PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3315, 26 September 1917, Page 58

PERSONAL NOTES.

Lieutenant-colonel Sir J. Norton Griffiths, who proposes the formation of soldiers' societies to perpetuate in peace the friendships made on the battlefield, is the famous contractor who headed the British mission to Rumania. By destroying tli3 great oil wells there, ho cheated . the Germans of many millions of pounds' worth of booty for which they would have given their souls. He served m the MashonalandMatabele war and afterwards in the Boer war. .

There are many Plunketts in Ireland — some spell their name with only ono "t," — and Sir Horace, who is the chairman of the Irish 'Convention, is probably the most popular of them all. The Irish people are fond of the romantic, and the fact that Sir Horace for 10 years was ranching in ' America probably appeals to them. It has been said that nothing would make him forgo his annual autumnal visit to his ranch in Wyoming. He is a fine, chess player. Major-general Sir George Younghusband has rjublished "Memories during Peace and War." General Younghusband spent some time in the United States after the Boer war, and was entertained by Colonel Roosevelt at Oyster Bay, where he quotes Kermit Roosevelt as having remarked guilelesslv: " You know father likes to be fop dog, the most prominent person wherever he is. If he's at a wedding he wants to be the bride, and if he's at a funeral he wants to bo the corpse. —lt appears that Dr Michaelis, the new German Chancellor, is in his own way a most religious man. He is a member of the German Association for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge; and he had, only J a few days before his "preferment, con- | tributed an article on Martin Luther to an evangelical magazine. "The greatest man he wrote, "is he whose genius has the most far-reaching influence on posterity, j Who now is conscious of the genius of Charlemagne? The genius of Napoleon is dead. The genius of Frederick the Great is diminishing in splendour. But the genius of Luther is still vital. 400 years after his death." - , ' . —lt was Lord Kitchener who discovered the value of Sir Eric Geddes as an administrator, and his first Government appointment was that of assisting in the speeding-up of the munitions supply. This was before the Ministry of Munitions was created, following which Mr Lloyd George made him Deputy Director-general. That was in 1915, and in December of that year Sir Erio Geddes was placed in control of Woolwioh Arsenal. His success there was so marked that early in the following year ho became Director of Military Railways; and thence, at the request of Sir Douglas Haig. ho joined the Headquarters Staff as Director-general of Transportation, with the rank of major-general. There he remained in full military and civil control over the transportation of material and personnel until May last, when he was made an additional member of the Board of Admiralty, with the title of Controller, and the rank, honorary and temporary, of viceadmiral. General Younghusband. in his " Memories," met Rudyard Kipling during the Boer war, and tells a story of Kipling and Cecil Rhodes at one of tho camps, when the soldiers, having learned that the two great men were there, gathered and raised a great cheer. Said Rhodes to Kipling. " Take off vour cap. they are cheering you." Said Kipling to Rhodes, "No, they are not, they are cheering you." Someone suggested, " They are cheering both of you?" " Whereupon both," says the author,, "clinging close, together for support, shyly took off their caps." He thinks j that' Kinling's stories have greatly influenced the character of tho British army. Tommy Atkins, ho says, did not know how many lovable attributes he possessed until he read about them in the stories of Kipling and his imitators. But, having discovered himself in that guise, he gradually merged himself into the reflection he admired. "My early recollections of the British soldier," says General Younghusband. " are of a bluff, rather surly person, never the least jocose or lighthearted, except perhaps, when he had too much beer." And he thinks that the British armv owes a groat debt of gratitude to . Kipling and his fellow writers " for having r produced the splendid type of soldier who now- stands as the English type."