PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3352, 12 June 1918, Page 55

PERSONAL NOTES.

Lord Rayleigh, scientist and milkman, has a great scheme for encouraging pigbreeding, and so help our food supply. He is going to present a young pig to every married man employed on his Essex estate who is willing to take on the job of looking after it. More than 100 have already accepted. Trade is quie popular among the peerage. The late Lord Lucas need to run a bacon factory, the late Viscount Hampden was in the dairy business, the late Earl of Winchilsea dealt in agricultural implements, and the present Marquess of Londonderry is in the coal business.

Sir Sam Fay, who has become Direc-tor-general of Movements and Railways and a member of the Army Council in succession to Sir Guy Granet, has had a remarkable career. 'lhe son of a New Forest farmer, he began to climb the railway ladder at the age of 16 as an office boy in a little wayside station on the L. and S.W. railway. Promotion followed promotion, until he became general manager of the . Great Central railway, and, in 1912, a knight. - Mr lan Macpherson, Under-secretary for War, has had a career which may be regarded as amazing. Not long ago he was a lone, unknown Liberal barrister. He won the Ross and Cromarty seat from about 30 other candidates, and hasn't stopped hustling since. Ho works about a fortnight every week, has "cold-steel" nerves, wears tortoiseshell-rim glasses, and is only 38. Mr Guy Calthrop, the British Coal Controller, who • is only 46, is the t general manager of the biggest commercial concorn in the British Empire—the L. and N.W. railway, which has a staff of 150,C00 men and a capital 0 f £126,000.000. Mr Calthrop possesses all th? qualities of a genuine " push-and-go" man. He was earning £SOOO a year —earning, mark you ! —when in the thirties, as general manager of the Buenos Aires and Pacific railway, but, being born at Uppingham, began his career as a junior clerk in IPB6 in the service of the L. and N.W. railway. Not content with that humble position, he set to work to study railway working, and now knows his job from A to Z. . Lady Drogheda has been an enthusiastic war-worker from the earliest days, and one of her latest exploits was to fly over London during " Business Men's Week" to drop war bond pamphlets. Tt is unlikely, however, that any of her exploits will be remembered longer than her tour undertaken when Belgium was suffering from the German onslaught at the war's commencement. For manv months, in eon June, t ; on with Marine Elliott, she toured the waterways of France in an immense barge, dispensing hospitality to poor refguoes who lined the shores. She scorned physical danger, and many a mother and babe owe their lives to her aid. As an "all-round man" sbo has few rivals in society. She en design a house or a frock, dress a plav and is an amateur crack at lawn tennis. —Commander Francis H. L. Lewjn, R.N., the bravest man of the vear. has just been awarded the Stnnhope Gold Medal by the Royal Humane Society. Here is the story of hi!» gallant action as described by an eye-witness: On a cold February evening a ship struck a mine and went down in a few minu'tes. With the intention of picking up survivors, a trawler steamed over the spot. Shortly afterwards Commander Lewm. with two men elineing to him. drifted alongside, and. thouch he kn<uv he might drift away again at any moment, as others had alrcadv done, ho called out to those on the trawler to take, the men first, and supported the second m/m while the first was lying dragged on board. Eventually all three were rescued in a state of great; exhnastion. A heavy sea was running at the time, nnd the weather was so cold that the deck of the trawler was cover n d with. Ice. The Gold Coast has produced a plucky

soldier in the person of Sergeant Colter, who js one of the bfcst-known chiefs, lie :nsi=tcd on joining tho UoiU Coast Regiment, West African .Frontier Force, as a private, although lie had played a distinguished part in the two Ashanti lixpedidit,ons in iado and ISO'J, and ho was followed by largo numbers of nis own men, and side bv s;de they fought their way to victory in Fast Alrica. Chief Coker, who succeeded his grand-uncle, the late Chief Thompson, visited England fit the Corona.tion ol King Edward VIL. Visiting Scandinavia, he met the iato King Oscar of Sweden, and gave an address on the progress of Good Tcmplary on the Gold Coast at tho Royal Opera, Stockholm. He is a Freemason, tho recorder of the Native Tribunal, a member of the Wesleyan School Committee, and is a life-abstainer. Tho French composer Debussy, who died on March 26, was a strange being, both as man and musician. With his high check bones and iliis Hat-Jjppod head, Olaudo Achille Debussy looked less like a Frenchman than a Chinaman. In his earlier years he was unkempt and uncouth. It was in these penniless years, while he lived with his devoted wife, that he made his original contributions to musical art. Later ho beo.imo well-to-do, and fastidious; but he had deserted' the wife who believed in him and attached himself to a woman with money. Debussy will never be counted among tho greatest of composers. His artistic character was too limited to enable him to produce works to be counted among the masterpieces of musical literature. In life, as in nrt, Debussy lacked the roots that might havo connected him with the goodness of mother earth and the lofty branches 'that could feel the winds of heaven. A notablo person died recently when Mr Thomas Holmes, "tho London police court missionary," passed away. For over 30 vcars he devoted day and night to the interests of those Londoners., who were most in need of help. He survived his wife little more than a year. They were a devo'tcd couple. Mr Holmes, during hie police court davs, was a close student of the criminal. He added to the opportunities afforded bv the police court by frequently giving hospitality to discharged prisoners in his house at Tottenham, whore he then lived. Sometimes his kindness met with gratitude; and sometimes his only reward was to wake in the morning to find his guest and his spoons missing. He was convinced that crime was often a disease. Old gaol birds lived at his house for months at a time, and were treated as members of the family. These "guests" were "known to the police," but, said Thomas Holmes",' '* many of them ought to be classified as ' known to the angels,' for their real goodness has again and again rebuked and inspired me." How splendidly many of those who had come under his notice fought in the great war was shown in the book he published, " My Police Court Friends," and other works. The case of Walter Greenaway, as told in Mr Holmes's sequel, attracted much notice. Though convicted of an offence in England. Grccnaway rendered splendid service in Mesopotamia, and was practically tortured to death by the Turks.