PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3276, 27 December 1916, Page 62

PERSONAL NOTES.

, ~^ mon g tho recent recipients of the Military Cross at tho King's hands was becond Lieutenant F. N. Ilillicr, a young journalist, the son of Mr F. J. Hillier, of tno Daily News, who gave up his literary career at tho beginning of the war to accept a commission in the artillery. He was in all tho fighting round Ypres last year, and was awarded the Cross for " conspicuous gallantry on several occasions," on one of winch he worked his gun with the help of one man only the rest of the detachment bemg wounded. —Mr William Michael Rossetti, the third horn ,md only surviving member of the distinguished family of Gabriele Rossetti, Italian scholar and patriot, recently entered °[J his eighty-eighth year. He has passed it i "' I " onc ' on . a "d from the Board of Inland Revenue he retired in 189" t. For over half a century W. M. Rossetti has been associated with literary work; he is the historian of the pro-Raphaelite movement, and he is tho writer of memoirs of his father, and of his brother, Dante Gabriel, and his sister, Christina Rossetti, the poet. He edited the " Germ," the organ of the prein 1850, and prepared excellent editions of many of the leading English poets in Moxon's and other series. Ten years ago Mr W. M. Rossetti gave us the "Bibliography of the Works of D. G. Rossetti," and in 1910 "Dante and his Convito" came from his hand.

~~ ' Make it plain, and simple, and true. I hato these biographies that smear molasses all over a man," were Mr J. J. Hill's instructions to his biographer, and the latter has faithfully carried out these instructions, telling the story from personal papers and recollections in the World's Work. The first, instalment deals with the empirebuilder's early boyhood and life in Canada. It tells of his schooling, his passion for books, and his first position at 4dol a month. After four weeks' work the Scotch employer for whom the late James A. Hill first

worked as a boy, on Saturday night, put his hand on his shoulder and said, "James, ye bae done right week If ye keep on ye'll male' your way in the world." Then ho handed him an envelope. The boy hastened off heme to_ give the 4dol contained in the envelope, his pay for his first month of hard work, to his mother. "I never felt so rich," he said; "I never expect to feel so rich again in my life, as when I looked at these 4dol and when I handed them over to my mother."

Sir Douglas Haig's real opportunity came in the South African war (says Current Opinion, an American journal), for it was his work with the cavalry that brought him under the notice of General French - and turned the tide of British d.saster. Here it was that his piety shone. Haig does not swear or gamble, or dance all night at revels, or affect the dress uniform of his rank. This asceticism has always been understood, for he has the Presbyterian temperament markedly. The officers' mess was not, all the same, prepared for his reply to the quartermaster who asked him, during the Colesburg operations, if, in a brush with the Boers, he had lost anything. " Yes," confessed Haig solemnly, "my Bible 1" Not once did his countenance relax its gravity as he gazed at the grinning faces in his vicinity. To this day Haig is grimly Scot in his spirituality, attending Presbyterian services every Sabbath at the front, revelling in doctrinal sermons that are not at all brief. He suggests Gladstone in a certain passion for theology, and his private library, when ho was general officer commanding at Aldershot. was well stocked with works on polemic divinity. Haig has a decided taste for reading, which, even when of a serious kind, is one of his relaxations. He keeps in close touch with the very heaviest periodical literature, and he can read German and French as readily as he reads English. He has likewise an excellent working knowledge of Arabic. —" Eighty years ago Dr John Clifford was born in the little Derbyshire village of Sawley.V writes "F. A. A." in the Daily Chronicle. "Amongst his hard-working, simple-living Puritan ancestors 80 would not be considered any great age, for his grandmother walked eight miles to hear him preach when she was 87. and refused to die until she was well over 99. Before ho was 11 years old John Clifford started work as a 'jacker off' in a lace factory, and when reckless debaters have charged him" with ignorance of Labour questions h# has reminded them of his experiences as a factory boy. when frequently he would work from Ftiday morning to Saturday night without a break. The frail but eager little 'jacker off' had an .insatiable hunger for knowledge; he learnt Latin and French from Cassell'a ' Popular Educator,' and read everything he could lay hands on. He even began to preach, and it was soon evident that he wws meant for something bigger than lace factories. When he was 19 he went to a Baptist college, and three years later he consented to become minister of a chapel in Praed street on eondit : OTi that he was allowed to continue his studies. For 11 years ho toiled at University College, and took so many degrees that he is entitled, if he likes, to print more than ei dozen letters nftor his name. He started his London ministry on a salary of less than £2 a week, and snent more than a quarter of it on his classes in Cower street. Roon Praed Street Chapel became far too small to hold the crowds of young people who were attracted by the intellectual stimulus and spiritual exhilaration of John Clifford's ministry, and n new church had to be erected at Wosthouroe Park. There, throughout a fruitful half-century—for it was only the other day he welcomed his successor—he has presided over a live, progressive, seven-day church. He is a very e?>-ly riser, a tremendous toiler, an mcufable optimist; he does not smoke, he is a total abstainer: his one hobby is otology, he-has no taste for the gossip of clubs, and he his one of the best and most devoted wives in the world. He has also a great Grift of sl^n."