THE TOURIST and TRAVELLER

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1454, 7 March 1918, Page 36

THE TOURIST and TRAVELLER

HERE AND THERE.

Mr. Harrison Jones, Dunedin, is about to make a short business trip to America.

Mr. Arthur Cleave, proprietor of the “N.Z. Sporting and Dramatic Review” and of the “N.Z. Motor Journal,” is on an extended visit to Australia.

Mr. C. B. Morison, K.C., Welllington, has sufficiently recovered from a recent operation to be able to go on a health trip to Rotorua.

Mr. Thomas R. Tripe, manager of the Union Company’s Launceston branch, is on a holiday visit to Wellington.

The Rev. A. C. Purchas, M.A., an old boy of Christ’s College, has been appointed chaplain of the college in succession to the Rev. G. S. Bryan Brown, who was killed in action, October 4, 1917.

Mr. Alexander Bell, M.A., has been appointed to the vacant position of secretary of the Education Department. Mr. Bell, who comes from South Canterbury, has had a very varied and thorough experience of educational work.

The Wairarapa “Age” has it on good authority that the Wairarapa seat is to be contested at next election by a well-known Wairarapa settler and sportsman, who has been serving his country since shortly after the outbreak of the war, and who was recently awarded the Military Cross.

The Hon. Captain Baillie, M.L.C., celebrated his 91st birthday on February 23, and received congratulatory messages from friends all over the Dominion. Captain Baillie served for six years in India under Sir Hugh Gough, and Sir Colin Campbell, and was present at the famous fight at Chillianwallah. He was called to the Legislative Council in 1861 —57 years ago.

A Waihi resident (Mr. W. J. Dawson) has been advised that he has drawn a prize in the City of Paris Bonds of so many thousand francs, representing in English money close upon £l,OOO. He has also been advised that the money has been safely invested, and that the principal and interest will be forwarded after the war.

Sir Thomas Mackenzie, High Commissioner for New Zealand, noticing in Leicester Square two soldiers from his own country, went up to speak to them. But they, having been duly warned of the danger of the affable stranger, first asked his name and his place of abode (says the London “Evening News”), and it was not until these details had been written down for them that they felt it was safe to converse.

The Rev. J. H. Rogers, acting-vicar of Timaru, has received word that his only son, Major Victor Rogers, D. 5.0., was killed by a high explosive shell while walking away from headquarters. It was only on December 5 that Major Rogers received from the King the decoration of the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous bravery on the Somme, where he took the first battery across the German line, and though wounded remained for two days in charge of two batteries.

Mr. R. E. Bannister, who is now settled permanently in Australia, is on a visit to Wellington.

Dr. Sydney Allen, of Dunedin, will leave for England early this month, having received a captaincy in the medical branch of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces.

Count von Luckner, who is now imprisoned on Ripa Island in Lyttelton harbour, has decided to write a book giving his early experiences since setting forth on his memorable voyage in the Seeadler.

It is announced in the “Gazette” that Captain Hall-Thompson has been authorised to take possession of or to cause all apparatus for wireless telegraphy on board any merchant ship (being a foreign merchant ship or a British merchant ship not registered in New Zealand), while in the territorial waters of New Zealand, or any part of such apparatus, to be taken possession of in the name and on behalf of His Majesty for His Majesty’s service, and, subject thereto, for such ordinary services as Captain Hall-Thompson may seem fit.

A boxing message from Chicago says that Jack Dempsey knocked out Jim F.ynn, the Pueblo fireman, in less than two minutes. Dempsey will soon meet Fred Fulton. Jess Willard (world’s heavyweight champion) has announced that he is ready to meet the winner for the heavyweight championship.

At the annual conference of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of New Zealand, it was resolved: — “That the members of this association in annual meeting assembled desire to place on record their deepest sympathy with the relatives of the late Mr. W. Gothard, Mr. D. Gardner, Mr. William Lane, and Mr. Leslie Brett.”

That the war represents the downfall of the capitalist system is the belief of Leon Trotsky, the Russian journalist who, when Kerensky was overthrown, became Foreign Minister of the new, but at present chaotic, Republic. In a recent interview with a correspondent of the New York “World” Trotsky was responsible for the following statement: —“The forces of production which capitalism has evolved have outgrown the limits of nation and State. The natural tendency of our economic system is to seek to break through State boundaries. The present war is at bottom a revolt of the forces of production against the political form of nation and State. It means the collapse of the national State as an independent economic unit. The nation must continue to exist as a cultural, ideologic and psychological fact, but its economic foundation has been pulled from under its feet. All talk of the present bloody clash being a work of national defence is either hypocrisy or blindness. On the contrary, the real, objective significance of the war is the breakdown of the present national economic centres, and the substitution of a world economy in its stead.”

A London cable states that Admiral Jellicoe’s title will be Viscount JeHicoe, of Scapa.

Mr. J. W. Browne, of Epsom, has received information that his son, Sergeant Charles Tounley Browne, aged 22 years, has been awarded the Military Medal. Sergeant Browne, was in the “Countess of Ranfurly’s Own,” Auckland, and enlisted in the Third Battalion of the Ninth Reinforcements. He has now been at the front close on three years.

