People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 8 July 1909, Page 26

People We Hear About

General Sir "William Butler has spent much of his time since he was placed on the retired list by age. limit »n compiling a new life of Napoleon Bonaparte, and this is likely to be published within a month or two. General Butler prefers to call his book a military study rather than a • biography. The late Madame Modjeska had a strange experience in Ireland. She was playing ' Mary Stuart ' in Dubl'n once, and the audience became so riotously enthusiastic over the violent scene in which Mary denounces Elizabeth that nobody knew, what to expect next. The management learned that a scheme was on foot to take the horses, from the actress's carriage, draw her through the streets, and have a bonfire, together with other doings dangerously near law-breaking, so Modjeska was smuggled out through a private door and driven about the dark streets for hours. There was a crowd in front of her hotel when she ultimately got there, and they wouldn't go away until the actress made a little speech from her balcony, asking them to withdraw and let her rest. This is a tribute which Mr. Robert J. Collier paid to his father, the late Mr. Peter Fenelon Collier, in a recent issue of Collier's Weekly, which he founded. It is in its way a model obituary notice : — ' It was my father's wish to die in harness, and so it came to pass. Hiß gallant spirit went forth to meet death with the same smile with which he faced the New Country as a poor Irish boy over forty years ago. He worked his way to success with his strong hands (as a carpenter once in Dayton, Ohio, and at other humble, honorable tasks), and with his unflinching courage and with his big, open, boyish heart. He was absolutely fearless, yet the gentlest, the most easily moved of men. He had friends in all walks of life, sprinkled all over the world. He worked hard and played hard, and he loved his fellow-men, not theoretically, but with a hearty and personal affection. This business he built, this paper he founded, are now thrust upon my shoulders. It is in memory of the most loving comrade in the world that I dedicate them to clean causes such as those for which l«o would have had me fight. God grant rone strength to be worthy of him whom I loved so much.' At a meeting in Dunedin last week Mr. A. Grant, the retiring traffic superintendent of the Government Railways, told the following stories about the Premier (Sir J. G. •Ward), now on his way to England to attend the Naval Conference : — It would seem (says the Otago Daily Times) that in 1880 railway conditions in the Invercargill district made retrenchment necessary, and certain valued servants had to go. It was decided that a man had to be dismissed from the Bluff staff, and Mr. Grant had to choose between two men. One was a married man with seven- children, the other was single. In Mr. Grant's estimation the . single man was highest; but, despite the fact that he was a capable, promising young fellow, it was finally decided that he must be the official to receive notice. The seven children were not to be gainsaid. The young man left. His name was Joseph Ward, now Sir Joseph Ward, Prime Minister. He promptly entered into another walk of life; wa3* apparently not to be kept down. He succeeded, and shortly afterwards was Mayor of the Bluff and then •a member of Parliament. Subsequently Mr. Grant met him in Invercargill, and he got a most cordial handshako from the erstwhile railway clerk. " He bore Mr. Grant no resentment — said, in fact, that that dismissal was the best thing that ever happened to him. In due course Mr. T. G. Ward became Minister of Railways, and one day he was travelling to Invercargill. He reached Waipahi, and there his train was . held up by a washout on the line. There was only one man at the Waipahi station, and, what with the flood, the blocking of traffic, r the confusion, and the presence of the Minister of Railways, he wa3 about the most worried railway servant in Christendom The Minister saw the difficulty and stepped into the breech, offering to attend to the telegraph instrument. The other man gladly accepted. Mr. Ward remained grimly at the instrument until communication was restored, and did the work fairly well. But he had apparently lost the knack of using the key, for the receiver at Dunedin was inclined to be restless. Just before leaving the office, therefore, the Minister sent a wire on his own account, and this is what a horrified telegraph man deciphered : ' Sorry yon are not pleased with my work on the wire; did my best; long out of practice. — J. G. Ward.' ' That was the man. said Mr. Grant, ' who a few years later was knighted by the King. He showed then that he was a real knight, a d;rue gentleman, and one of Nature's noblemen.*