouling. Again, the old trolley head, which goes 'bung" so constantly, generally pulls about fourteen yards of car entrails out. These two Wellington boys have also obviated this by having no continuous attachment between the head and! the pole. If the new head comes to grief, it probably comes by itself, and dioesn't drag the car to perdition^ * • ♦ The fact that Fred. Piram, exM.H.R., has gone into business as a land and estate agent, partnered with a highly-respected Palmerstonian, reminds us that Mr. Pirani didn't "get in" at the last election. It is said that not only had Mr. Pirani's committee decided to give a spree rejoicing over his return to Parliament, but had actually had the cards printed, including the cabalistic capitals, M.H.R. Ah, well ; it's all good for the printers. * » • Booth was the only member of the New Zealand football team from' whom a letter arrived by the last 'Frisco mail. It came to Mr. Galbraith, m the form of a post-card, and bore these chieea'f u! words : — "God bless our home. We are dog tired of the eternal pack, pack, pack, and move, move, move." * • For a country of its population, New Zealand figured pretty largely in the great election that has just taken place at Home. First ana foremost, there is the fact that a young New Zealander, one of the Fell family, of Nelson, has won tihe seat for Grjfcat Yarmouth, in the Unionist inteirest. Then, Mr. E. G. Jelliooe, formerly one of the best-known Wellington lawyers, had a tilt on behalf of the Liberals at the Walton (Liverpool) seat, but was beaten by a Unionist. One of our exGovernors, Sir James Fergusson, has been in Parliament as member for North-east Manchester for many yeans, and held an office in the Balfbur Ministry, but, like so many of his old colleagues, had this time to knuckle under — to a Liberal candidate, too. Besides, am Australian was elected who for a time lived in New Zealand. Altogether, a fair representa/bion of a country with a few 'hundred 1 thousand inhabitants.

"Johnny" Hall was, 1a the old tames, one of the smartest camediianis Australasia knew. "Johnny" hiad threatened to go into the ministry, but he saw the humour of the thing, and became a comedian. He had some sons, one of whom was "Tom," who ought to have been a comedian, but became a parson. In fact, the Rev. T. R. B. WoolloxaJl — this is the real family name — is at this moment exhorting; the people 1 of Waihi to observe the Primitive Methodistioal means of reaching heaven. • • • Joseph Chamberlain wound) up a six. column speech, wherein he pirop'hesaed the return, of the Conservative forces, with these lines. They are very fine, and the second line isn't a reflection on New Zealand 1 statesmen: — Lord, turn the hearts of those who prate, Afraid to dare or spend, The doctrine of a narrower State, More easy to defend. Not this tne watchword of our siros, Who breathed with oceans' breath ; Not this our spirits' ancient fires, Which naught oould quench but death. Strong are we? Make us stronger yet. Great P Make us greater far. Our feet Antarctic oceans met, Our Crown the polar star. Round earth's wild coasts our batteiies speak, Our highway is the main j We stand as guardian of the weak, We burst the oppressor's chain. Although this is fine poetry, we don't do any such thing. We only think so. • • • Sir Robert Stout, our handsome Chief Justice, who doesn't think much of the Privy Council, is apt to get hysterical on the subject of education when not otherwise employed. At Dunedin recently he said that youths must be trained to the higher (university) education to make them thinking men and women, and also to fit them for their work. That is all very well, and sounds pretty good, but if all youths -were given a kid-gloved, university education, who is going to do the pick-and-shovel work in this land of picks and shovels? If Pat is going to be turned into a thinking man, he will think so much that roads will never be made. Mary Jane, too, between thinking hard and! reading Emerson's Essays and the Chief Justice's brotherhood of man essays will forget to wash the dishes and scrub the kitchen floor. The Labour Department officials will inform you that "what this colony wants is unskilled labour — farmhands, navvies, and domestic servants. But, if these folk receive an university

education, and have a quarter of the alphabet trailing after "their names, are tiiey going to buck in in unmentionable country, where, if the foot of man has been planted, he has the greatest difficulty in drawing it out again, even on Government roads? Besides, how many members of the Ministry were given university education, and, again, how many with university educations long to be in their boots?