All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume IX, Issue 442, 19 December 1908, Page 4

All Sorts of People

ONE of our bn'Hiantly-successful girls is Miss Rosemary Rees, of Glsborae She has jusfc reached her borne up north from the woild of stage amid song in, London., where sihe has bee-n a sojounner, dramatist., acttoss, and ail that sort of clever thing, for about eight year?. Muss Koscmary is an hour's refreshmantt at any tune she chooses to talk on hei personal experiences. What young Jady w-hx> has lived, moved, and had her being in Lewi don would not be? Ov*> then, Miss Rosemary Rees is no ordin.ary young lady. She has excelled, and stands alone amongst ouir young Mew ZeaJanders itn- her oomispacuous <mcc<*sses in d^raJnatac art. All -tftie managers she has been with offered <ber re-engagememts, ami Mrs. Brown-Potter, wufch whom she was appearing in. "Lady Frederick" before sic left London, asked her to .remam to findsjh out the season, but she wanted to ooane home. Miss Rees first engagement was with Miss Famny Biwigb, and after that she did well. She toured *tffc Mrs. Lewte Waller, and with Mr. Van Bieme, wiho was ism New Zealand about four yeairs ago, pla.vi.ng "The Brokein Melody." ♦ • * Miss Rees 'has woribtan, a number of comedies and a drama, and lhas had the pleasure of seeing a number of her oraieact comedies staged as curtain-raisers, and her dirama, "A Desperate Marriage," was pnodnxoed at Brighton, while she was playjing at another theatre in that city with Miss Florence lioyd. "Her Dearest Friend, a oiwnact comedy from Muss Rees pen, was soOid to Mr. Percy HutcWnson, stage manager for Soar Charles Wytnd'ham, and was used as a cTintaim-ranser to "Peter's Mother." Miss Rees has also written a niumbeir of shotrt stones for London magazines. Sh© says that she -would like to play a sShont season, in New Zealnd before she returns to London, and it is probable that she will join, a leading company in, Australia for about eight monitihs. « » * John George Chapman,, who crossed the Great Divide at his residence in AustinjHstreet, Wellington at the end of last week, wass an. ideal London warehouseman, and a very fine stamp of citizen to boot. Geniality of disposition rivalled his keen, business acumen, as his distinguishing characteristics. He made friends as a mintar coins money. He kept IMs friends as only the straight and genuine do. Mr. Chapman had lived through an honourable and very chequeoned buauiiess career. * • • He was born and bred in Loin don, where he learned his business. Selected by Joseph Skelton. and Co., of Adelaide, who afterwards transferred their business to Messrs. Carter, Tyeds, ajid Co., Mr. Chapma.ni came to South Australia, to take charge of their departments in the South " Australian, capital. His great business ability won him such fame in Adelaide tihat a London firm mad« overtniiTvs of partniersihip to him, with a view to establishing themselves as wholesale warehousemen in Adelaide. Afterwards this firm wa9 created under the stvile of Guild Chapman. a,nd Co , with premises in King William-street. » • • The firm did a large business for a number of years, when, hao-d times and over-buying by their London representative rendered it necessary to realise the estate, and the partnership was dissolved. Mr. Chapman then_ left Adelaide, and joined the firm which at that time was known as Sargood and Co. Thus firm made an opening for him. and for several years Mr. Chapman represented their interests in New Zealand, taking the round trip from Melbourne to Hokitika, and thence to the Bluff and Auckland. While in this capacity the late Mr. Walter Turnbull made Mr. Chapman a proposal to come in and take charge of their drapery branch. This proposal was accepted, and Mr. Chapman continued in the position for some time, until Mr. Turnbull took m Mr. Jas. Smith, formerly of Te Aro House as partner in the firm. Mr. Chapman then left to manage the drapery department of Joseph Nathan and Co.'s establishment . • » • From this position he subsequently resigned, and took a share in the business of T. Komiedy Maodonald and Co. For four years Mr. Chapman continued in this firm, until he retvred from business ; as a matter of fact, until he sold out his interest to Mr. A.

