All Sorts People

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 789, 13 August 1915, Page 4

All Sorts People

WESTLAND has borne her share of the toll of death which the New " Zealanders heroically paid to establish themselves on Gallipoli. Among the West Coasters who fell was Private J. A. Kjaer, to whom his comrades gave the nickname of "K Jam." He was a Dane by "birth, and 1 a biishtnan of the Hokitika district. He was reported missing among the first of the Dardanelles casualties, but is since reported as "previously missing, but now believed to have been killed in. action."

Mr. Justice Denniston is not throwing any bouquets to the Kaiser. Addressing a' Scottish celebration in Christchurch on Declaration Day, he referred to Bragging Bill as "this parvenu monarch." His Honour also defended the seemliness of celebrating the day with a concert. He said: ''A day of prayer and intercession was all very well, and there was no reason why we should not pray and also rejoice. The King had struck a nice note when he refused! to allow a day of prayer and humiliation."

Mi. J. H. Upton, of Auckland, a prominent . citizen and one of the directors of the Bank of New Zealand, has no time for the mealy-mouthed people who make excuses for continuing aliens _i.n positions of trust and responsibility. He will not even trust the naturalised German. At a meeting of the Auckland Patriotic League the other day, the question cropped up whether naturalised enemy subjects should be eligible for membership of the body to adminster the funds. Mr. Upton moved to exclude! them. In support of his objection he said: —"I know a good many naturalised Germans in this town, and I would not trust one of them in any matter of this kind. I daresay those I don't know would present to me very much the same characteristics. We have had too much nonsense in dealing with the enemy." It is a good thing for the Prussian nobleman who draws £700 or £800 a year for teaching languages at Victoria College that! Mr. Upton isn't amongst the Governors. Otherwise wigs would be upon the green.

Commander Carlyon Bellairs, of the Royal Navy, and also M.P., isn't burning any incense in honour of Winston Churchill for his management at the Admiralty. On the contrary he won't even give Mm the credit that his admirers claim for him, viz., that Churchill prepared the fleet. Writing in the ''Passing Show," Commander Bellairs asks and answers the question, "What are the facts?" Winston's "chief act," he says, "on coming into office was to repudiate the Imperial agreement to send out two extra Invincihles of light cruisers of the Bristol class to the Pacific station." This seems to explain why •New Zealand, instead of the promised •Bristol, got the little Philomel instead. So, says Commander Bellairs, "the- result •was seen when the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst disposed, of the gallant Cradock's old ships with new crews. The Admiralty then sent out the very ships which Mr. Churchill had kept hack, viz., two Invincihles and some cruisers, ■with the result that Sturdee did in December the work that ought to have been done _in August, but the blunder cost us priceless lives."

In past crises, this outspoken Commander goes on to point out, the British navy shadowed possible enemy ships by

following them for thousands of miles. "Does the public know," he asks, "that though we had ample, warning from the ultimatum to Servia on July 21st, we did. not shadow a single enemy ship, so that, instead of accounting for all of them abroad in the first weeks of war, ■the process took us altogether eight months, and caused an immense division of naval force to search for them." The Dresden coaled at Jamaica on August 3rd, and then cut the West Indies .cable. The Gheisenau left Singapore on September '30th —two months after war began between Britain and Germany. The Nurnberg coaled from a British collier under charter on the day of war, and later on cut the Pacific cable. Finally* Commander Bellairs maintains that the whereabouta of all the German warships were known, but that the Admiralty lacked leadership. - His last word is, "We must have no more nonsense such as the long pretence that the battleship Audacious has not been lost." * * » * John Masefield', the poet, who has just turned off a new 3-act tragedy, is amongst the authors who are serving under the Red Cross in the field. Among the others are Henry James, novelist, May Sinclair, of "Divine Fire" fame, Henry S. Harrison, the author of that fine novel, "Queed" (he is driving a motor ambulance at the. front), and Miss! St. Clair Stobart, who wrote "Women and War,'' and has also turned out a number of bright one-act plays. Masefield, it seems, went out first as an orderly in a party which had as its cook no less a person than Susan. Strong, the .grand opera prima donna, who used to be one of the stars of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Still more authors in khaki: Anthony Wharton, who wrote the play "Irene Wycherley," and also "At the Barn," in which Marie Tempest scored heavily on both sides of the Atlantic. His real name is Alister McAllister, and he was registrar of the National University at Dublin. He enlisted as a private soon after the war begun, and is now with the machine gun_ service. Dennis Garstin, who made a hit with his book, "Friendly Russia," has joined the 11th Reserve Cavalry. * * * * When Mr. Hean, the Wanganui chemist, was called as a witness before the Trentham Camp Commission the other day, he discovered that his fame had already preceded him. After he' had duly taken the oath His Honour asked: "Are you the proprietor of Bean's Essence?" Of course, the Wanganui dispenser proudly admitted the fact. j.t is not often one gets a free advertisement of that kind from one of His Majesty the King's judges. * * * * The best living personification of an optimist must surely be Sarah Bernhardt'. Though only convalescent after having her leg sawed' off, she has already drawn up a programme of plays she intends staging in the near future, and also promises London and New York visits in the near future. But this is not all. She blithely remarks, "I shall live to be 102 just to suite all my enemies."

Lance-Corporal Albert Jacka, of Wedderburn. is the first Australian to win the V.C. He distinguished himself by tacklaner seven Turks in a trench—and vanquished the whole job lot of them. Those Sydney "sports" who delight in "stoush" exhibitions should really go fco GalLipoli. Lance-Corporal Jacka, V.C., would probably oblige them with a display of the real thing.

Mr. H. G. Wells has proved by his novels that he is a man of far-reaching ideas and of considerable foresight. Therefore, when he predicts that, after the present war, Germany, although beaten as a naval and military power, will carry the contest into the economic field and endeavour to ruin her industrial competitors, he must be listened to with respect. He says:—"Beyond the

FOR THE EMPIRE.—New Zealanders who have Fallen on the Field of Battle.