THE TOURIST and TRAVELLER

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1305, 29 April 1915, Page 40

THE TOURIST and TRAVELLER

HERE AND THERE.

Amongst the guests who were staying at the Grand Hotel, Auckland, last week, were the following: —Mr. and Mrs. W. Sinclair, Cambridge; Mr. H. Williams, Mr. Vernon Reed, M.P., Bay of Islands: Mr. Algar Williams, Wellington; Miss H. R. Herrick, Hawke’s Bay; Mr. G. Healey, Sydney; Mr. Gordon Holmes, Sydney; Mr. and Mrs. Stericker, Timaru; Mr. Y. Nishida, Japan; Mr. and Mrs. C. F. C. Miller, Bay of Islands; Mr. T. M. Fletcher, Wellington; Mr. T. H. Davis, Mr. B. Alstan. Mr. A. E. Shields, Christchurch; Mr. J. D. MitcheT, Wellington; Mr. and Mrs. and Miss A. G. Wilson, Sydney; Mr. G. A. Booth, Mr. T. S. de Beer, Dunedin; Mr. J. Carder, N.S.W.; Mr. C. G. Richardson, Wellington; Mr. F. J. Raine, Timaru; Mr. H. Levy, Montreal; Mr. and Mrs. J. Hooten, Sydney; Mr. E. Porter, Sydney; Mr. and Mrs. J. Cook, Melbourne; Mr. C. W. Palmer, Sydney; Mr. C. Geber, London; Mr. C. Stoddart, Liverpool; Mr. J. Milward, Sydney; Mr. A. M. Alot, Sydney; Mr. B. Mathias, Sydney; Mr. H. Kennedy, Sydney; Dr. and Mrs. G. Paul, Sydney; Mr. J. D. Crawford, Dunedin; Mr. C. Cameron. CaV Mrs. and Misses (2) Moloney, Mr. F. Flanagan, Mr. H. McHugh, Mr. J. Weingarth, all of Sydney; Mr. T. S. Mitchell, England; Mr. R. R. Ha’l, England; Mr. C. W. Brodrick, Wellington; Mr. H. A. Beauchamp, Wellington; Miss J. Ashworth, Johannesburg; Mr. E. Parry, Wellington; Mr. Mr. C. H. Hewlett, Christchurch; Mr. H. A. Brown, Christchurch; Mr. and Mrs. D. Moore, Mr. G. Wood, Wairoa; Mr. W. R. Doughty, Wellington; Mr. H. Blackman, Wellington; and Mr. A. B. Carmichael, Wairoa.

The guests who were staying at the Royal Hotel, last week included: —Mr. A. A. Paape, Wellington; Captain Dyer, Whangarei; Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont Smith, Sydney; Mr. lan Simpson, Te Aroha; Mr. Edwin Harding, Dargaville; Dr. Eccles, Whangarei; Mrs. Rose, Sydney; Mr. Marshall, Whangarei; Mr. and Mrs. Sievwright, Wanganui; Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, Palmerston; Mr. and Mrs. Connelly, Wanganui; Mr. C. E. Hall, Gisborne; Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Smith, Hastings; Mr. Rudge, Thames; Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, Hamilton: Mr. S. S Campbell, Dargaville; Mr. E. J. O’Brien, Waiheke; Mr. R. G. Butcher, Wellington; Mr. J. Baruch, Hawi tr n : Mr. Parson. Waiwera; Mr. and Mrs. Glimmer, Wanganui; Mr. T. T. Harrison, Virginia, U.S.A.; Mr. George Smith, Hamilton; Mr. A. E. Harding, Mangawhare - and Mr. Chas. Darling, Dargaville.

Included in the guests who were staying at the Star Hotel last week were: —Mr. F. C. Hand, Hamilton: Mr. J. A. Brind, Hamilton; Mr. H. Oakley Brown. Wellington; Mr. Livingstone. Hamilton; Mr. H. J. Kelly, Frankton Junction; Mr. H. Crocoran. Franken Junction; Mr. and Mrs. Morton, Ohutu: Mr. L. Balfour, Whangarei; Mr. H. Kaye, Christchurch; Mr. and Mrs. Jagger. Auckland: Mr. A. B. Pownell. Wellington; Mr. J. L. Lawson, Newcastle, N.S.W.: Mr. C. Morse. Wanganui; Mr. W. H. Gavin. Wellington: Mr. G Martdli. Blenheim: Mr. C. H. Osmond, Wellington: Mr. R. W. Holmes, Wellington; Mr. C. Horton. Auckland: Mrs. Orkney, Sydney; Mr. Judge Fisher, Wel’ington; Mr. H. Latimer, Palmerston North; Mr. H. J. Cooper. Hamilton: Mr. A. J. Broadfoot. Te Kuiti: Mr. J. M. McCarthy, Hamilton: Mr. C. Niccol. Sydney; Mr. R Manning, Perth, W.A.; Mrs. M. E. Simpson, Christchurch; Mr. I. B. Holroyde. Sydney; Mr. J. C. Yoeman. Sydney; and Mr. Bernard Brewer, Te Kuiti.