L. Wilson*. Of a particiiiaiiiLy blight, breezy disposition., Mi- Chapman; was known UiHtii liis reoent illness as an extremely active man. Mr. Chapman's youngest daughter married the late jVltr. Thos. Gr. Gale, one time chairman of the Wellington Harbour Board. Since her widowhood, Mjts. Gade has been resident in England. Mi. Chapman's eldest daughter was welll-known as a pian-ist of exceptional ability, and is now suffering and. has been laid by for many months, with an limcurable complaint. The Rev. J. W. Chapman, now of New South Wales, amd at one time of JohnsoiLyiille, is a son of the deceased gentleman. • • • See that red-faced little chap ovei there? Yellow hoar, lhasn't he? Well, the Australian sun turned it that colour. Just the shade of 'ripened corn, isn't it? And ail frizzed-u>p like. Look at -What square jaw of his. Take him for a pugilist? Oh, no! He's a dandy little sport, though. Looks it? Well, yes. T>o you know that Charlie PairneU represented New South Wales against Queensland from time to time as a cricketer, footballer, ruroner. cyclist, long-jumper, pole-jumper, and various other athletics? He's been a ■<-eal hummer in his time. And with at all he's musical to his finger tips. Thunks in music. If he's cutting a pipeful of tobacco he cuts four beats to the bar If he's smokims; he piiffs the smoke to just nice waltz time • • — For about twelve months he has been directing the musdcal business around at Fullers'. It was not a Fullers' show unless Charles Parnell was tweedle-eedliing on the ivories. He's going to get out a speciaiL piano, witlh a yard and a half moire keyboard on each end. Then he'll have a sliding stool that wall run up and down from treble to base, and then — then Charles will be able to do himself justice. As it is, he's got to take to record-break-ing in the piano-pJaying business to keep up his spirits. • , • Appears as if his propensities for breaking records in athletics have pursued hum into the realms of music. His present record for constant pianoplayuig is 51 hours 5 minutes, established at our Theatze Royal a few months back. But Charles is out after this. He's going to Auckland to take his coat off, and to take that record down and dust it some. Charles will play the old year out and the new year in, beginning on December 29th and pla yimg, D.V., until next year! Charles was born at Paramatta, near Sydney, and picked up his ivorypunching proclivities at Paddingtrm, the welJ-kriown Sydney suburb. He did no harm to the accom"r>aTiiments at the Law Students' annual gorge on Thursday evening last week.

Mi. Justice Chapman, the legal gentleman, with the full cirop of sniver tiaiir, the rugged eyebrows and the whLte moustacne, was vi rare fettle at the law students' dininer Hast Thursday evening. Justice Chapman, us a tiptop speaker, and he guew .renuunascenit on this occasion. Not oinly so, but be also delved to some pleasung extant imto the days of his father, who was axi homoured and popular judge in New Zealand. His Honor pleaded a dayold headache plus a banquet as an excuse for not makung anytlhiag like a speech, and forthwith he gave one of the nicest little addresses that this Lancer has heard for a long tiane. May Mr. Justace Chapman have a headache for a week before we hear him next time. • • • When His* Homoa first happened in Wellington.' theie was a racecourse about the spot wiheire tlhe I/aw Students held their dinner. Ma-. Justice Chapman is, of course, a Wellington native. He evidently is a reilmcarnatiioinajst, for he declared that he had been waating so>m<? tame to "get in heie." His father was appointed to the Justices 1 ' Bench m 1844, and he himself was appointed to tihe similar position) inj 1908. At the tame of his father's appoiintment, Wellington, was known at Home and in many parts of New Zealand as "on tihe Beach." Hie Honor declared i«hat by his father's letters and records he had noted the fact that he himself had tried as many cases in one month at Wanganui as has farther had tried in a heavy judicial* year am his day • • • Has father had judged in the days when people could pay for court trials. .Everything was tried by jury, and he had known instances of sixty issues being placed before a jury in equity cases. Thirty issues going to a jury was a fairly common, occurrence — the people of those days could afford it. We boast of our wealth now, and take the words of our Government as gospel on the subject. Well, then, j.t must be that litigants are not as game as they used to be, sajd His Honor. • • • Once during his justiceship, His Honor's father ha.d occasion, to go to New Plymouth to oo'nfer with the Chief Justice, Sir Win. Martin. He tried to get a sthoonier to take ham, but couldn't arrange for it. A vessel bound for Sydney, but bkewm, out of her co.ur=e took him on board. The noaaest point to New Plymouth at whirh sho could set him down was Cape Albatross. So he got out there and walked to New Plymouth. After his oo.n,teren«e with the Chief Justice, there were no means of getting back to Wellington save walking, so his father set out for the walk. Here his Honor smiiled, and remarked drily: "Ah, we don't get those energetic, healthy billets now-a-days. Our work is more streoruous far. Tlhen., their salaries

