Here and There

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 18, 29 April 1908, Page 44

Here and There

The Gipsy Poet. Permit me to have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. E. V. Barclay—-pen-name, “ Colin Clout ” —the truest Bohemian writer now in London, perhaps the most successful writer of verse now in England, certainly the only living author who tours the country in a caravan, selling directly to his public the books that he himself has written, says a writer in the “ Express.” It is possible that you may never have heard before of my friend Barclay, but equally possible that you may have seen him pottering along beside his yellow van in some verdant by-lane, or at night, at some pleasure-fair, standing at the top of his caravan’s steps, forcing a sale of his books by sheer power of oratory. Whether you have heard of him or not, it is the plain truth that he is known throughout England. His little paper-backed books, priced! at one penny each, all printed privately at his own expense, and published by the sweat of his own brow, have permeated through the working classes, have passed from hand! to hand, from place to place, and into countless thousands of cottage homes. He writes about the people, for the people; and I do not believe that there is anothei - writer who is more deeply in sympathy with the people, whose appeal is more sure of response. In the past year and five months his old horse, Caravan Josh, has drawn his humble yellow van almost completely round England. In this time he has sold no fewer than 75,000 copies of his books; and he has sold just as much verse as prose. On a Saturday night, in a busy market-place, the gipsy-author will sell as many as 1000 copies of his works. But if he sells 1000 copies a week, that contents him; it keeps the caravan going. It has been left for “ Colin Clout ” to discover that a love of simple, tuneful verse is still a characteristic of the English people. One of hisstory-books in verse, “ The Strange Tale of a Tramp,” has found its way into the hands of 8000 members of the poorest classes; and! it is appreciated even by the very tramps among whom its lot is often cast. His library now numbers ten penny books—books of fun, of wit, of love, and of adventure. Some describe his own experiences in all parts of the world—for, though a young man, lie has been three times round the world, and he went through the Boer war with Kitchener’s Horse. Others tel! of his adventures as a gipsy on the English roads, while there are several merry little comedies of simple rural life. <s> <s> <s> Sir John TennieFs 88th Birthday. Ever since he retired from “ Punch ” in 1901, Sir John Tenniel has been living in his house at Portsdown-road, W., surrounded by his favourite pictures, and enjoying the evening of his life in wellearned rest. He celebrated his eighty-eighth birthday on March 2, quietly with a "birthday ” dinner, to which some of his oldest and closest personal friends were invited. Sir John has always avoided publicity of any kind. He blushed like a schoolboy and made a deprecating gesture when a Press representative called on him. " 1 have been having birthdays every year," he said with a smile. “Surely nobodty is interested in me?” lie sees nothing extraordinary in reaching the age of eighty-eight, and, as he never tried to do it, he can give no recipe for attaining old age. "Just go on living,” sums up his view on the subject. Sir John has altered his facial appearance. The moustaches are the same, but Sir John has now grown a beard; it is snow-white and neatly cropped, and has transformed him from a colonel to a Country squire. “ No, 1 have not given up drawing,” he said, answering a question. “ Drawing lias given me up. You see, 1 am nearly blind.’* With the exception of his sight, Sir John is ns hale and hearty as when he retired from the “Punch” table.