Mr. A. L. Dance, of the New Zealand Dairy Association. Frankton, left by the Makura en route to London.

Mr. Y. Booker, of Papakura, South Auckland, left for London by th’3 Makura.

Mr. W. H. Smith, of Te Ngae, Lake Rotorua, left on the Makura for Canada and London.

Mr. and Miss Watson and Mr. and Mrs. T. Snowden, of Melbourne, left last week for Rotorua, where they will spend some time before proceeding, via the Wanganui River, to Wellington.

Dr. Constance Frost, a well-known Auckland resident, left by the Riverina to catch the P. and O. Maloja in Melbourne en route to France. Dr. Frost intends to spend some time in the town of Tours, where she has friends.

Miss M. Russell, of Melbourne, passed through Auckland last week on her way to Wellington on a holiday trip.

Mr. and Mrs. H. R. J. Short, of the firm of Messrs. L. D. Nathan, is at present on a holiday to Wairakei.

Mr. and Mrs. J. Harray, of Te Puke, Bay of Plenty, left Auckland this week on a holiday trip to Dunedin.

Mr. H. Barling, of Auckland, sailed last week for London.

Mr. C. E. Carr left Auckland last week for Sydney. Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Norton also sailed for Sydney.

Mr. A. H. Alstan, of Sydney, who has been cn a short visit to Auckland, left last week for the Hot Lakes district.

Mr. W. R. Rutherford, of the Pacific Board, accompanied by Mrs. Rutherford, sailed for Suva last week.

The Rev. Father Tubman, of Timaru, has left for England on a visit.

Dr. R. Nairn, of Napier, sailed from Auckland last week for London.

Mr. H. H. Morris, of the Pacific Cable Board, left last week for Hono lulu.

Mr. T. S. de Beer, of Dunedin, left Auckland last week for London.

Mr. G. H. Engels, of Palmerston North, sailed last week on a holiday trip to Vancouver.

Major E. Mayfield left Auckland last week for London, where it is understood he will join the Royal Horso Aritllery.

Mr, R. M. Booth, of Suva, who has been on a visit to Auckland, returned heme by the Makura. s;t -I*

Mr. J. Craig, cf Auckland, sailed for Suva by the Makura last week.

Mr. A. D. Brown, of Napier, left last week for Vancouver on a holi day trip.

Mr. John Burgess, a New Zealander, has accepted service in Serbia.

Eels in the streams round about Dannevirke have been accounting for the loss of a number of trout during the present season. To minimise the loss of fish, the Acclimatisation Society are now offering a bounty for eels caught in the Dannevirke district.

Germanv and Austria have expended £500,000,000 and the Allies £900,000,000 on the war.

Mr. Ebbe Kornerup, a Danish journalist, painter, author and traveller, who has just spent ten months in Australia, has left Wellington for Tahiti.

In Berlin the average price of wheat per imperial quarter was 48s. 2d. in August, 51s. 3d. in September, and 545. 9d. in October. The average price of British wheat in London was 365. 6d. in August, 395. 2d. in September, and 38s. lOd. in October.

Six million men are believed by estimators to have been killed, wounded, or captured in five months, and £1,400,000,000 has been expended, and untold miilions more in money has gone to waste in consequence cf the paralysis of production.

Servia has lost 250,000 men, killed, wounded and missing.

Mr. C. F. Minett, inspector of the New Zealand Insurance Company, has left for Honolulu en route to Yokohama, Japan.

Russia is said to have 400,000 Austrian prisoners and Servia 190,000, while great masses of Austrian and Hungarian troops have crossed the border into Roumania, and were interned there.

Mr. Ebbe Kornerup, a noted Danish journalist, in an interview, said that Germany, within a few months, would be a republic, and that there will be peace as soon as the German people are told the truth about the war.

The Right Hon. Sir Henry Weedon, ex-Lord Mayor of Melbourne, has been in New Zealand for the fishing season.

There is an immense demand for Canadian horses from Great Britain, France, Italy and Belgium, for both cavalry and artillery uses. Already some 30,000 have been purchased in Canada for war purposes.

Deer continue to swarm on to cultivated paddocks in the Lindis district, Central Otago. As many as 35 were seen in one paddock on a recent evening, and appeared quite indifferent to the presence of numerous horsemen.

At Lloyd’s 25 guineas per cent, was paid to settle a loss if peace was signed prior to June 30th, 1915, and 50 guineas per cent, if peace was signed prior to September 30th, 1915, and, further, 75 guineas per cen u . if peace was signed prior to December 31st, 1915.