A young woman in South Canterbury, strong and very willing, has been demonstrating this season that women are as good as men in the harvest field —or that they would be if all were as good as she (says the “Timaru Herald”). Throughout the harvest she has shown that she can do any part of the work as well as any man, and that her employers have recognised this is evident from the fact that she is being paid Is. 9d. an hour. She is particularly good at forking sheaves. One day recently a bet was arranged between the men in the harvest field where she was working as to which could fork a dray-load of sheaves on to the stack the quickest—the young woman referred to. or a veteran forker, a man, on another dray. Working on even terms - the young woman beat the man.

In succession to the late Dr. Bedford, Archdeacon Woodthorpe will for this year take charge of the classes in economics and the pass class in history at the Otago University.

An addition to the Australian military regulations provides that an officer of the permanent forces who has served as an officer with the Australian Imperial Force may,, without passing the prescribed examination, be provisionally promoted in his permanent corps to any substantive rank not above the rank of lieutenantcolonel, equivalent to the highest rank which he may have held abroad.

At the annual meeting of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association, held in Wellington, the following officers were elected: —President, Mr. P. Selig; vice-president, Mr. F. E. Hyman; executive, Messrs. H. Horton, L. Blundell, F. Pirani, G. Fenwick, E. A. Jones, with power to add to their number, Messrs. C. Earle, H. Brett and J. Coombe being recommended; advertising committee, Messrs. E. A. Jones, J. Coombe, W. C. Weston, R. Bell, P. Selig and W. Blundell; Postal and Parliamentary

committee, Messrs. L. Blundell, C. Earle, G. H. Dixon and F. Pirani; labour and awards committee, Messrs. F. Pirani, P. Bond, R. Bell, W. C. Weston and A. Sando; newsprint paper committee, Messrs. G. Fenwick, L. Blundell, H. Horton, P. Selig, T. C. List, A. McNicol and H. V. Duigan; secretary and treasurer, Mr. L. J. Berry; auditor, Mr. R. B. Bell.

Edward Joseph Harpham, working as a heater at the Butterley Company’s ironworks, was. summoned at Mansfield, Nottingham, for not paying income tax, £45 for one quarter. Evidence was given that he earned £998 in a year. He asked for time to pay, but an order was made for payment, with costs, forthwith. The high wages paid to clever workmen revealed at Mansfield, when evidence was given that a workman summoned for not paying income tax earned £998 a year, is not an isolated case. In Woolwich Arsenal there is a highly skilled workman who tempers steel in one of the forges whose weekly wage is £l5. The average wages of mechanics of the highest grade in the Arsenal vary from £lO to £l2 a week. Ordinary mechanics average £6 or £7 a week. At Coventry among the machine-gun makers skilled turners are stated to make up to £2O a week; wet grinders, £l2 to £l5; and machinists £7 to £B, often without previous experience.

In the selection of aboriginals for service in the Australian Expeditionary Force, about 100 have been sent to Sydney since the war broke out, only to be rejected on arrival on the ground that they were not up to the standard required by the military authoritites. It is pointed out that these aboriginals have to associate with white men. There are not enough of them to form a battalion of their own. Two who were sent from the South Coast during the weekend were obviously unsuitable. Like the others they get a trip to and from Sydney and several days pay —all at the expense of the taxpayer. The conditions under which aboriginals may be accepted for the A.I.F. have been set out by the Minister for Defence. They must have got right away from their environment. They are ineligible if they associate with other blacks of low mental calibre. Practically the conditions set out that the recruit to be acceptable must be white in everything but colour. There are few of these, of course, and that

is the reason that only one has been permitted to join in New South Wales. He was a city dweller, and on enlistment was engaged as a draughtsman by a big engineering firm.

When I was asked if I should like to see a casualty clearing station under Christmas conditions, I admit that it struck me as being about as un-Christmas like a subject as I might find. However, out here it takes all sorts to make a Christmas, and now I am glad that I made the tour (writes a special correspondent of a London paper in France on December 31st). A casualty clearingstation close behind the lines is a place where the battered wreckage of war passes through, is patched up for the time being, cleaned, fed, and sent to the base hospitals and home. The whole place exists only for the temporary housing of and attention to men wounded slightly, seriously, dangerously, and very often horribly. You would naturally expect it to be a place of groans. If that be the picture of your imagination, you may change it, as I did. The patients who were able to move about were sitting or strolling round the wards, with sheer content and happiness plain writ on their smiling lips. Others not fit to move, lay still in in their neat little cot-beds, smoking cigarettes or reading or chatting to one another, or listening to the big gramophone playing on the table in the centre of the ward. Even the ones who were pointed out to me as the serious or dangerous cases showed, except here and there, little signs of suffering. A good many of the men were asleep. “Most of them sleep enormously, especially when they first come in,” said my guide, ‘and to-day after their special Christmas dinner they naturally want a nap.” I asked what they had had for the Christmas dinner. I was told almost anything they thought they’d like and the doctor allowed, and always, if at all permissible, and regardless of what else they had, Christmas pudding. I went through many wards, and was shown the details of organisation, but the strongest impression I carried with me was of the last I saw —a ward elaborately decorated with a glowing colour scheme of paper flowers and lamp shades cut and crinkled into cunning imitations of gigantic lilies, with a genuine Christmas tree, candle-lit and a piano at the side, and a group round it singing subdued choruses, and other patients sitting propped up in their beds listening and joining in. The gifts from the tree to the patients were from the sisters, and consisted of pipes and pouches, and packets of cigarettes and little knick-knacks of all sorts. The paper flowers were most beautifully made and were the work of the sisters and patients, the sisters having taught the latter how the room was to be decorated. The gifts were bought by the sisters out of their own pay, and a not too liberal pay at that.