were low, but their spirits were high, aaid the 'world wen* very well thenl We are aw>t eaten. oai ciirouilt now, neither do we wi angle over cases amid shoot one another by way of diversion." His Honoir, Mr. Justice Chapman, has practised at the bar nn, New Zealand befoie thiee .yuooess.ive Chief Justices • • * Tlie judge mu&t have been, aui a very rennnascent and compliant mood llast week. Nat onily did the law students rope h,im in for their annual dinner, but the High School Governicxrs ran him mi for theix annual double event — the presentations of prizes at the Boys' College a.nid Girls' College respectively. At both 'iinstiitutions he did the lion's share of the speaking, and presented the pirizes as well. • • • Moreover, as he had talked to the youthful law students about his father, he gossiped to tihe girls about his mother. A look of surprise came into College Governor Drandioinj's face — and the lauSly teachers actually gasped — as bis Honoir bi oke ground by advocating that ballet dancing should be added to the College curriculum. They thought at first he might be joking. Btut iit soon appeared fhait he wasn't. His mother had been a ballet-dancer, he t>aid (looks of horror), and had often given, her youthful soini (niow the gjreymoiustaclied 1 judge) a/nd his sdsters a balilet lesson in the drawing-room. • • • But the tension was eased as Has Honor weimb on to explain that (his mother wasn't" a professional ballet dancer who capered about the stage m short skints. She was brought up in the most rigid of convent schools, where ballet dancing nearly a humidired years ago was taught as a graceful! exercise. And he thought the heavens wouldn't fall if it were added to ithe curriculum of a twentieth century girls' college. He also discouirsed pleasantly om a variety of other topics, and ascribed young Turkey's demand for a constitution, and China* promise of a parliament to the progress of female emancipation* in both empires. The Turkish women/, he said, were determined to get rdd of their veils and let their faces be seeni, and, on the other hand 1 , the Chinese womeni had made up their nuimds to stand om theilr own. Trilbies, and no laniger alHow -them to be strapped aaid compressed into use/less appendages. • • • Hone Heke has been, wounded in tin* house of his fnends — ul cither words, in his own electorate. The "Northern Lumniary" is not pleased with Hone's re-eiecta/on ,and zushes into very denunciatory print to show how few tickets it has got on Home. Listen to uts tale of woe: — "What good ha» Hone Heke ever done? What good can he ever do? Time he went to fche plough, and showed his brethren how to toll 1 the soil, unless tlhe Government be unkind enough to penalise the Pakeha to the extent of putting him into a quiet, snug billet at £500 a year. But what position to give him would bang us, unless it were attached to a. Maori hash-house." The "Luminary can, consider itself summariiiy and sufficiently ' 'banged" for the next threa years at any rate, for Home is sitting tight as a limpet far that space of tome. That mani of many varied experiences, the Rev. J. B. Morton Barnes, is about to shake tlhe dust of the Hutt and its smrrou'nd'iings off his feet. He has given a. sort of "noitace of .motion. The socialistic lecturer has had what might be termed 1 a ricketty time out at the Hutt. It is only a couple of months since he was calling down fire or lightning, or some other element that melts with fervent heat, from heavem to consume those who refused to support him out in the classy suburb. Mr. Barnes' good wj&hes for alleged evil-doers that occasion savoured of "the horrible put and tlhe miry clay," or "the sulphurous canopy," or words to thait effect. And the people have neither heaird nor regarded evidently. Consequenitly it is to happen that a prophet shall perish out of Jerusalem. Mr. Barnes says that he had hoped to have established a school here to l» known as Esperanto College, but no one seemed to take any interest in the subjeot, nor does anyone seem inclined to help him establish a Kosmon Socialist Ghurcfh. It cannjoit be helped, but it is a pity, because he reckons ne could have done much for social progress if only he had had the support of the people. Now he is going oa a walking expedition through the country wiftih a friend who is am artist, and it is possible he may make tracks for some haven of rest, and shake off the dust of his feet once for all on leaving ihe valley of the Lower Hutt. Even bad ProhibitioHi been carried, the passing of this strenuous worker and writer and complainer would have driven the community to drink — perhaps!