It may be estimated safely, says an English paper, that 400,000 trade unionists are in the trenches in France and Flanders or training with the new army or the territorials at Home, and never a word has been said about “trade union rates of wages.”

The Washington correspondent of the London “Times” says that all hardheaded Americans agree that they would do the same as England is doing in tightening the grip on Germany’s throat in order to shorten the war. British reprisals in this direction, the correspondent adds, are no longer regarded as arrogant action.

As soon as the Russian roads become dry much greater activity can be looked for; and, as new levies come forward to strengthen the Russan Army, it will be found that the Germans will, from that cause a 1 one, have few.men to spare for the western front.

If there is one attribute above all others which is peculiar to the daughters of Malta, it is their womanliness. The women of the middle and working classes nearly all dress in black, with a long black veil which reaches from the head to far below the waist, and hangs over the figure ~-‘in graceful draperies. The upper port on is stiffened with cardboard, so that it frames the head and gives the wearer a Ma-donna-like appearance. This “faldetto,” as it is called, was adopted during. the Napoleonic wars, ; and it now forms the national dress. It dispenses with the necess’ty of ever buying a hat or umbrella, for it protects alike from sun and rain.

The five. o’clock teas at the Grand Hotel, Vienna, states a tourist, which has not changed its name, are still the rendezvous of the fashionable world, and there you see sumptuous costumes and cheerful faces.- I heard in conversation a contrast drawn between Berlin and Vienna; the former is all optimism and seriousness, the latter-all pessimism and gaiety. On the surface I was able to see nothing

of pessimism in Vienna. The people do not take the happy issue of the war so much for granted here as in Berlin; but they have great confidence in their powerful Ally and the Austrians have lost nothing of their naturally gay disposition.

American merchant shipbuilding declined 33 per cent, in point of tonnage in 1914 compared with 1913, and about 23 per cent, in the number of vessels. During the year 1163 vessels of all classes, except warships, were built, the Department of Commerce announced on January 14th, compared with 1501 vessels built in 1913. At Sheffield all the works were going hard, states a recent tourist. All the works were guarded. Every workman had a pass which he had to show on going in or coming out.

Roumania has raised £5,000,000 in London and twice that amount is being earmarked for her. France and Russia are also aiding her with “silver bullets,” and it is incredible that she should receive help from the Allies and then join forces with their enemy. Germany offered her £15,000,000 to remain neutral. Without any chaffering, Roumania scornfully rejected the bribe. It will be her good fortune to be able to draw on the Allies for all her requirements, without giving any dishonoring pledges. This loan transaction fills us with hope, says an English writer, that the Bulgarian impasse has in some way been solved.

Americans are congratulating themselves on the repeal of that clause of the Panama Canal Act which exempted American coastwise shipping from payment of tolls —a discrimination

which necessitated energetic protest by our own and other European Governments. During the first two months since the canal was opened for traffic, some six hundred thousand tons of merchandise passed through the canal, of which nearly 300,000 tons was carried between the east and west coasts of the United States in American vessels. Had the exemptioned remained, therefore, the revenue of the canal would have been practically 50 per cent, less than it actually has been.

Lately, says a neutral returned from Germany, the idea of an eventual retreat has spread, and one often hears it said by the more optimistic, “If our troops fall back on the Scheldt or the Meuse, it will be for strategical reasons. And if the Allies come to the Rhine they will be well received.”

Few cities felt German competition more keenly than Birmingham. Trade after trade, once considered by Birmingham its own, was taken from it. Take, for example, the manufacture of buttons. Forty years ago Birmingham made 80 per cent, of the buttons of the world. Before the war she made not 15 per cent., the remainder coming from Germany and Austria. To-day Birmingham sees many industries lost in recent years coming back again. In the immediate future the world must have its buttons from Birmingham, for Germany and Austria

will not be able to supply them. If people decide to abandon buttons for hooks and eyes, then they must go for their hooks and eyes to Birmingham also. So soon as there comes a pause from the rush of Government orders Birmingham has a fresh overwhelming trade awaiting it. South America and Australia, the Far East and the Far West are raising a daily louder cry for Birmingham goods. Their Continental stocks are becoming exhausted.

Our 13.5 in. gun is unequalled by any enemy weapon' at sea. Now we have the 15in. gun, which is vastly more powerful, states the First Lord of the Admiralty.

So strong has been the recruiting in the north of England that posters have been issued telling the men it is as. much their duty to stop in the workshops, especially the ammunition factories, as to go to the front.

The “Hamburger Nachrichten” prints daily in a prominent position in its pages the exhortation: “In no German household should cake be eaten these critical days.”

