PERSONAL PARS.

NZ Truth, Issue 78, 15 December 1906, Page 1

PERSONAL PARS.

The Hon. . Geo) McLean is seriously ill m Duned'wi, and Bis relatives have been summoned to 'the Souths • ■;-,- • ■ • ■ ' Mr : T. .M. %lford, M.H.R., will spend the Christmas Vacation trout fishing at Rotorua, and while m the North he intends to go over the Main Trunk Railway Line. • * ' .' • Chefalo, who. was recently smashed up during a Looping the Loop act, seems to be the &md of man one could not kill with an axe. Although just out' of hospital, he started his reckless feat again last Saturday week at Dreamland, St. Ki lda, Victoria, and., up... to the time of going, to press was still alive ahd.unbattered, *} • _ ■:..-■ It now transpires that th.c bike star referred to m our Answers t o Correspondents, two issues back, is a. huge ioke and champion liar of the district of Featherstone. His 20 miles on the road m 35 minutes was one of the. tales he told "A Slow Bike Rider." The. star is , a good all-round liar ; and his fishing, shooting and billiards yarns are of such a nature that people are beginning to dodge him m the street for fear of being close to him when the fate of Ananias befalls him. ' ' .. ... '• < „ ' Jack Wren is a pretty busy man. and i-; lapidly becoming viie of the principal Pooh Bans of MasvVilous Smelliourne. Besides running the tote and pony meetings, he is a boxing promoter, manager of a big athletic carnival, and organiser of band contests and concerts. Also, he has recently bought a Bou'rke-street Arcade, where. he intends" to run a music-hall, and;, he is planning to start a newspaper, and possibly s+^irt a : churoh ,or a Sunday-school, or something equally dismal, and oUtre.. , .. is_a .jjen Jpathoiic wo^aan ; at i TP¥athefstbhe,™wh6r to save her daiigh--sers . and herself getting wet .feet < l by 'walking 200 yards to the- futuie^ire insurance office, has had her ."drorin' room" consecrated to scare the Devil out of it, and has mass said there every Sunday morning. She has the all to expect every Catholic woman m the town to trudge from the farthest corners of the place to attend her private mass, at 6.30 a.m., wet or dry. and rates soundiv poor, str,ugglinn: boarding-house keepers, and mothers of families who fail to do so but attend to their proper household duties m preference. She told one such honest worker that she should let the boarders get their own breakfast. . ■ ■*.'.-.■•■■ : *'..*• .■■'•'•'■ A Cfaristchurch correspondent, noticing the remarks of "Old Chum" m "New Zealand's' First Bushranger," published m last issue, as to the ultimate fate of Ga»rrett, writes that, if memory serves him right, that knight of the road "passed out" m Wellington Terrace Gaol m 1885 and some time j before his end he gave his MSS. autobiography to a favored warder, with his wish that i* should be publisii^d, and it was— in the "Otago. Witness," m serial form. The same' authority says that- it was G-arrett's boast (as published m Wellington "Evenmß Post" at time of his death) 'tiiat m ail the daring -roWjeries he committed he never attempted or took human life and never ' injured a woman. • ■ • ' ■ ■ • ' * There is ' a physician m - Christchurch who. will do well to pay his servant's wages promptly if he would avoid having his name m the papers. He has been owing his groom the magnificent wage of a quid a week and his keep and when, as, during two years' service, the man found he could not trust the medical "gentleman" to act as his banker, and left to go where he could get his wages regularly, there were £8 owing to him. For six weeks the "honorable" practitioner has stalled the man oS with specious excuses and . even had the nerve to bully him for ' dunning him ; and the poor devil was actually without the means to pay his board bill. He is still waiting for Mister doctor man to pay and what he should do is to apnlv a "blister" of a drawing nature stronger than "fly." • • ♦ Captain Edie, Superintendent of Navigation, Sydney, who died recently, was a fathom of clearskinned, bright-eyed old sea-dog. Ageu" 60, his first experience as a mariner was as a humble lighterman m New Zealand. He was for many years one of .the Union Company's captains. Sir William MacMillenerv. then State Treasurer, happened to be a passenger of his and was so struck by the skipper that he offered him the position of Shipping Master, then vacant, on account of the death of one Brown, a member of. the wellknown Brown family. Edie accepted the job. They had a casual 1 way of I filling billets m the good old corrupt (days of anti-sosh, Edie m his position had often to exercise great tact m dealing with disputes between masters and men, and be it said to his credit that he more often than not leaned sympathetically towards the men. Perhaps he remembered the I days when he was a lighterman.

