PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3314, 19 September 1917, Page 55

PERSONAL NOTES.

General Hubert Cough is an Irishman, is only 47 years of age, and has only 26 years' army service to his credit. He is one of the youngest—if not the youngest—generals holding a supremo command in France. At the outbreak of the war he was merely a brigadier commanding the Third Cavalry Brigade in Ireland. Ho came into some prominence, however, hefore tho war—over what was known as the "Curragh incident," in connection with the Ulster Homo Rule question. His father was a general and a V.C. Sir Arthur Evans, who has been reelected President of tho British Association —a _ rare distinction, due to circumstances arising from the war —is an archaeologist by heredity. It was he who revealed to a sceptical world the buried glories of Cretan civilisation and tho legendary palaco of King Minos; and he is the son of a former famous antiquary, Sir John Evans, who was one of the trustees of the British Museum. Sir Arthur married the daughter of another ardent archaeologist, the late Professor Freeman. The name of "Sammy." which has been given to General Pershing's soldiers in Franco, is no doubt suggested by "Uncle Sam." And it is odd to recall 'that the original "Uncle Sam" bore the samo- surname as tho present Prcsidont. Samuel Wilson was a commissariat inspector whoso title of undo was a tribute of affection from his clerks. When one of them was asked the meaning of iho then new and unfamiliar initials "U. 5.," with which Wilson marked tho army provisions, ho jokingly replied, "Why, Uncle Sam, of course." The joke caught on, and U.S. and Uncle Sam have been synonymous ever since. Wilson died in 1854.

British occupation of Beersheba has resulted in the discovery of the bones of "a St. Gkorge." When English troops last fought in the Holy Land, "a St. George" performed prodigies of valour against the Saracens, and the stories of his prowess brought home by the Crusaders led to his adoption as England's Patron Saint —or, more correctly, Military Protector—by the Council of Oxford in the thirteenth century. The St. George whose bones have just been disinterred can scarcely, however, bo the -valiant warrior of the Crusades, if, as seems to be the case, the inscription over his tomb dates from the sixth century. Lady Dalmeny, the wife of Lord Rosebery's heir, has published a reply in The Times, London, to her husband s advertisement that he would not be responsible for any debts she contracted. In this advertisement Lady Dalmeny gives in detail the amount of her indebtedness, totalling £666 15s 3d, and adds: —"On my household account £2060 is represented by a bank overdraft which has accumulated since the year 1910, and which Lord Dalmeny from time to time has had full knowledge of, and until the recent advertisement has never objected to. And I further declare that since my marriage in 1909 Lord Dalmeny hats never made any payment on my account beyond a certain fixed personal allowance which has never exceeded £IOOO a year, and an allowance for household expenses which has never exceeded £IOOO a year." Lady Dalmeny is the younger daughter of the late Lord Henry Grosvenor.

There is a good deal of romance in the life of Mr John, Masefield, the distinguished writer, whose wonderful book on Gallipoli was said by the critics to be the best production of 1916. A Shropshire lad, Mr Masefield was sent away to sea at the age of 14, "to get the nonsense knocked out of him." A little while later he forsook his seafaring career and landed in the United States. He had many ups and downs, and recalls once how he joined two other tramps in an attempt to earn a few coppers by singing at street corners. He then obtained a job in a New York hotei as an all-round handy man. _ He had tc work 16 hours a day, cleaning beer-taps, polishing the brass, washing the glasses, and so forth, for a wage of lOdol a month. Small of stature, with a strangely shy and sensitive manner, Mr Masefield has a 6ingle-minded devotion to literature.