PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3333, 30 January 1918, Page 57

PERSONAL NOTES.

<( After a short and shadowed career a good end" hae been made by the Hon. Jacob. John Astley, younger brother Of Lord Hastings. Ho was sentenced some two years ago .to 18 months' imprisonment for forgery; now it is announced that he has been killed in action. It appears thatr on his roloaee from prison ho volunteered for active service, and became company ' sergeant-major in the Sherwood Foresters. He was born in 1884, and for some time was a second lieutenant in the Sixteenth Lancers, but retired. The Prince of Wales has been elected' a member of the French Jockey Club. He had been put up by Prince August D'Aren,. berg, acting president, in place of the lata Count D'Avray, and waß seconded by General Vioomto de Lastours. The Princes name was balloted for in" the ordinary way. His grandfather, King Edward, exactly 5Q years ago, when asked 'to join the French Jockey Club in 1676, had insisted upon being put up for membership in the customary way. King sponsors were the Marquis do Biron and vicomte Daru. —"Allenby is a certainty," writes, an officer with the Palestine forces in a letter to a, friend. "With military genius ha seems to combino .that amazingly' cool mathematical deliberation that convinces ,you that ho -knows absolutely what he itf doing, what the result will be, and what the other fellows will do afterwards. And he seems always ready with tho next move. "He is never elated and never depressed, hia mood is even, and his manner soldier-like. Kindly and genial, his satisfaction only finds vent in praise of his splendid troops. The feeling here is one of the greatest respect and admiration for our splendid leader."

Phe-death in his ninety-first Year is announced of Mr Thomas Edward iCcbbel, journalist aivl author, who as a Conservative writer half a century ago enjoyed the friendship of Disraeli. The- son of the Rev. Henry Kebbel, a Leicestershire clergyman, he was eduoated at Merchant Taylors' School and at Exeter and Lincoln Colleges, Oxford. He had an uphill fight as a journalist, and his first post on the newly-eetablished' Press, an organ of the Tony party, commanded a salary of only £IOO a year. It, however, brought him into personal touch with Disraeli, to whom, he owed much of his training and inspiration, and with whom he became on terms of intimacy granted to a very few. - The recent election to Parliament of Ben Tillett (he objects to Mr) after four previous futile attempts recalls the fact that, as a, lad of eigiit lie went to work in a brickyard. Then he travelled with a circus, and later went to sea on a fishing smack. Subsequently he saw service in the navy, from which he was invalided, and alter several voyages in merchant' vessels settled 1 at "the docks and organised the Dockers' Union, of which he is secretary. In the earlv days of the was Ben condemned it, but since he visited the front at the invitation of the Commander-in-Chief no one has been a stronger advocate of a- light to.a It was he who led-'the great London" dock strike in 1889, his_ chief associates being Mr John Burna and Mr"'Tom Mann. For his sympathetio assistance to strikers at Hamburg and Antwerp he was imprisoned, and subsequently deported from both places. Officially described as General Officer Commanding the London Air Defence, Major-general E. : B. Ashmoro occupies a post which is far from being a sinecure. Possessed of brilliant ability and initiative, he has 'the advantage of having served both in the Royal .Flying Corps and in the artillery. Regarded as an authority on matters concerning all branches of artillery. General Ashmore, who is only years of age, has accomplished wonders. A cousin of Lord Glanusk, he entered the army at the ago of 19. Ho saw service in South Africa with the Royal Horse Artillery, and was seriously wounded • at Sauna's Post. It.. was only a year • or*, two'.,before war broke out that General ■'.'Ashmore turned ■ his- attention to the possibilities of the aeroplane, and he obtained his flying certificate in 1912. Hunting is 'the gallant officer's favourite recreation, and he 'is also very keen on musio, being a Fellow of the Philharmonic Society. London's Lord Mayors may come and go, but Sir William Soulsby, private secretary at tho Mansion House since 1875, goes on for over—at least the city hopes so, For 42 years Sir William has been the .real Lord Mayor of London. He has been the l-ight hand of every man whom tho public has imagined to. be holding the office during this period. Two or three hundred people call at the Mansion House every day to see the Lord Mayor, and. Sit William, with that smiling courtesy which nobody who has received it ever forgets, has, sent them all away—satisfied. Seven hundred people send letters to the Lord Mayor every 24 hours. - Some are from lunatics inside asylums, and some from lunatics outside; but none of them is cast aside as too mean for attention. The new Lord Mayor is the forty-third to whom Sir William has acted as private secretary. We all hope he will live to see many more.

The recent, appointment of Majorgeneral Louis Jean Bols as Chief of the General Staff of Sir Douglas Haig, in eu<?« to Major-general Sir A. Lynden--8011, is of peculiar interest on account of the fact that .General Bols is a Belgian by birth, and will thus take an important share in driving the enemy from his native country. The son of a former Consulgeneral of the Belgian Diplomatic Service, the General, who is 50 years of age, entered 'the British army 30 years ago as a subaltern in the Devonshire Regimont. In 1891-2 he saw service in Burma, taking part in the operations in the Kachim Hills. Then came the South African war, and tho new Chief of Staff took his_ full share of work in the relief of Ladysmith, including the actions at Colenso, Spion Kop, Tugela Heights, and Picter's Hill. In the present war General Bole lias already played a notable part, and his name baa been mentioned in despatches on three* occasions. He won the D.S.O. in South Africa, and has received the C.B. during the present campaign.