DUNEDIN NOTES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1869, 6 February 1892, Page 3

DUNEDIN NOTES.

I (From our own Correspondent.) We have had amongst us during the week Mr H. M. Stanley, a man whose life and actions during the past^ halfdozen, years or more have excited'more world-wide interest than those,perhaps,of any other individual of our generation. But unlike some of the other great personages of our day, Mr Stanley's greatness is not likely to outlive him. He is undoubtedly a great man, would have made probably a Napoleon or a Wellington had his horoscope been differently cast — one of those men who would have fallen on his legs, no matter where thrown, or how fortune had played with him, and taken charge of the situation before other men could realise where they were. Yet his discoveries were very largely the harvest of the labours of such truly great and self-sacrificing men as Livingston and Speke and the other pioneers who had given up their lives in the cause of civilisation and religion. But Stanley is not the man to make many sacrifices for religion or for anything else that does not bring substantial and immediate gain. He speaks exclusively in his lectures of the benefits that will accrue, not to religion, but to commerce, from his discoveries. He has all the characteristics of the Yankee, and has a very strong faith in the efficacy of the almighty dollar. Can you imagine David Livingston putting himself into the hands of the much-travelled Smythe and selling his experiences at so much a head? Therefs no mistake about it there's a lot of the buccaneer in Stanley. There is nothing, I believe, that he would not undertake for money and fame ; and had he lived in a less civilised age, say about the time that the German forests were vomiting out their barbarian hordes that overran the Continent, or later when Peter the Hermit went round preaching his holy war, Stanley would have been chosen by general acclamation as the leader of a nation or an army ; and his nature, despotic, masterful and unflinching, would have made him the man for the times. He is a striking example of the opportunity providing or, perhaps, making the man. ]STo doubt when Gordon Bennett, at the famous midnight meeting in Paris, told him to find Livingston, he knew well that Stanley possessed all the qualifications necessary for the success of such an undertaking. Stanley's whole previous life had been one of adventure and hardship and terrible enterprise. He had graduated in the school in which such a nature as his is steeled and perfected. Most people who read must have long ago learned the story of Stanley's first journey across the Dark Continent and of his still later adventures in quest of the German, Emm Pasha. But the man himself, who has been the subject of so much controversy and the hero of so many thrilling incidents, people were drawn towards by a powerful curiosity ; they wanted to look on him with their own eyes and to hear with their own ears the story of his marvellous exploits. Those who have seen Stanley in the illustrated prints can form a tolerably clear idea of his personal appearatfee. He is a man of medium height, with a well-knit, muscular frame, and a pair of broad, square shoulders, on which is I set a well-made head, covered with a profusion of hair, prematurely blanched i and grizzled, with a moustache of the same hue. His most striking character- | istics, from the point of view of character, are found in his eyes and chin. In the formation of the latter feature, one sees much of that unyielding and resolute determination, that masterful superiority i and strength of will that carried him through almost superhuman difficulties and, there is little doubt, in his dealings I with his subordinates, often led him to the verge of cruelty, and certainly often to the committal of many despotic actions. He has a quick, penetrating i gaze, denoting rapidity in analysis and promptitude in his conclusions, and a i decided aversion to contumacy, opposi- ! tion or weakness in others. A man of iron will and great courage and resource, and morbidly exacting, and, at times, a very ugly travelling companion. These are the impressions Henry M. Stanley made on my mind. He is conspicuously brusque in his manner, and decidedly unconventional. These characteristics are, of course, the result of his habits, acquired among a barbarous people, and the rough-and-ready methods that imperceptibly grew on him. He had none of the usual neat, half-complimentary, halfapologetic, introductory speeches that one is accustomed to hear from the ordinary lecturer. There was something characteristic in the manner in which he strode across the stage, and, waiting until the tumultuous greeting had subsided, without any ceremony ,he plunged into his lecture, just as he often did into the jungle,and never stayed until he came right out at the other end of his story. There is no attempt at oratory or fine speaking, fcfc ough he is a fine writer and speaker by nature; and, without any apparent effort on his part, his description of certain incidents in his travels were intensely stirring and graphic. I am told his tour has been financially a great success, and it could be made still more so were he not racing at such break-neck speed through the colonies. I have just heard of an exciting chase after a notorious criminal, in which, for some days past, Chief Detective Henderson and Detective M'Grath have been engaged* From certain information which quite accidently came into the hands of the authorities, it was learned that a most undesirable visitor had arrived and had taken up his quarters somewhere in the north end of the city. Before leaving a northern city where he had made a brief sojourn on his arrival from " the otherside," he had, in the eloquent phraseology of his craft, "cracked a couple of cribs," and was known to have over a thousand pounds in his possession. He was a man of very gentlemanly manners and dressed with great care, and represented himself in the house where he took up his quarters as being a brother of Dawson, a member of the well-known firm of Stewart Dawson and, Co., watch manufacturers, Liverpool, and was travelling in the colonies partly for his health and partly for pleasure. He never went out in the day time, but took his walks abroad by night, which was considered strange, as he described himself as just recovering from a severe attack of la grippe. After a couple of days' hard work, the detectives got the clue they were looking for, and learned that their man had been more than once seen driving towards a certain quarter of the city during the small hours of the morn1 ing ; but as he always dismissed the 1 cab some distance from where he lodged, | the place of his retreat remained a mystery. Matters, however, reached a

