PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3337, 27 February 1918, Page 52

PERSONAL NOTES.

— General. Guijlaumat, who has succeeded General Sarrail in command at Salonika, was, in 1911, General-director of the infantry at the French War Ofßce. When the war broke out he was promoted to the position of Chief of Cabinet of the War Minister; but soon after he wont to the' front in command of a division, and took a distinguished part, in a number of operations. He will bo best remembered in this country as the general who co-operated with the British forces in surrounding and capturing the important village of Combles during the battle of the Somme. Captain Roger Pocock, founder of that picturesque body the Legion of Frontiersmen, whoso ranks include men who have been in the uttermost parts of the earth, is a't present seizing in the British army. Captain Pocock himself as a much-travelled man, who has had manv adventures. He served in the Royal N.W. Mounted Police during the second Roil Rebellion, afterwards ho became a missionary in New Caledonia, and has ridden along' the Rocky Mountains from Canada to the city of Mexico, has travelled in Greenland, and dug for gold with many a Roaring Camp. Captain Pocock is a brother of Miss Lena Ashwell. The family of the late Pope Pius X are among the fugitives from the Italian

territory .lately occupied by the Germans. The family numbers some 20 individuals—all working-class people earning their living by daily toil. After many hardships and privations they have succeeded in reaching Rome, where their relatives, the late Pope's sisters, occupy a couple of humblo rooms . The family house, situated a few miles from Venice, has been abandoned, with nothing to protect it but a pathetic little inscription chalked on tho walls: "Respect the house of Pone Pius X." A notable career is terminated by the death of Mr Felix Moscheles, at. the advanced ago of B*. He was a godson of Mendelssohn, studied architecture - as a" young man, and a little later devoted himself to painting, having Whistler and Du Mauricr aa fellow-students jri Paris. International arbitration and painting engrossed most of his long life, and he was also a supporter of the Esperanto 'movement. Mr t Moscheles's friends included Mazzini, Wagner, Schumann, Joachim, Sarasate, Irving, Sir Arthur Sullivan," Jenny Lind, President Grover Cleveland, Browning, Holyoake, W. T. Stead, Kr'opotkin, Stepniak, and De •Pachmann. Lieutenant Joseph Lee, of the King's Royal Rifles, repprtcd missing, was one of the many young soldiers who found, in the new and 'trying, experiences of war, that they were poets, and as a sergeant in the Black Watch he contributed some admirable verses to the Spectator. His fine adaptation of Simonides's epigram on the Spartan dead at Thermopylae to tho case of our own gallant men may be recalled— Here do we lie, dead but not discontent, That which we found to do has had acoouiplishrnent—

] and . his "Poem of Leave," published so j recently as August 11 last, in which the .soldier, seeing the dear Homeland again, I is moved .to tears that would not flow at j the sight of battle-horrors, and yet .is stimulated anew by the thought that he is fighting to save his country. A recent suggestion that a National Government, should be formed with Mr Speaker Lowther as Prime Minister recalls . the fact that the suggestion was made in the fact that the suggestion was made in' the 1 case of a previous Speaker. When the Tories had to consider the question of forming an alternative Government in the height of the first Reform struggle, and there were various difficulties between "Wellington, Peel, and Lyndhurst, it was suggested that the Speaker, Manners Sutton, should bo made Prime Minister, and meetings were held to hear his views on the subject. However, he talked such "incredible nonsense," according to Greyille— Lyndhurst put it more forcibly—that it was decided he would never do, and he was not again considered. —lt is no.w known for the first time (says the Yorkshire Evening Post) that Mr Rudyard Kipling had Dr Jameson in mind when he wrote his wonderful poem "If," which includes the following stanza: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your less • If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on '.here is nothma i l-1 w.n Except the will that says to them, "Hold on." If you can do all this and more, concludes the poet, "yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and—which is more—you'll be a man, my son." '—Sir Charles Parsons has been experimenting for over 30 years upon the production of artificial diamonds. ,He has probably more inventions to. his credit than any other living Englishman. The Turbine King—for the modern turbine in its application both to merchant ships and warships is the work Sir Charles—took off his coat some 40. years ago as an apprentice in the great Armstrong workshops. Before then be had been- a high wrangler at Cambridge, where his tutor was Sir Robert Ball. Interested in many large concerns, Sir Charles is proprietor of Messrs C. A. Parsons and Co.,' of Newcastle, and chairman' and joint managing director of tho Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. In his spare time, by way of recreation, he takes an interest in politics, and devises improvements which giva, much more power and tone to phonographs and violins. Officially described as Director of Wool Textile Production, Mr Charles' Sykes, .J.P., is responsible for the provision of khaki and other cloth for tho British and Allied armies. In the great scheme of Government control which has been imposed upon the woollen and worsted manufacturers, ho has always taken a prominent part, and before being invited to take up his official position he was a self-made captain of tho industry. In <>pite of his arduous officinl duties, Mr Sykes still devotes time bo the advancement "of music Ho is a member of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and an honorary representative of tho Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Musjo and the Royal Collego of Music. Ho has since 1908 been president _of tho Huddersneld Glee Society, which, largely through his initiative, last year raised £llß7 in aid of the funds of St. Dunstan's. In his younger, days Mr Sykes, who now finds recreation in golf, was a keen cricketer and footballer, and he has done much to bring the Huddersfield Northern Union football team, 'to a high state of efficiency.