People Talked About

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue XVII, 25 April 1903, Page 1122

People Talked About

Fiji’s Governor. The faet that Sir Henry M. Jackson, the new Governor of the Fiji Islands, is a Roman Catholic seems to have given offence to some of those connected with the Mission Board at Sydney. At their recent conference they passed a resolution deploring the action of the British Government in appointing a man of his religion as Governor over a community where Wesleyanism is, so to speak, the established church among the natives. This drew from the leading people of Suva a memorial expressing the most complete satisfaction at the manner in which His Excellency discharged his duties. Then came an explanation irom the mission people to the effect that they did not object to the Governor personally. but because the fact of the highest person in the land being of the Romish Church was used improperly hy the missionaries connected with that body in the group. Thus the matter stands. His Excellency and Lady Jackson have made themselves very popular in the Islands, and everything seemed to point to Fiji having a resp.te from “the Governor question,” which was the one absorbing topic for a very long time before the arrival of the present holder of the office. Now. however, comes this new feature to disturb the calm which bid fair to settle on these beautiful islands. His Excellency was appointed Governor of Fiji on May 16. 1902, and arrived in Suva on September 10. 1902. His official career previous to his present appointment included the following positions: Commandant of Sierra Leone Police. 1880; Commissioner for Turks, and Caicos Islands. 1885 - 90; Colonial Secretary. Bahamas. 1890-93: Colonial Secretary. Gibraltar. 1894-1901. o O o o o The Pope's Monument. It has been decided to erect on the laiteran Square a grand monument commemorating the papal jubilee. At flu- express desire of the Pope, bronze tablets inscribed with the text of the three encyclicals written by His Holiness on Christian Socialism will be added. The Pope wishes to be known

to posterity as the protector of the labouring classes. Many Roman Catholics are largely contributing towards the monument, to the erection of which the Italian Government raises no objection.

Mr. John R. Mott. We are glad to be able to present our readers with a portrait of Mr John R. Mott. General Secretary of the World’s Student Christian Federation, who is now visiting New Zealand. It will be of interest to students to know that Mr Mott holds the degrees of Bachelor of Philosophy from Cornell University, and the degree of Master of Arts from Yale. Mr Mott was offered, but declined. a Fellowship in Philosophy, and also one in History and Political Science. Still later he has been offered professorships in two of the principal universities of the United States. These high distinctions have been declined by him, as his life work has appeared to him to be the organisation of the Chris tian forces of the student world. The success which has attended Mr Mott’s efforts in this direction are well known to all. It is largely due to his genius for organisation that the World’s Student Christian Federation, which unites all the national and internation 1 stu dent movements of the world, with a total membership of over 82.000 stu dents, has become an accomplished fact. Altogether he has visited at least 800 different universities, t-olleges. and other institutions of higher learning, many of them several times. Among the universities to which the most extended visits have been made are: Oxford. Cambridge, Edinburgh. Paris. Berlin, Halle. Leiden. Utr-eat < open hagen, Upsala, Christiania. Harvard Yale. Princeton, McGill. Toronto, Cal eutta. Madras, Bombay. Tokyo, Kyoto, and Peking. Students of seven years ago will well remember his former visit to Australasia, when our own union was formed under Ids wise guidance. All will look forward with the deepest interest and highest hopes to the visit now at hand. Mr Mott’s dates forvarioiis university centres are as follows: Auckland, April 20: Wellington. April 22; S.udent Con ference at Christchurch. A] ril 2i> - 28; Canterbury College. April 29: Otago. May 3. o o o o o Mr Russell Sage, the patriarchal millionaire, who has just recovered from a severe illness, finds rest very hard work. Therefore he has applied himself to his labours again by way of holiday and recuperation.

Miss Tborneyeroft Fowler. A pleasant, gossipy article in the "Girl’s Realm” is a paper entitled "How I Began”: a ehat with Miss Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. It seems she be gan early to make stories before she could write, and from thirteen was per petrating parodies upon Poe’s poems There must, however, be a double dose of original sin in a girl of thirteen who could parody “Annabel Lee.” Miss Fowler was never a “tomboyish” kind of girl—in fact, she disliked boys and their games. She loved lessons that would make a story, but hate 1 geography and arithmetic- with such purpose that when she went to school she had to have a class in arithmetic for herself, she was so backward. Her fa vourite heroine was Mary Queen of Scots, and her greatest joy was to rep resent a vestal virgin and worship Diana in a wood at the bottom of the garden When she left school she began writing short stories for magazines, and was very successful. Her first boo'; was published in 891, and “Isabel Carnaby” came out in 1898. She wrote "Isabe' Carnaby” in four months. She seldom writes more than two hours a day. She likes women better than men. but she thinks men really take a broader, big ger. truer view of life than women. O O O -Q o One of the Old School. For ten years Mr Richard Monk served his northern constituents faithfully in the House of Representatives. Possibly no memberhas tried so hard to fulfil the duties he assumed when ehosen of the people to represent them in Parliament. This was widely recognised by those he represented, and they showed their appreciation last week by making him a presentation at Warkworth, the gathering being marked by much enthusiasm. Mr Monk is distinctly one of the old school. He has high ideals and tries to live up to them, and it is im-

possible to know him without having a great respect for him as a politician and affection for him as a friend. He is a charming conversationalist. Well read, observant, and with a keen sense of the humorous, he can converse as few men can in these times, when the art of conversation is rapidly falling into the things that were. He was probably one of the most effective speakers in the House on some subjects. Patriotism,

for instance, was always sure to bring to his feet the member for Waitemata, and he would deliver an impassioned oration that could not fail to rouse the House. He used beautiful language at such times, and you would always remember it if you saw his keen blue eye Hash, watched his animated face and heard his thin eager voice as he dwelt on the glories of the country to which we belong. Mr Monk is a splendid sample for young New Zealand to follow. The more men there are like him the better the world will be.

