ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 723, 9 May 1914, Page 4

ALL SORTS OF PEOPLE.

ONE advantage of living at the outposts ' of Empire lies in the fact that one meets interesting people now and again. The wanderers and the adventurous sorts pause as they go by. One such is in Wellington just now, in the person of Mr. George H. Westbury, wh6 some time ago resigned a commission in the Berkshire Regiment, and since that has seen a lot of adventure in many lands. There is only one bad point about Lieutenant Westbury. He will tell a remarkably good story to a newspaper man, and then say, "This is in confidence, of course." That makes things very awkward, and this shyness in the travelled is to be vigorously deprecated. Without any breach of confidence, a few facts known to Mr. Westbury's friends may be stated. When he left the army he went to North America, and worked for a time as a cowboy. „ "I make a habit of being a cowboy every now and then," he says; "it's a spacious sort of life, and it knocks the dust off." Some time later he became possessed of . a fruit farm in British Columbia. He has great belief in the future of that province, where his brother has remained and become prominent in the fruit industry. * * * * But Mr. G. H. Westbury was too young to settle. He kept wandering around. He was in New Zealand more than once. He went through a revolution in Uruguay, for which country our own Willie Prouse is the very alert and wide-awake Consul in Wellington. "Revolutions there are a regularly recurring thing," ' says Mr. Westbury. "They save the fuss of formal presidential elections. When a prominent Uruguayan differs from another prominent Uruguayan on a point of politics, they form opposing hordes and ret to work with their rifles. I saw some quite genuine excitement in Uruguay before I passed into Argentina, and was a cowboy again for a spell. Then the revolution. started in Lisbon, and I went across to see. I was put in prison for a /Bit. There was no British Minister there, and I had to see it through. They put us into a beastly big hole of a place, without any sort of . conveniences or We had to depend on friends outside for everything; they didn't even provide us with a scrap, of food—rather, unpleasant on the whole. We were caged in like a lot of animals, and our friends came and chucked things to us through the bars. The modern Portuguese of the revolutionary type is a strikingly unsatisfactory and displeasing person who calls himself a patriot and behaves like a ruffian." Mr. Westbury happened to be in New Zealand when the strike broke out last year, and he came down to Wellington to help the specials. Here again, unfortunately, all he says is confidential — unfortunately, because much of what he says is very interesting. "When the Opawa was stuck for a crew, Mr. Westbury thought he should do his part, and in half-an-hour he had shipped as a coaltrimmer. Of the hardships of the amateur coal-trimmer's life fie speaks feelingly. -The loyalist volunteers met with antagonism,on the ship:sometimes from quarters where antagonism was least to

be expected. The volunteers were necessarily new" to the work, and the work was very hard. At one point the ship nearly collided with an iceberg. At Monte Video, where Mr. Westbury has many friends, nobody was allowed ashore, because of the small-pox in New Zealand. Some of the volunteers were very ill in the rough weather, and could not eat; but the work had to be done. When London was reached the New Zealanders were unfeignedly glad. Mr. Westbury left his kit and went ashore in his dungarees. He wanted nothing but -clean clothes, a comfortable hotel, and all sorts of things good to eat. But pretty soon the wander-lust took him aprain, and he booked his passage to New Zealand on the Remuera. * - * * The joke is, of course, that, given the necessity, Mr. Westbury would ship on the Opawa or any such vessel again. Your true adventurer doesn't count cost or inconvenience. Certain things must be done when the demand arises: that is the law: He went through South America with Clemeneeau, and he toured remote lands with a famous Spanish writer. He saw much of Putamayo, the land of atrocities. He knows Bolivia, 'the highways and the byways. It's better far being a tourist-adventurer than a free labourer; but whenever the Empire needs free labourers '. the touristadventurer is ready- In that fact the solidarity of the Empire in some part consists. * . * . * * The story ' that Mr. David McLaren has been offered the conductorship of the Musical Union awaits confirmation. Awaiting confirmation also are Mr. J. Barmecide Dykes, Mr. Sam Gilmer, Detective Cassells, and Mr. Peter Heyes. Mr. Taylor, the White Horse expert, was confirmed last January. * * ' * * News. from Australia is that Mr. Alfred Hill, the composer, is workinghard on new stuff arid enjoying admirable health. Mr. Hill is one of the most popular of the musicians now resident in the big island. He is an honest enthusiast without affectations. His unfeigned friendliness embraces everybody, and his tact never fails. He is ready to help* and advise the student; his help is disinterested' and his advice invariably sound. The only thing New. Zealand has to regret in this regard is.that Mr. Hill no longer resides in his' own country. "We need him. * * # * A delightful story is current just now. A New Zealand women's club entertained Miss Maud Allan and the pherniavskys. and got in an average pianist to regale them with ragtime. The Cherniavskys were much interested; * * * * There is talk of setting up a chair of journalism at Svdney University. is all rather absurd. As the "Bulletin" • points out, most of the world's best journalists —the men who count—fell into the profession accidentally, and were not "trained" at all. Mr. J. F. Ward was a parson; so was the; late William Curnow, long editor of the "Sydney Morning Herald"; so was David McKee Wright, the brightest and most versatile New Zealand journalist now in Australia. Others commenced as engineers, others as doctors or actors.. Edmond was a warehouseman. Journalism, in short, cannot be taught in universities. The dull men are hopeless, anyhow; for the men of gift arid promise the world is the best school. * # * * In America, Jim Corbett has been talking to Snowy Baker about Jack Johnson. . Corbett says that Johnson

