People and Their Doings.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19035, 2 April 1930, Page 8

People and Their Doings.

James Thorn and Freddy ” Cooke Obstruct Sir Joseph : A. S. Taylor And The Electricity Department : Eleven Years After, Flying Reminiscence : Embarrassment Of Similar Names.

MR A. S. TAYLOR, chairman of the executive of the Citizens’ Association, was for many years himself a city councillor, and did much good work as chairman of the Electricity Committee. He was also chairman of the Tramway Board at one time. He had much to do with the establishment of the Municipal Electricity Department and has always been an advocate of improved lighting. The Greater Christchurch movement occupies much of his time and attention now. Mr Taylor is Dean of the Faculty of Law at Canterbury College. It would be difficult to find a more industrious man in any profession. He believes that time is made to be used, and that as far as human beings are concerned there is not so much of it that it can be wasted. Air Taylor can say that his withdrawal from public office has always been voluntary —he has never been rejected at a poll. Fie has never stood for Parliamentary honours, though often urged to do so. ® ]y£R JAMES THORN, who has been selected as Labour candidate for Otaki, will be remembered in Christchurch as one of the pioneers of the Labour movement. He indulged in a good deal of stump oratory in the Square, and took part in a celebrated scene in His Majesty’s Theatre, when Sir Joseph Ward was holding a meeting there one night. Air Thorn, and his companion in agitation, Air “Freddy” Cooke, invaded the stage. It looked as if there would be blows struck; certainly some very hot words passed between them. Air Thorn frequently tells how he and half-a-dozen others met in a small room in the city and with about ten shillings in the exchequer started the Labour movement here. Air Thorn was an unsuccessful candidate for Christchurch South in 1905 and again in 1908. He has been for many years connected with the “Maoriland Worker” and is now National President of the Labour Party. ® «F J>ERSONS with similar names are frequently a source of embarrassment to one another. Air J. S. Barnett, who has recently been figuring in reports of meetings touching the unemployed, and who has been appointed to a vacancy on the Hospital Board, has a namesake in Christchurch who has been mistaken for (shall we say) the original. Air J. S. Barnett is a Labourite, a retired railway workshops employ.ee from Dunedin, who has taken up union secretaryship as a hobby, and is secretary of one or two smaller unions, including the Hairdressers’ Union and the Storemen’s Union. He is a brother of Air Alatt. Barnett, the bowler.

! M* VIN O’NEILL, a prominent Melbourne owner and racehorse trainer, I who has returned to New Zealand after seventeen years’ absence, and who will spend a little time in Christchurch, claims to have trained and won nearly every classic race in Australia with his horses. He was the owner and trainer of Spearfelt, who won the Melbourne Cup in 1921 i, and during his stay on the other side has won stakes to the value of £IOO,OOO. At present he has twenty horses in work. He says:, “My own horses have won such races as the Melbourne Cup, Australian Cup and V.R.C. Derby, the King’s Plate, Governor’s Plate, Melbourne Stakes, Spring Stakes, Easter Stakes and the Melbourne Grand National Hurdles. In all, since I left New Zealand, I have trained 300 winners.” $F 9 WRITTEN over a pen name have been an accepted feature of newspapers from the earliest days of newsprint. The “Junius” letters published in an English newspaper at the latter end of the eighteenth century are famous: they were a series of seventy letters mostly attacking the Ministers of the time and the Court party. Nine books have been published on the qviestion of authorship of these letters, one as recent as 1909, entitled “Junius Unveiled.” Dr Johnson thought Burke was the writer, because he said, “I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these letters.” They are now generally attributed to Sir Philip Francis, notwithstanding that he emphatically denied the authorship and also under the pen name of “Britannicus” defended the King and Lord Mansfield against the attacks of “Junius.” W ® AND WRITING EXPERTS were not valued highly by the late Mr Justice Denniston, who had frequent opportunities of studying their work in connection with forgery cases chiefly. Handwriting as a test in criminal cases, however, is often valuable as a trap for a person who misspells certain words. Such a trap was set once for a woman in Christchurch, who was charged with sending slanderous postcards. She had disguised her handwriting, but she had spelt Gloucester Street in a rather curious way. The Magistrate invited her to give a specimen of her handwriting, which she willingly agreed to do. The tell-tale word was included in the dictation and the mis-spelling was repeated. Students of graphology will tell you that handwriting varies under moods of

hopefulness, elation, dejection and so on, and the handwriting expert has to study the outlines of permanent character, as well as those that are subject to change. Goethe wrote of handwriting:— Handwriting has its analogies with the character and with the human mind, and it can afford at least a presentiment of the kind of feeling or of the mode of action, inasmuch as we must also admit a certain harmony with the personality, not only in the features and the general conformation of a man, but also in the facial expression, the voice and in the movements of the body. W WIVES of American delegates to the Naval Conference have been commenting unfavourably upon the dingy exteriors of many Mayfair mansions compared with the beautiful interiors they have seen during their stay. The Hon Mrs Gordon-Ives, a sister of Lord Ridley, one day discovered that she could make designs with ordinary oil paint, such as is used by house decorators upon rough brick walls, which when varnished would resist the effects of the weather. One of her first completed works was a thirty foot wall at the back of Colonel Dodge’s house in Connaught Street. This was painted by Mrs GordonIves with a realistic design of a cottage, an inland sea, with mountains, ships, and a little wood in tones of orange, brown, blue and green. At present she is designing a garden scene for the wall at the back of the Hon Mrs Lionel Guest’s new house in Stanhope Street. This is to consist of wisteria and roses with birds in flight. sS? MR R. W. SHIERS, who is flying to A England, shares with Sir Keith Smith the honour of being the last of the crew of four who were the first to fly from London to Australia —and in doing so won a prize of £IO,OOO. That was in 1919, the Vickers-Vimy leaving London on November 12 and landing at Darwin on December 19. Sir Ross Smith lost his life on April 13, 1922, in testing an amphibian, which went into a spin from which it could not be extricated, and Sergeant J. M. Bennett lost his life by the bullet of an Indian tribesman a year or two later. Curiously enough Ross Smith was held up crossing Australia after his landing. A damaged propellor brought him down at Anthony’s Lagoon but he found a boring contractor, fortunately, who made a repair with hoop-iron. Hinkler did the flight in February, 1927, in 15i days, and Kingsford-Smith in July, 1929, in twelve days twenty-one hours.