Anecdotes and Sketches.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 October 1910, Page 71

Anecdotes and Sketches.

GRAVE, GAY, EPIGRAMMATIC AND OTHERWISE.

School in 1950. TEACHER (to a newly arrived pupil) : “Have you your vaccination certificate with you?” “Yes. sir.” “Have you been inoculated against croup?” “Yes, sir.” “Have you been vaccinated with the eholera bacillus?” “Yes, sir."’ “Have a written certificate that you have been made immune against whooping-cough, measles and scarlatina?” “Yes, sir.” “Will you promise never to use the sponge and slate-pencil of your neighbour?” “Yes, sir.” “Are you willing that at least once every week all your books be thoroughly fumigated with sulphur, and your clothes be disinfected with mercuric bichloride?” “Yes, sir.’ “Very well, then, as you possess all the necessary protective measures prescribed by our modern hygienip requirements, you may enter that wire enclosure, sit upon that aluminum seat and begin your lessons.” ■s> Famous Negro's Visit. The most remarkable negro of our time, Air. Booker T. Washington, was visiting London when the mail left on September 4. This is the highly cultured black man whose acceptance of an invitation to the White House a few years ago actually imperilled the chances of Mr. Roosevelt’s party in the Southern States, where race prejudice is rampant. Mr. Washington has been called the Moses of the coloured rqee- He was born a slave, in a typical log cabin of the Uncle Tom order, and he endured the slave’s lot of poverty and hardship. At the age of fourteen he went on tramp, like David Copperfield, ragged and penniless. Having obtained his freedom, he walked 500 miles to a negro school in

search of the education for which he hungered. The first thing the freed slave had to do on gaining his freedom was to give himself a name. Booker Washington is probably the only famous man who has had the privilege of naming himself. When he arrived at the negro school he was asked his name. For the first time he realised that he was a nameless nobody, so he replied, mechanically, “Booker Washington.” The “nameless nobody” became a brilliant educationalist and a splendid orator. He founded his now celebrated teaching establishment for negroes, the

Tuskegee Institute, in a small building so dilapidated that when it rained an umbrella had to be held over the teacher’s head. To-day’ the Institute consists of 83 buildings on an estate of 2300 acres, with 156 teachers and officers and 2000 students. It has sent out oyer 6000 negro men and women completely trained for service in the States. A Long Meanwhile. Sir Rufus Isaacs, the eminent K.C., who lives at No. 32, Park-lane, hae evolved many of his great legal triumphs in that home. His house is seldom in darkness. Every day he rises at five o’clock in the morning, sometimes earlier. He works from five to half-past eight, when, after a good breakfast, he goes off to hie chambers and the courts. He returns at seven for dinner, and then, if he has not a public dinner or meeting to attend, he goes to the theatre. But his day is by no means over.

After the theatre, back he goes to his cosy study, where he goes through his briefs, often poring over them until the email hours of the morning. Sir Rufus recently related how he found a policeman too sharp for him, when, as a member of the Junior Bar. he once marched boldly through the Palace Yard, with the intention of reaching the floor of the House. He succeeded in getting past the policeman on duty, who, however, detected him a second later, and, overtaking him, confronted him with the question: “Excuse me, sir, but are you a member?” “Not yet,” was the reply, “but I’m going to be soon.” “I hope you will, sir,” said the police-, man; “but, meanwhile, would you mind going round the other way?” “That meanwhile,” added Sir Rufus, “lasted twelve years!” Miss Nightingale’s Nerve. During the days of her charge in the Crimea Miss Nightingale stood sometimes twenty- consecutive hours superintending personally the giving out of stores and the gradual getting things into shape. She herself, so far as was humanly possible, was with the worse and most terrible cases of wounded and with the dying. It must be remembered that she had not been prepared by years of “training” in surgical work. Yet “Her nerve is wonderful,”, the surgeons reported; and over the sick and dying, night and day, her “slight form” was seen bending to administer to each ease to the best of her power; while with' the dying, “the more awful to every sense each particular ease,” the “greater her self forgetfulness in the personal care of it would be till death supervened.” “Before she come.” said a soldier, “there was such a eussin’ and swearin'; and after that it was as holy as a church.” They called her “The Lady-in Chief,” as she made her rounds through those dark barrack wards. “She could speak to one ami to another, and nod and smile to as many more,” was another soldier’s report; "but she couldn’t do it to all, you know; we lay there by hundreds;.but we ; could kiss her shadow ns it fell and lay, our heads uu the pillow again content.’*;