In The Papers.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11727, 3 September 1902, Page 7

In The Papers.

J Loi'd Salisbury went rapidly white after | his . wife's death. Since then, he has grown quite an old man. But he has kept his force almost until the end, and there have been sparks ofthe old fire even in his j latest speeches. He passes (says the "Daily i\isij"), but he leaves in English life j a family of .straight-living, public-spirited J sons Wilo, however far they may range in politics, will "be. .a precious heritage for our public life. —mong the writers: who deal with the subject of Egypt since tiie downfall of Ismail, in the new volaime of the' "Encyclopaedia Britannica," are Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace and Sir George Sydenham Uiarke, the Governor of Victoria, who served in the Egyptian Expedition of '82, and on the staff of Sir G. Graham in the Soudan three years later. Now that Lord. Kitchener once- nioi*d takes his place as the foremost soldierfigure in England, people are creating all kinds of imaginary Kitcheners —very'different (according to "M.A.P.") from the real man. This is always done; popular heroes become legendary always and everywhere. One of the first things to be said about him, of course, is" that he is quite different from the ordinary mam ;{ free from' all his weaknesses ; a ipachine, a. being without emotion ; indifferent to applause; loathing public notice; above all things, a womanhater. This, however, is ail nonsense. Lord Kitchener likes applause, is keenly ambitious; loves hearing himself discussed, and is by no means indifferent to the smiles of the fair. He is different from other men in placing ambition as the first of man's passions, and is strong enough never to allow anything else to take the supreme place in his life. His freedom from female ties is largely due to the fa.ct that he spent so many of bis years practically in the desert —far away from their influence, and the very common and human fault of shyness probably accounts, when he got back to civilised life, for his failure ever to ask any of the many women in love with him to marry him.

"M.A.P." further describes Lord Kitchener, as a .great diplomatist. When he got into that dreadfully nasty and difficult tangle with Major Marchand at Fashoda, it was his wondrous tact, that at once -asserted the supremacy of England and snared the French" officer humiliation that might have mads war inevitable. That stroke of sending Marchand some food and -wine, and offering him all the hospitality of the English camp, was a masterpiece ,• only Kitchener would have had the ready wit to do it. It was exactly the same quality that enabled Kitchener to bring the Boer leaders finally over to wea.ee. What a fine specimen that was of true diplomatic skill when Kitchener slawed De Wet on the back with. "Don't sulk. De Wet"; it was perhaps some saying like this- tihat broke finally the Boer hesitations and made peace.

Because he Mssed his sweetheart when saying good-bye to her in Augsburg railway station, a German aptor has been sentenced to five days' imprisonment for "disorderly conduct." Lieutenant Perezel has been expelled from an Austrian Hussar regiment because he did not use his sword on a labourer who struck him. Prince Charlie's tartan cloak, which he wore during the rebellion of 1745, is now being exhibited in a tailor's window at Pitloahry, Perthshire. It has been made illegal to .carry pocket pistols, in South Carolina. The new law will compel some 10 3 000 whites and negroes to disarm. . Russia has placed orders in England for two powerful motor-cars and six motor-, trucks, which are to be used at the next army manoeuvres. The latest pen-and-ink portrait is contributed by Mr G. N. Hogarth in his "Nearer East." Mr Hogarth writes: — "The distinguishing Bedawin characteristic is,"in .a word, that of his land, meagreness. Meagreness of osseous sturved frame, short of stature, and doomed to ea-r'y decay; .meagreness of sensory faculties, ears and eyes; dull* of hearing and sight, except for tracking a. foe; meagreness of mental qualities, issuing in unstable shifty conscience, in easy cowardice, in absence of religion, in gusty passions, and in swift deterioration in contact with civilisation. The man of the Arabian desert is an; ineffective animal, bad shot, bad rider, bad fighter, bad breeder, and, when brought out of his steppes, as bad a> cultivator as a citizen. But, for all that, an attractive animal. Take him on " his own high and open desert, the product of its keen aJr, snd clean non-verminous soil. He has all the outward charm which purity of race and freedom, from oppression and menial toil through many generations confer all over the world. His shape, his bearing his social code, are alike noble." The" picture is curious and unexpected, in reading it, we feel that the author speaks from careful personal observation.