All Sorts Of People

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 839, 28 July 1916, Page 4

All Sorts Of People

CAPTAIN Bean, the Australian "War Correspondent reckons that Malcolm Ross, his New Zealand colleague, has been too roughly " dealt with in some of the New Zealand papers and manfully puts in a plea on Malcolm's behalf. For instance: I am sorry that Malcolm Ross's own papers have not always been fair to him. At a time when he was living well in the field of fird of the particularly nasty and attentive gun which we used to ascribe to Anafarta, I read comments in the Maoriland press of which the "only possible intention was to raise doubts as to whether he was going under fire at all 1 - Ross got to Anzac as straight as ■ ever he could and spent his first night there sleeping on the beach, which, I will undertake, was a hotter corner than any of his critics have ever dreamed of making up their beds in. During the Hill 60 fight Iloss and the Y.M.C.A. delegate who went out to see it, in trying to reach a good viewpoint, got into an old trench, which had a Turk in the other end of it —and you don't want to get much- closer than that unless you are privileged to pick up a rifle and shoot with it, whch war correspondents are' not. / « # . * * Ross hung on until the end of Gallipoli, although he was very ill —I think with a form of typhoid, really, although it was - never, satisfactorily diagnosed. And the last day 1 was round at Maoriland Headquarters • before the evacuation. there he Was on a camp bed in a dugout in that most Unhappy; Valley, no sort of overhead protection from shrapnel or dropping bullets except a tarpaulin. The M.L. Headquarters was constantly shelled with six or eight-inch high-explosive howitzer stuff, and in the worst bombardments most of the staff used to retire very properly to the deep tunnels which had been cut out as offices and signal station, etc., for use at such times. But Ross in his feverish condition found the safe pSlaces too cold or insupportable for one reason or another, and went off back to his dugout to lie there listening to the "crumps" coming slowly down from the sky on to the valleyside. You can hear each of those things for about six seconds before it arrives, and to know that every one of them will come to earth somewhere within a hundred yards (but quite impartially as to the exact point) is not the best condition for a sick man. Ross managed to get up Rhododendron Spur (which was something like climbing Mount Cook) a day or two before the end, to see his own chaps. And when he collapsed on the cruiser from which we were both watching the evacuation, the message which he had struggled to write for his press, and which he handed to ine, was a graphic one; and it was only unsent because the Censor, when we remaining correspondents had a talk with him, laid down certain lines which olearly ruled the whole of it out. «**■!• In this issue we present the first photograph of General Brusiloff, so far published in New Zealand. He is the idol of the Russian Army, and no other General on the Eastern, Front has "bruised" the Hun armies so badly as Brusiloff. Since he began to sweep back the Austrians and Germans several months ago he has conquered the entire

Austrian province of Bukowina, taken nearly 300,000 prisoners (a formidable army in. itself) and captured large numbers of heavy guns and immense booty. A. A. Brusiloff, who has out-fought and out-generalled all the Him commanders so far opposed to him, is 64 years old and looks 45. He was a captain when the Turko-Russian war of 40 years ago started, and in it he won his majority. General Brusiloff, according to a Russian writer, who knows him well, lives by nerves, strenuous work, and a sense of dutv. He eats very little. He regards dinner as a necessary evil, and it is finished in not more than twenty minutes. His soldiers worship him, although he never courts popularity among them. He talks to them sdl'dom, and then with a matter-of-fact abruptness. * * * ■» His physical endurance at 64 is said l to be amazing. Even now one of the best cavalrymen in Europe, he can outdistance expert and youthful horsemen. When he rides round the positions if the automobile sticks in the rich, black soil he continues his way on horseback. Where going is impossible for-ixcrses, as in the Pinsk swamps, he goes on foot, knee-deep in mud. He is noted for his laconic orders. "Hold out, whatever happens!" And they hold out. There is in currency the folllowing soldier's remark: "What, retreat? Impossible! We are Brusiloff's!" The army is proud of Brusiloff, and Brusiloff is proud of his army. * * * * ■o- Commonwealth Prime Minister Hughes was offered while in London a shilling a word for a series ,of ten articles by a certain London Sunday pictorial paper. The bait held out dn round

figures amounted to £700. This is a higher rate than Rudyarcl Kipling or H. G. Wells, or Henry Bodiey, or Marie

The* Hen. Joan Dickson Poynder, daughter of Lord and Lady Islington, who has become a Red Cross nurse in her parents' home, " Chesterfield Gardens," which has been converted into a military hospital for officers. Lord Islington was the former Governor of New Zealand.

CoreJli or P. J. O'Regan call command. Sydney "Daily Telegraph" used to pay Mr. Huglies 30s a column for Ms "Case for Labour." Times have changed. -* * * * Ex-Detective Edwards, South Australia's new Commissioner of Pollice, is the latest instance of a police officei who has grown steadily from an ordinary blue-bottle. He was one of the two "demons" selected to shadow the King and Queen (then- the Duke and Duchess of York) on their historical tour through Australia and New Zealand'. ».• • • Captain Thomas Erxol Guthrie, Errol Guthrie, R.A.M.C., killed in action in France on the 2nd inst., was a. son of Dr. T. O. Guthrie, formerly of Lyttelton. Born in Christchurch, he was educated at the local High School. He qualified as a medico at Edinburgh, taking the M.B. and C.M. degrees, following on with post graduate courses at Dublin and on the continent. He obtained further useful experience at Al-dershot, where he secured his commission in the Royal Medical Corps. Returning to New Zealand, he set up his brass plate at Feilding, but impressed by a sense of duty to his country, he abandoned his practice a few months later and offered his services to the military. He went to the front with the Field Ambulance attached, to the New Zealand Rdfle Brigade. Feilding deplores the loss of a skilful and sympathetic surgeon,. * • * * Private John M'Kinnon, of the Black Watch, a 16-year-old boy, has just been awarded the D.C.M., and also a regimental medal for gallantry. He enlisted a year ago, and was recommended twice for valour. Much to the boy's regret his parents succeeded in getting his discharge from military service.