Some Meredithisma. Gossip must often have been likened to the winged insect bearing pollen to the flowers; it fertilises many a vacuous reverie. What a woman thinks of women is a test of her nature. Convictions are generally first impressions that are sealed with later prejudices. If you meddle with politics, you must submit to be held upon the prongs of a fork, my boy, soaped by your backers and shaved by the foe. The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain from baptising ft. Intellectual differences do not cause wounds, except when very unintellectual sentiments are behind them. You may start a sermon from stones to hit the stars. Earnestness works out its own cure more surely than frenzy. It has been established that we do not wax diviner by dragging down the gods to our level. Women don’t care uncommonly for the men who love them, though they like precious well to be loved. After forty men have married their habits, and wives are only an item in the list, and not the most important. That small motives are at the bottom of many illustrious actions is a modern discovery. Observation is the most enduring of the pleasures of life. There is little the body suffers that the soul may not profit by. All life is a lesson that we live to enjoy but in the spirit. The young who avoid the region of Romance escape the title of Fool atrthe cost of a celestial crown. No man and no woman should be inexorably tied together for more than a ten years’ trial. I fix ten years as a fair peribd of probation;' a shorter ’period would be insufficient, longer would be too much. In ten years they will find each other out. Under the most favourable circumstances there will be some bickerings and disagreements. There will be surprises and disappointments. The man will find out that the girl is not quite the angel he thought, and the girl will find out that the man is not the god that she believed. But these surprises and disappointments will not justify separation; the couple have to pass through their' period of disillusionment. The dreams of courtship have to be dispelled. The couple have to be hardened to the married life. He was a man of great aptitudes, that was Mr. Gladstone. <S> <?><s> . How to Use the Doctor. MEDICAL ADVICE AS LIFE INSURANCE. The vital importance of apparently healthy people consulting their physician regularly is emphasised by Dr. Luther M. Guliek in an article in the “World’s Work” on “How to Use the Doctor.” The man who boasts that he never requires the services of a physician may someday repent when it is too late. Dr. Guliek says of such people:— “The man who goes on for twenty years without expert supervision over his physical machine may do very well for twenty years, but it would have been better to consult a physician every month for twenty years, and in the twenty-first be saved from “going to pieces” than it would be to go without his advice till the twenty-first. “To consult a physician regularly is life insurance of a far more vital type than the financial kind.” As Dr. Guliek points out, the physician and surgeon are of far more use when they succeed in preventing illness than when they cure it. The chief service of the physician is to the man who is well; and it consists in keeping him. well. Fur this reason Dr. Gulick emphasises

the need for a new type of sanatoria!* for the “reconstruction” of people.

Dr. Guliek would establish a thoroughly equipped, modern home, hospital and sanatorium combined, within an hour of the centre of London where each patient would receive health education according to his temperament and needs.

Grasp Your Task. Tasks are often allowed to hang Ove® us for days at a time which might he accomplished in a few minutes if we would only take the preliminary steps and get at them, for we should find that after we once got at it the task was smaller than we thought. A man will have something which he intends to do, but which is not immediately necessary; —a letter to write which first requires certain information to be looked up;| an investigation to make of certain conditions about the office, store, or factory; a. bit of reorganisation of some part of the work—ami that task will “hang fire” perhaps for several days. He allows himself to think that it will take more time than he can give ft now, 0E that Ke doesn’t know just where to begin on it, and wants to think it over. But after a while the time grows short, the work must be done, and then he takes hold of it, and the thing is done before he realises it. It was largely a. question of getting at it. He began by doing the little things about it, and the big ones took care of themselves. It would have been ju«t as easy to dor it several days before, and would have taken no more time then than now. The man is fortunate who avoids the habit of letting such tasks hang over, him, and who takes delight in keeping them cleared up, so that he can turn his mind freely to new work. <?> 3> <S> Berlin as a Port. The ship canal from Berlin to Stettin, which will transform the capital into a, seaport accessible to vessels of moderate size, will, according to present expectations, be completed in 1912. The width of the canal will enable two ships of the maximum size to pass one another at any point. The canal will be navigable for ships the dimensions of which do not exceed the following measurements:— Length, 220 feet; width, 26 feetjj draught, 5 feet 6 inches. The total cost of the canal will be approximately £2,250,000. The canal runs through Valentinswerder, Eberswalde, and Saatwinkel, and joins the Oder before reaching Stettin. «><•><£> The Editor of “ Punch. ’ Mr. Owen Seaman has been editor of “Punch” nearly two years, and everyone agrees that he has done admirably. As a Cambridge undergraduate, he bore off! laurels both in the schools and on the river, but he had a dull dog for a tutor, who did not appreciate him. The story, goes that this wretch wrote him the following absurd testimonial: “Mr. Seaman has been a member of Clare College for three years. During that period, SO far as 1 am aware, he has been guilty of no serious moral delinquency!” Except, perhaps, Mr. Anstey, Mr. Seaman is our greatest living parody-maker. This is a good specimen of the way he could hit off the Oriental gorgeousnessi of Sir Edwin Arnold: i Ya, ya, best-beloved! I look to thy dimples and drink. Tiddlihi! to thy cheek-pits and chin-pit, my tulip, my pink! As an example of his wit, what could be better than this, addressed “To the Lord of Potsdam,” at the time of the famous telegram to Mr. Kruger: “Nor were you meant to solve the nation’s knots, Or be the earth's protector, willy-nilly. J You only make yourself and Pots- / dam silly. i, Mr. Seaman is the devoted son of a. most charming old mother, with whom he lives at Putney. Like his brother Punch-man, Mr. Rudolph Lehmann, ho loves children, and he has a special affec. tion for a certain little niece named Christine. *