was, and is, a great fighter, and would have beaten Jeffries at any stage of Jeff's career. But the cleverest boxer of them all was Young Griffo—now poor and old and grey, eyesight and memory failing. John L. Sullivan holds that ho present-day boxers will compare. with the best men of the past. That is always how the "has-beens" talk. * * * * Mr. William Blomfield, the well-known caricaturist of the Auckland '.'Observer," of which paper he is one of the proprietors, has broken out in an entirely new direction. He has made a bid for public life, and last week was returned Mayor of Takapuna with almost a 3 to 1 majority. It is not so many weeks ago since "Bio." was last in Wellington. On that occasion he was before the. Supreme Court for cartooning one of our learned Judges. He filled in the weary hours during which he was being tried by further sketching .the bench under its very nose. Will he now follow this up by_ sketching Takapuna's councillors what time he is "presiding at the Council table? It will certainly be a very tempting opportunity. ->■ -* ■» « Miss Maud Allan is a Canadian, and the years of her experience as an Englishwoman have not wiped Canada from her speech and thought. She spent some years in California, too, and loves that # country and its folks. But the English, are her people, and she insists that the English: are .nowhere more truly English than in! Canada. It is her English thoroughness, her English devotion • to a principle, that has kept her always loyal to her best conceptions of her art. She has conceded nothing to commercialism or theatrical tradition. She never does anything because it is very likely to be popular. * * «■ * Miss Allan likes' New Zealand, and joyously anticipates a coming holiday at Rotorua. '• f'l am more than released with mv New Zealand audiences," she told a "Free Lancer" who had a chat with her last week. "They are cordial, but they discriminate. It is delightful to find that what I like best in my own work is just what appeals to New Zealanders most. I think that ip very good, and surely very aston-

ishing. - Ido not "deceive myself. I know that my dancing must come as V shock to many, were it only that it comes so strangely into'conflict with average preconceived, ideas of what dancing is and should be. I have no mechanical'steps, 5 no system of strict technique. lam in. bondage to no school or iasnion I seek to express words and ideas—things quite foreign to the average dancer's art and, intention. And when I find audiences immediately in sympathy with me, as New Zealand audiences are it helps and it refreshes, lour people hear music intelligently, I think, and have a fine revealing sense of colour and suggestion. *'** * ' i . "It is cheering, too', to be in a country where everyone seems happy and on the whole contented. New Zealandera have very much tp be grateful for. They live in a genial, stimulating climate, lhey know little of destitution or biting want-r-the 'things that are the great problem and the great despair of the great old cities and countries of the world. Why, one never sees a ragged man or woman here, and one could never believe that in New Zealand anyone goes short of food. Nor can I think that you are lapsing into that material'ismthat is sometimes a product of prosperity and content., t A community of materialists would not come night after night to see me dance and to listen to the Cherniavskys' music. It is a good! sight when people can support such good bookshops as you have, and pladly listen to. good music. Oh, yes, I liked India; but who can speak fittingly of India on a first visit?" * * * * Major Charles Lewis, a millionaire, of Pensacola, Florida, recently advertised that he'would endow.with £20,000 any girl who would marry him, and leave her all his property on his death. He has married Miss Mabel Enyart who is just eighteen. The major" is seventyfive. But she must be a fairly unattractive old party, or he would not nave found it necessary to advertise. As a rule, money is a sufficient advertisement. Mr. Walter Dinnie has retired" from the public service. He was not a brilliant success as Commissioner of Police, and he has not achieved special distinction as Chairman of the Tokerau Maori Land Board, but Mr. Dinnie is a straight man, and also a genial, wellinformed one, and he has many friends in th©-Dominion. It is a- mistake to : think that any man from Scotland Yard - is capable of directing the New Zealand B>lice force, and from that mistake Mr. innie has suffered. As Chief Detective he would probably have been a success. His appointment to a Maori Land Board was remarkable, but he did his work' with painstaking zeal. v • *• •* * * Ex-Judge J. C. Martin has returned to the practice of law from his self-im-posed exile at Russell, and sets up his sign in Auckland. He is a brilliant man, and Auckland needs brilliant lawyers rather badly just now. Mr. Martin has a valuable equipment of .staunch friends, to start with. . * * * * Obit: John Charles Marter, of Wanganui, old actor and old Maorilander. His son. Mr. Charles W. Marter, has long been sub-editor of Sydney "Daily Telegraph/' This younger Marter also was an actor of sorts in nis time. In faraway days he bushed it in New Zealand with a company, otherwise held up by our old friend, Mr. Charles Berkeley, at which period he married a fellow 'theatrical,. Miss Lena Wyatt, sister of Mr. Wyatt, of Worser Bay, and of Mr. Walter Wyatt, the popular Mine Host of the Bowling Green Hotel in Dunedin, where bowlers love to congregate and chat. Mrs. Marter died a year or two ago.