France’s President. Emile Loubet, President of the French Republic, has expressed the hope that great things will result from the visit of King Edward VII. to the French capital. There is .certainly room for improvement in the relations which exist between the neighbours whose shores are washed by the English Channel. President Loubet is well past the prime pf life —he will be 65 on the last day of the present year—but he still retains the vigour of mind by which he won his way to the first position in Republican France. He has always been what is called a bucheur. Up at six o’clock in the morning, he never goes to bed before 11 p.m. His life has been devoid of extraordinary events, which sometimes have a habit of dogging the steps of the great. His father was a simple peasant who lived by the sweat of his brow at Marsanne. Loubet pere is dead, but his mother—"that good and respectable peasant woman his mother”—is still alive, hale and hearty at 86. They are careful livers, the Loubets, and possess that inestimable gift—bon sante. The great president is very fond of sa there mere, and they tell a pretty little story about the way he showed it. On the day he first entered his native town as president he caught sight of his mother seated on one of the tribunes watchling the procession. Disregarding all the pomp by which he was surrounded, and without waiting till the ceremoniewere over, got out of his carriage and ran over to the old lady to give her a kiss—an incident which was celebrated in a famous Paris tavern called The Black Cat (where they sing about all the public and well-known men) by a ballad which had for its refrain, “Loubet . . . oh, how much he loved his mother!” M. Loubet is a well-read man in his own language, and familiar with both modern and ancient literature. He is fond of music, and an admirer of painting. It was is 1867 when M. Loubet was a rising young barrister that he wooed and won Mademoiselle Denis, who is now the first lady in France. She is a charming woman, and a fitting help for a man who has such onerous duties to fulfil. o o o o o The French Press. Probably no age or country, however degenerate, has ever produced so eoarse and violent a press as that which now holds the ear of the French (writes Herbert Vivian, in the “Sovereign’). Henri Rochefort, a man of high family and low mind, who has been sentenced to death and transported to a penal settlement for offences which the charitable pass over as political, is the leader of the school. His idea of political controversy is to heap abusive epithets of the vilest kind upon his political opponents and accuse them of every imaginable enormity without the least regard to the truth of his charges. A physical defect is peculiarly welcome to him as an occasion for a torrent of vulgar ridicule. Did a supporter of Dreyfus suffer from the infirmity of a crooked bac':, he would continue, day in and day out, to pillory him as a monkey, dwarf, gnome, homunculus, hunchback, abor-

tion. miscarriage.; “boule-de-Juif,” etc. Is a Minister rubicund of countenance he is never mentioned, but as this toper sot. bar loafer, habitual drunkard, winebag, brandy barrel, and “piedsdev ant;” whenever he appears in public, he is represented as reeking with alcohol; if he walks to the tribune of the Chamber. he is said to stagger, stumble or reel: if he makes a speech, we are told that he stammers, hiccoughs, or vomits his words. Nor is this slander the mere eccentricity of one degraded demagogue. The Marquis de Rochefort has an enormous following, which buys many thousand copies of his paper, the “Intronsigeant.” simply and solely to gloat over his foul epithets. And at least half the press of the country mimies his methods of controversy. Clericals are

loaded with such synonyms as thurifers, Jesuits. scarlatinas, red-tails, confes-sional-box bugs, vestry rats, and boudicusard, a parody of the word dreyfusard. Jews enjoy the epithets bat-foot, hooknosed. circumcised (raccoureis). usurers, youpins. poutres. dust-bins, snatch-farthings, carrotiers (skin-flints), carrion, scum of the ghetto, and others which do not bear repetition.

Mr. Dooley on Andrew Carnegie. Mr Dooley has been moved to humorous protest in the "New York Journal” by Mr t arnegie’s munificence. “ ’Has Andrhew Carnaygie given ye a librv yet?’ asked Mr Dooley. ’Not that I know iv,’ said Mr Hennessy. He will, said Air Dooley. ’Ye’ll not escape him. Befure he dies he hopes to crowd a librv on ivry man. woman, an’ child in th’ counthry. He’s given thim to cities, towns, villages, an’ whistlin’ stations. They’re tearin’ down gas-houses an’ poor-houses to put up libries. Befure another year ivry house in Pittsburg that ain’t a blast furnace will be a Carnaygie libry. In some places all th’ buildin’s is libries: If we write him f’r an autygraft he sinds ye a libry.’ ” You do not stimulate authorship, according to Mr Dooley, by erecting libraries. “Libries niver encouraged lithraehoor anny more than tombstones encourage livin’. No one iver wrote annything be cause he was tol’ that a hundred years fr’m now his boks might be taken down fr’in a shelf in a granite sepulcher an’ some wan wild write ’Good’ or ‘This man is crazy,’ in th’ margin. What lit rachoor needs is fillin' good. If Andhrew wud put a kitehen in th’ libries. an’ build some bunks, or aven swing a few hammocks where livin’ authors cud erawl in at night an’ sleep while wattin f’r this enlightened nation to wake up an’ discover th’ Shakespeares now on th’ turf, he wud be givin' a rale boost to lithraehoor.” The idea of a literary “dosshouse” is excellent, pro vided that no writers of novels were admitted.