WHO'S WHO?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13951, 6 January 1909, Page 9

WHO'S WHO?

Miss Hklkn* Mathers suggests that Mr. Carnegie should pay the cost of taking a plebiscite of the women of the United Kingdom on the subject of the Parliamentary franchise. Such a vote, she says, would prove that the great majority not only do not want the votes, but that if they had it they would not know what to do with it.

Here is an amusing anecdote regarding Lord Crewe. On one occasion, at a charitable entertainment, lie leaned against a corridor wall and went fast asleep with nis hat in his hand. Some young fellows started dropping half-crowns and coppers into the hat from a balcony above, until the chink of the coins woke him up, when lie promptly pocketed all the silver and pelted his impromptu benefactors with the pence.

The ex-Lord Mayor, Sir John Bell, was during his term of office the recipient of many cool and extraordinary demands from folk residing in all parts of the world. Once a man named Bell wrote him : " Your name is Bell, my uncle was named Bell, too. He was a brewer. I think, thus, that I have some claim upon you. Please send me by return post the sum of £150." Mr. Bell, however, was doomed to disappointment, and so was the barber who, on account of the fact that he had once shaved a Lord Mayor, wanted Sir John to send him £5 in order to instal an electrical hairbrush in hie establishment.

Louise Duchess of Devonshire is extremely fond of acting, and once disguised herself as a gipsy, and offered to read the fortunes of the members of a house-party by palmistry. So complete was her disguise that amongst others she took in her husband, the Duke of Manchester, who handed her a shilling as her fee for telling his fortune. But she was ultimately discovered by the man whom she later .on married —the late Duke of Devonshire, then Lord Hartington—who suspected the identity of the gipsy, and knowing -.he Duchess' hatred of wine, asked for some, and, as a test, handed her the glass. She took it, and drank it off; but, even so, Lord Hartington'was still suspicious, and the Duchess was obliged to own up to her identity at last.

Whatever one may think of Mr. Victor Grayson's politics and his way of enforcing his views, the manner in which he has carved out his own career must command admiration. He was born of poor parents, 26 years ago, in Liverpool. In bis boyhood days he ran away to sea and was put ashore as a stowaway, and had To tramp some hundreds of miles to reach homo again. Afterwards he settled down, to his trade as an engineer, and by means of self-tuition gained a scholarship which enabled him to study at Owens College, Manchester. Strenuousness lias been the keynote of the latter part of his career, and the manner in which he fought the election of Colne Valley almost singlehanded, beating both Liberal and Conservative candidates, will long be remembered in tho political world.

Sir John Ure Primrose, Glasgow's most noted football patron, who, by the way, is not only a keen lover of art and an enthusiastic amateur photographer, but also a talented musician, tells a good story of the early days of football. "My brother," says Sir John, " who is now a minister, was a bright and shining forward in the local club. On the football field I must say he was a particularly muscular Christian, and my father, who was an enthusiastic patron of the sport, one day after witnessing his play was so shocked at what he described as bis methods of barbarism that he forbade him to play the game any longer. But my brother was an indispensable member of the team, and, having an important match to play the following Saturday, they bought him a false beard. This was secured to his face, and his identity thus completely hidden from the eyes of his parent, who watched the match, and was loud in his praises of the play of his disguised eon, whom he utterly failed to recognise."

The famous French prelate, Cardinal Mathieu, who has just died, was one of the most unostentatious of men. He cared so little for the homage mid honours paid to the purple that, when lie travelled in France, he generally donned a bowler iiat and a short jacket. This little foible was the cause of a comical adventure. One day the Cardinal, dressed like a private citizen, had put up at one of the big Paris hotels and a prying waiter looked into the trunk the Cardinal had left unlocked. The waiter was horrified to see a stole, mitres, chalices, and other sacerdotal paraphernalia. Now, it was just at a time when a notorious band of church robbers was being tried. The waiter ran off to the police to tell them about this little, clean-shaven, mysterious old man, whose trunk was packed' with booty. The Commissary of Police arrived in hot haste, arrested the little old gentleman in spite of his protests, and the mystery was not cleared up until M. lyepine, the Chief of Police, himself recognised M. Mathieu. The affair ended with a hearty laugh, and the Cardinal was The first to tell tho story of his own discomfiture. They tell a good yarn in the navy concerning Lord Selborne, South Africa's High Commissioner, who recently celebrated his forty-ninth birthday. It concerns the time when his lordship was First Lord of the Admiralty. A new entry of cadets, who had just commenced their naval career at Osborne, appeared before the Board of Admiralty to be tested as to their intelligence and general fitness to serve the King. Sir John Fisher asked one of them to name the two greatest seamen in history. ' The boy answered pat, " Lord Nelson and Lord Sel'borne." The Board appreciated the lad's readiness, and gave him his nomination. It is Lord Selbome's friends, however, who are responsible for tho following story concerning him. His lordship was out shooting one day with a large party, among whom was his son's French tutor, and the whole party were in constant peril from the careless way in which he handled his weapon. 71 I say'," exclaimed . Lord Selborne to another member of the party, "don't you think we'd better shoot the Frenchman before we start shooting birds, or the chances are he'll bag one of us before lunch."