Alexander tne Cijireat, of toe temnas - oaurt, D©Jig Uie Muiiiooii tennis onamjwxjdL or mia.& name, is soiuetm'Lng oi an expert n unions^, aoooxdjng to a wombe in the "AuatirajKisian. ' wtateu tiiaie111 tnat tulips iJue.x«uia.ei , wiuo it^tuualetb JUr, Panon in iaci&l ooMour, and who jb about, to visa.t tdiis corner oi tine tennis vineyard, Has a quiet iiuinour aJi ins own. tie proJtes&«w -to know notiiunig about g,oiii, butwd leoemt feuiHidiay h*j displayed a. uegiee ot ioran wliiah made the spectators tall dimvji and worship him. liowevei, he makes no great, pretence ot his pi>ay, and wihan. on. one ocoasa/on be badly bunkered in the bracken, and was losing st-roke arter stroke in fo'« attempt to cihop has way out, iie dxawlingly remarked . ' 'Don/ t nuiind me, doctor. It you're sihowiinig me a point in< Australian axemaniship, Id' bate to have you take tne trouble, because I've seen all tne wood-ohoppinig displays I want to see in the Umuted States. I don't play goif myself, as a rule. My sport is bug-game shooting. But so many vach meji have taken, to it mi ooxr coumfary lately tlfoat the woods are full of millioaiiairecs, and. you can't fire a gun wnthout hittung one of them. Amd iniJii<>nair©-6(hooting comes high — just a liittle bit too high for me to take much interest in it." « * • The new Commomveail/tih Praane Minisifcer, Mr. Andrew Fasher, says "Table Talk," is not so "verra Scotch" in his accenit, except whem tihainigs aie humming ra tfoe Houee. Theai his Doric r's are rolled out to some purpose above the general clatter. A dour Lowland Scot is Andrew, with no sense of humour, no particular gift of «ioquenoe, none of ifhe arts and graces whach make for magnetic firamd&Mps. He got tihe position, of leader in succession to Mr. Watson, because he happened to be the most stiff-backed, uincomprorndsinsg Labourite un tihe House, with a practical faith in Socdaksm, which was ever concealed behind a hard, vundmaginattdve style of speech. • • » Mr. Fisher has not yet exhibited any of the QuaJiitaes whjdh go to make a great man out of oomanon clay, but he has ■strength of character, there ib no denying that, and an intense party bias wihich has served him well in gauning the Tespect of his Labourite following, who have no relish for eufcher mildness or impartiality in a leader. Moreover, Mr. Fisher is rather a fine figure of a man. a quality mot easy to find amongst that section of the House, -and with his strosngly-defimed features he wail make a betiter figurehead than most of hisi colleagues. A great Prime Minister must possess at least one trait in comßiom with a great shop-walker. • • • Mr, James Taibot Ev&raxd, who <hed un Southland a fontmaght was well - known/ in Wellington, and, in- fact throughout nhe coJotny. For many years he was travelling m the intereste of «m Auckland publishing firm, but latterly h© was resident on. Inveroargill, and identified' witih tJhe "DomittiiiOin" magazime. He sprang from a well-known county family un Ireland his father being the late OaptaurL Reginald Nugenft Everard <of tihe Ist Buffs Begiment), aaad his mother a French lady of title, while his elder brother is Colomel Nugent Everard, of RandaJstowin House, ■Counrty Meath. • • • Mr. J. T. Everard, as a young man, oame onit to New Zealand nearly thirty years ago im Mir. George Vosey Stewarts specially selected' settlement party from the North of Ireland, and brought his valet with him. The mew •ettlers, who were all possessed, of means, were assigned a block of land) at Katikati, j/n the Bay of Plenty district, but had mot come so far afield merely to be planted un a wilderness remote from cities, and cut off entirely from society. • • • Most of them, of course, were disappointed, and many of them quickly returned to Auckland, and made their homes there. Mr. Everard entered the office of MeBSTS. Devore and Oooper {now Mr. Justice Cooper), with the mtentioni of studying for the law, but left the law to take up a position, in an insurance office, and from insurance un time became cocnniected with' the printing trade. He was a man of gentlemanly address amd amiable social qualities, and made numerous friends wherever he went by has genual goo-d-oa/fcure. His widow and family resicße un Wellington. Madame Claia Btrtt and Mt. Kenmierley Rumford paid a surprise visit to one of the famous gaols at Home the other day, and gave about 700 prisoners a rare treat. These two great artists don't do everything on conventional lines. Some of their finest singinsj in Wellington' was heard one Sunday evening, at the Missions to Seamen's Hall. Most of the folk along there were surprised when they stepped forward and sang. But these liittle acts of brightness seem characteristic

of these two great singers. Ait Brixfcon Gaol, at Home, Madame Butt and her husband whipped up to the door in their motor car. » ♦• » The governor let them m aaki mustered about seven hundred prisoners in the chapel Madame Butt sang "The Promise of Life" and "Abide With Me" — the latter by request. Kemnerley Rusmford sang "There is a Green Hill Far Away" and "Nazareth," and they gave together the duet, "Night Hymn at Sea." The singers seemed as impressed as tlhe audience by the event, which is probably saying a good deal.