» ' ... Mr John O'Neill, the new ptOprietor of the Masonic Hotel, tools .; possession on Thursday of last week, '•;.;. and has already , made himself very popular with both hoarders and "cash customers.'-' ■ , . • • ■■• •'■■•■ Sad end to a brilliant career. Mfi' Jean Francois Archibald, who, with & partner, founded the "Sydney Builetin'Mn 1879 and edited it till ho , .broke down from sheer overwork; two, of three years ago, is now an : inmate of Callan Park Asylum for the insane. The pity of it!, - * '■»...•. Pete Baker, well known throughout' N.z. "30 years ago as the. "Dutch" side 'of the famous Baker and barren team , is leading his own ' ' A Race for a Widow"- company m the West Coast towns of America and is said to have "made the hit of his career." He forwards criticisms himself. . . " • .■ . ■'• - • An American paper to hand writes of the funeral of "Sir Richard Seddon." The Yanks cannot conceive o! any "big" Britisher without a title.. When Tea Liptbn is over there chasms; that mirage, the America Cup, fully two-thirds of the newspapers refer to him as "Lord Lipton." ■ ■• .. » . • . * ■■ One H. A. Mayenberg, wholes Ashburton a couple, of years ago, haa just arrived at London, a village somewhere m England. He is a gas engineer and has been working his passage round the globe. Not. a bad idea if one wants to see the civilised and uncivilised .'raced, ?nd the festive nigger, and the -appalling poor of London. ,'•'■■'■ ■*■•"'■ ■•'■'' , '• • Constable Jeremiah O'Brien,; ; it» seems, demanded a trial on the charge tO-f iias's^Hltiftg- f and ' rQbit|;ing^the nian tCb^l^vfl^p^v'lacfyr^is ;'#r#stione^L-----merely "Secause this ; paper does hot wish to be unfair.. Demand or not. rft 'would have been a. nice- state ot affairs if O'Brien, because lie was a policeman, had not been, placed at the bar of Justice. ' • • • • "Bobbie" Byrne, proprietor of Brisbane "Figaro" is dead at last. People used to say whisky would kill him off any day, a dozen years ago, aye, and for a dozen before that. As a literary thief "Bobbie" beat the band, and for many years all the best stuff m his little journal was lifted, unacknowledged, from his hated contemporaries. . As a paragraphist and raconteur he had few superiors m the Commonwealth, and as a pursuer of immature feminity he took the bun. His office was everlasting haunted by impudent brats of girls, who seemed, to , find some "-reat attraction m the hilarious old reprobate. . ♦■ '■•'■■, .'■' * ■ ■■ A remarkable woman is, Mrs Crowe, of 'the Gundagai district. She is 8.0 ; years , and still hale and" hearty . is the mother of 10 settlers, big, 'six feet, bearded natives, with broad, intelligent foreheads. "She had four daughters, three of whom married. ; settlers, and have eiven, and arey gdving N.S.W. sons and daughters to ■ build up the State.' Mrs Crowe has 80 mEiand-ohildrc-h: and SO great-grand-, children, and the strength " of the whole family is 125, The Stasis, proud of Mrs Crowe' and the late James Crowe. Their action m these days of families of one or two weeds, and a little daisy-grown plot m the cemetery, is something to crow about—the determined, admirable, tri: umphant clarion note of a great victory won. ;. ■■• ••■,• Wellington's streets are about . aa; dangerous to travel as used to be the unblazed trail across the wilds ofc North America to Californiar-rarid it is not a nice reflection. The scorching cyclist is the worst danger and na attempt is ever majde^ -to restrain" him, and the hound actually abuses Tou for getting m the way ! But there are others. One day last week as Mr Wilkinson, junr., 'of •' the • ■ Al--hambra Hotel, was walking down Victoria-street and passing a building m course of erection, a brick fell close beside his foot and then, and only then, a voice from three stories up shouted "under below." One foot further out and Mr Wilkinson would* have been a dead man. Such accidents should be rendered impossible by the 'buildin'* regulations being properly enforced. , „ • * • ■ . . . . Prince RanjHsihjhi, who is busily engaged m India pushing his "illegitimate" claim to some tinpot throne or other, has written an English friend a letter m which he says that m the event of his blossoming into a Rajah he hopes to i>av a visit to England to bid good-bye to ail his very dear friends there. Wonder if Ranji includes among his very dear friends the professional cricketers whose hatred he aroused v« Ma arrogant, tvrannisinc ways, both on the field and off. With all his 'Varsity education and civilised brin,gin«up the black man could never eradicate the savage from his nature. The cricketing public never knew Ranji as he re-all v was.