olimax by the discovery that a cash-box in the house where he lodged had been broken open and rifled of its contents. The matter, with other suspicious circumstances implicating the soi-disant Dawson, was promptly laid before the police ; but he somehow smelt danger, and ten minutes before the arrival of the detectives on the scene he had mizzled. In. his hurried departure he left behind him a complete set of finely-tempered housebreaker's tools of the most modern pattern, a six-chambered revolver, a dark lantern, several other odds and ends, all requisites of his profession, and a rough plan of the interior economy, so to «peak, of one or two well-known business establishments, which it was evidently his intention to operate upon in due time. There is very little doubt but that he would have set to work soon after his arrival were it not for the unceasing vigilance of the detectives who, he was aware, were pretty close on his track. Detectives Henderson and M'Grafch are deserving of credit for the industry and intelligence with which they worked on their scant information. I have since heard that the fellow was arrested up North. From burglary to matrimony may seem a pretty long cry, and yet there are some features about both that do not quite fail to suggest an association of ideas. In the lively little experience that has just come under my notice, tbe hero of the tale is an advanced type of the masher order, one of the curled darlings of the civil service, with a decent screw and a very passable prospect ahead. The lady, or as the story writers say, the heroine of my tale, is young and pretty, and belongs to a very respectable family. She had for some years been wooed by the young fellow in question, and things had run so smoothly that the usual engagement was entered into and the happy day named. A week or two ago, however, the young lady received a letter from her fickle swain informing her, with a great pretence of misery, that circumstances over which he had no control compelled him to break-off the engagement ; and though he knew he could never survive the terrible blow, still, for the happiness of both, it was better that it should be. The young lady was naturally terribly distressed on the receipt of this news, and was completely prostrated for some days from the effects of the shock to her feelings. Inquiries disclosed the fact that her lover had recently made the acquaintance of a family residing in one of our fashionable suburbs, who have a couple of well-dowered daughters, and on one of these, or rather, I should say, on her substantial marriage portion, he placed his affections ; and so pleasantly did things progress that he had actually proposed and been accepted and, as in the other case, named the happy day. The friends of his old love on hearing this were naturally furious, and the girl's brothers, two of the best-known athletes in the city, decided with the rashness of youth to wipe out the insult by taking the law into their own hands. Wiser or, at all events, more peaceable counsels prevailed, and on a certain day quite recently tbe father and brothers of the jilted damsel drove to a certain suburban villa where the faithless one, secure in the company of his new flame, had been spending a musical evening. After a terrible scene, he was induced to accompany them iv the cab,and driving rapidly into town obtained a special license and compelled him on the following day to marry the girl he had so basely deserted. The incident has given rise to a good deal of gossip ; and dou^s are expressed as to the wisdom of the course adopted. I should certainly say that the girl was well rid of such a fellow; but in the present state of the matrimonial market, anything screwed up together to represent a man, as long as he occupies anything of a position, is looked upon asa prize. The " sacredness of marriage "is a very empty phrase nowadays; and the life of a couple married under such, circumstances as I have detailed cannot certainly be a happy one. In my opinion No. 2 girl had a very lucky escape with her money, and can bless her stars she didn't; fallinto the grip of so mercenary a character. Sir Robert Stout, acting like a spoilt child, has refused to assist iv organising the banquet iv honour of the Governor, which is to be held here On Saturday first. Anything smaller or more trivial, but still so entirely characteristic of Sir Robert, it would be hard to conceive. Because, if you please, this great man was not consulted at the outset and made the central figure iv the business, he has sulked and absolutely refused to have anything to do with it. He evidently thought there should be a great hubbub made about his refusal, that it should form the subject of newspaper criticism, and be telegraphed through the colony as something only second in importance to an impending earthquake or some great public disaster, or as a presage of the coming republic of which our democratic barrowknighfc is to be the first president. But when he found his ill-natured note was simply flung into the waste paper "basket, and a week went by without a word being heard of the matter, he caused his reply to the committee's invitation to be printed in his organ, the " Globe." Had Sir Robert Stout's childish excuse been generallyimitated, none of the M.H.R's. in the city would be at the banquet, as they were exactly treated in. the same manner as ho was. But he is now so much accustomed to popular flattery and homage from the benighted but rapidly diminishing following who accept his leadership that he cannot bring himself to play second fiddle to the committee of gentlemen who undertook to organise the banquet. How very ridiculous in the eyes of sensible men, and what a plague to himself cannot such a man be without knowing it.