People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19013, 7 March 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

How Joe Kirkwood’s Trick Shots Unearthed A Gold Mine : Who Brought Down The “Red Killer”? : The American Abroad : “Tuppence ” Gladstone.

PARAGRAPHS in the “Star’* on the advantages taken of men’s bad handwriting remind one of the following story which was circulated as true and appeared in English and American newspapers many years ago. A gentleman in Michigan owned a building which was situate on the lands of the Michigan Central Railway, and the company, desiring him to remove it, the superintendent, who wrote a most uncouth hand, sent him a short letter authorising its removal at once. The house was not moved, however, and three months afterwards the superintendent met the owner and began scolding him for not doing it. An explanation was soon made. The notice had been received; nobody could decipher it. Someone had suggested that it might be a free pass, and upon that suggestion the owner of the building had been riding for three months. WWW* JOE KIRKWOOD’S plight in quarantine in Sydney is not the first occasion on which he has had bad luck in steamer travelling. Indeed, the manner in which he discovered his greatest drawing card as a golfer is related to another piece of misfortune while travelling. He and another professional named East went Home to contest the British open championship. They were not successful though Kirkwood did well. When they arrived at San Francisco on their return journey somebody went through their luggage and “got away with their entire roll.” To their hotel manager they explained their predicament, and as he had a golf course attached to the hotel he suggested that they should give an exhibition round and make a collection. This they agreed to do, and Kirkwood, purely as an extra, exhibited some of his trick shots. They simply paralysed the Americans, and there was a unanimous request that he should repeat the performance in the afternoon, when there was a large assembly. The financial results put them in a better position than ever, and Kirkwood dropped to the fact that these trick shots, combined with his ability as a golfer, constituted a little gold mine. W W CONCERNING the fate of Baron von Richthofen, Germany’s greatest war hero, about whose exploits a paragraph appeared in yesterday’s “Star,” a correspondent signing himself “Aussie,” writes:—“Richthofen’s exploits certainly deserve to become historical, but the point that has aroused the greatest controversy is the manner of his death. Who brought down the “ Red Killer? ” Both Canadians and Australians claim the credit. Floyd Gibbons’s book, which your paper reviewed yesterday, says that the Captain Roy Brown, a Canadian airman who fought a duel with Richthofen over Vaux village, must get the credit, because medical and air officers say that when picked up the German was found to have been shot through the breast from right to

left and this could not have happened from the ground. This is incorrect. I can say as an eye-witness that the aerial encounter was watched anxiously by German and British soldiers in the trenches and by Australian machine-gunners nearby trying to train their guns on Richthofen. By this time the Canadian airman was too busy getting away from the big red triplane. Richthofen turned and banked steeply to his right, and as he did so an Australian Lewis gun on the ground fired and the “ killer ” immediately crashed. That accounted for the bullet wound in the breast from right to left. The Baron was subsequently buried with full military honours. Six British pilots acted as pall bearers and the coffin was covered with wreaths.” 3$ 3$ WHEN VISCOUNT GLADSTONE was a schoolboy at Eton he went by the nickname of “ Tuppence,” and he may sometimes even in later days have been called by that name. It was given to him when his illustrious father added twopence to the income tax. In appearance Viscount Gladstone resembled his father. Someone once described him, before he acceded to the title, “Just a little below the middle height, with eyes and skin as dark as those of a gipsy, Mr Gladstone has the physical strength, though he has not the height of his father. He has the same great width of shoulders; he has the same fine muscular development; his walk—slow, easy, firm—is that of an athlete; and I would pity most men. even twice his size, who had to face an encounter with him.” s*? 'J'HE AMERICAN JEW who sent the cable to Shakespeare reminds me of a story that Rudyard Kipling tells, writes a correspondent. Mr Kipling was once visited in London by a hustling American and his two sons. Walking into Kipling’s room uninvited, the American asked: “You are Rudyard Kipling? ” The author nodded. “ Boys, this is Rudyard Kipling,” said the American, turning to his sons. “And this is where you write?” “ Yes.” “ Boys, this is where he writes.” And the visitors departed to the next “ sight ” before Mr Kipling could ask their names. SF SPHERE IS another of the American tourist they tell at Cambridge. An American looking over the Colleges happened to go into a study where one of the students was working. “So sorry,” he apologised, “ I did not know these ruins were inhabited.” American traveller jokes are getting almost as common as the Scotch ones. Here is another. An American millionaire newly arrived in London was asked by a friend whether he was married. “ Oh, no,” he said, “ I am a bachelor.” “ Oh, I heard you were married,” was the comment. “ Not now,” said the millionaire, nonchalantly; “though, mind you, 1 did have some wives some years ago.”

at several public dinners, says an English writer, I have noticed annoyance among the guests at the way in which the chairman has given the Royal toast. The correct words for this ceremony, an authority tells me, are, “ Gentlemen, the King,” and such variations as “ I give you the toast of the King,’* “ His Majesty the King,” and “ The King, God bless him,” are to be deprecated. Inexperienced chairmen sometimes use peculiar expressions of their own, and at a luncheon the other day the following remark-, able effort was heard: “ Gentlemen, I rise to give you the toast of our beloved and illustrious Sovereign, King George.” These comments are interesting to colonials, not because they are unfamiliar with the proper form in which the toast should be given, but because the toast in New Zealand, at all events, is known as the Loyal Toast. This may' be a corruption of Royal, but it is not inappropriate.

J. BRUCE CHRISTIE, who on March 31 will relinquish the office of legal adviser to the State Advances Head Office, surely exemplifies the truth of the axiom “ Perseverance brings its own reward.” He is the eldest son of the late Mr A. K. Christie, one of Dunedin’s pioneers, who, like many others of New Zealand’s stalwart early settlers, shared in the excitements of the Bendigo and Ballarat gold rushes before finally reaching these shores. Young Christie was enabled to take advantage of the higher training afforded under the Otago Caledonian Society’s night classes, studying literature under the Rev Rutherford Waddell, and mathematics under the late Mr Kyle. From a cadetship in the Dunedin Supreme Court he rose to junior clerk, and continuing his studies he passed the junior and senior civil service examinations. Then followed service in the legal office of Macassey (father of Mr Percy Macassey, Crown Prosecutor at Wellington), Kettle (subsequently Magistrate and Judge) and Woodhouse. When that firm dissolved partnership Mr Christie entered the office of Duncan and MacGregor (the latter is now M.L.C.) as accountant, and later, moving northwards, entered the office of Thorne and Reed (the present Supreme Court Judge) at Auckland. Here Mr Christie turned his attention to law’, and was associated with the late Judge Connelly for seven years. He then became manager of the legal firm of Thomas Halliwell, at Hawera, but on the advice of the late Mr Fred Baume, K.C., transferred to Wellington, and in 1907 became officer responsible for the legal work connected with the State Advances Office. Mr Christie has served under five superintendents—Messrs Peter Heyes, J. H. Richardson, J. W. Poynton (now a stipendiary magistrate), G. F. C. (Colonel) Campbell, and W. Waddell, the present head of the Department.