Few people know that “Captain Besant,” of the Warwickshire Regiment, who is reported wounded and a prisoner in Germany, is the eldest son of the late Sir Walter Besant, an excellent if uninspired novelist, who was “Sirred” in Queen Victoria’s reign, not so much for his blameless fiction, as. for the help he gave in the People's Palace scheme. The fictionist’s other son, Geoffrey, is in a Territorial regiment.

The Germans fear espionage to such an extent that their soldiers who return wounded from the front are transported in compartments to which civilians are not admitted.

The “Dagblad voor Holland” states that 12,000 German convicts are employed in the work of carrying the dead from the battlefields in Flanders and burning them.

The Antwerp correspondent of the “Telegraaf” states that cases of suicide and insanity increase daily in that city. More than 30,000 people depend . entirely on charity, and are suffering acutely, especially the children.

A number of factories in Holland are preparing a kind of flour made from dried turnips. It is'for German consumption.

During' the month of January only 346 ships entered the harbours pf Rotterdam, as compared with 793’ ships’ in January, 1914.

General;, von Kluck-’seldest son, Egon... "voir -Kl s uck,..“;a z .,nayal.<lfeut’e.nant attached’ip -'a marine: regimjeiit’’in Belgium, has been killed at Middlekerke during a naval bombardment of the coast by the British.- Lieutenant, von Kluck was twenty-eight years of age, and marr’ed. He leaves a wife and a three-year-old daughter.

Dutch travellers who have returned from Berlin and Hamburg declare that the German Government is encouraging rich families to take prolonged holidays in neutral countries, thereby leaving more food available for the poorer population. It is expected that 5,000,000 will take part in the first exodus.

The Germans are now cutting down all the famous walnut trees and chestnut trees in Brussels and sending the wood away by rail. Robbery goes on all the time. Whatever the Germans want they take. No house is free from, their intrusion, and no one dare resist their demands. Any Belgian who opposes these bandits is certain in a few days to disappear or to be found drowned. In the vallages outside the city outrages on women continue to be perpetrated, and all these small communities are in a state of, constant terrorisation.

The inhabitants of Vienna were always experts in the art of spending more money than they earned, and they have not lost the trick of it. One may see the usual evidences of dissipation in the Stephans Platz an hour or so after midnight, and.there is little sign that Viennese youth is denying itself any of its pleasures. In some details the cost of living has increased, as in the price of eggs and flour, which reflects itself in the high price of all dishes in restaurants in which eggs are used. In some restaurants you are also charged an additional twopence for the Red Cross. But these things seem to make little difference to the course of Viennese life, which flows on the surface very much as usual.

A marine on a warship states that his vessel was down at Cocos Islands for six days, and that the writer was aboard the wreck of the Emden every day. The divers were looking for a torpedo. ;“I am pleased to say they got one all complete. We had a hard job getting it out of the submerged torpedo flat. There were a lot of dead German sailors down there, and when the divers stirred things up it was very disagreeable. We also got two of her guns. One is going to England with the torpedo, and the other is going to Australia as a curio. Another thing we got was a searchlight and 6000 Chinese dollars, and some good sets of doctors’ instruments. The torpedo is worth £BOO or £9OO. We had a cablegram from the Admiralty praising us for the work we had done. Our captain was so pleased he gave ps 36 hours’ leave. We are now at Singapore. A Chinese gentleman here sent us 5000 pineapples and hundreds of English papers and novels. The last mail we got a box of fifty cigarettes each from a big gun factory in England, and a card from the King and Queen.”

An interesting description of the “Virgin Tree and Well” in old Heliopolis, now known as Zeitun (Egypt), is sent by Mr. A. E. Robb, of Wanganui, at present with the N.Z. Expeditionary Forces. He says: “Old Heliopolis is associated with the Bible, for when Joseph and Mary visited Egypt they came to this- place and it is said the buildings tumbled about them. Mary sat on a part of a sycamore tree with the baby in her arms. This tree is now known as the old Virgin tree ;the well is close by, and when Mary drank some of the water, which had formerly been salt, it changed to sweet water. So the tale goes. Anyway, the tree looks to be all of two thousand years old. A small but very pretty Catholic church is alongside, and inside are pictures showing different events connected with Christ’s visit.”

The French nation are wondering how much of the trade lost during the war it will be possible to regain afterwards; they know that the longer this semi-paralysis continues the more difficult will the recovery be, and the thought, “How long?” is ever present, although unexpressed. The answer is simple. The war with Germany will last uptil either her armies are beaten or her nation starved. Germany is short of wheat now, and has taken drastic measures to prevent the‘supply entirely; failing- before the Inext harvest, comes in< If these-measures have been taken in good time—which we must assume to be the case, in deference to the admirable foresight •which. has - marked all her preparations —Germany can reckon on being able to continue the war until the. middle of 1916.