All Sports Of People

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 102, 14 June 1902, Page 3

All Sports Of People

MR J W Povaton, Public Tiustoe m spite of adverse cncumstances, is a bright example of the colonial who lias won lus way to a high position Born in Victoria in 18()8, the infant Povnton landed at Greymouth m New Zealand The youngst^i was brought up with Nature, in the pnnieiaJ bush, and there he assimilated Nature's lessons, and imbibed a strong love for natural hi&torv which he still has He had no educational advantages offered to him, but his apnetite tor learning was a very hearty one, and when he, following in his father's footsteps, took to the digger's pick and dish he put in the long silent watches of the night in making himself conversant with e\erv branch of learning available h-oni books Dining the veais he spent on the wild West Coast, he swatted" conscientiously, and, befoie he knew where he was, he had passed the barrister's genelal know ledge examination Coming to Wellington, he studied law was called to the bar, and entered into practice He was appointed Stipendiary Magistrate of Invercargill m 1895, and m 1900 became Public Trustee. How that institution has grown is well known The Department employs fifty civil seivants and thirty of them are at the head office in Wellington Cunoush, many people still legaid the operations of the Public Tiu&t Office with suspicion. Many believe that once an estate is in its hands it is gone as surely as it would probably be if it were in Chancery. The benefit ot the Department to the people is in reahtv incalculable. We remember a case in which a man died leaving his estate totalling £5000 to be administered bv private trustees. They administered it all right, until it had diminished to £700. There is no real protection against careless or incompetent private tiu&tees. and only the residue in the case was saved bv the timely aid of the Public Trust Department. The widow is now in leceipt of the interest accruing on that dw indled sum, to that sterling politician, the Hon. E. C. J Stevens, who evolved the idea of a Public Tiust Office, aid of Mr (afterward Sn Julius) Yogel, who, m 18/0, mtiodured the bill that started it into life In addition to incapacity theie is often fraud on the part of trustees or a certain of lawyer, happily rare in this country. The Government as trustee, entirely prevents this kind of rascality There now remains one thing" for the Government to do in connection with trust matters. That is, the appointment of a Government auditor for private trustees accounts and a wider circulation of the advantages to be gained by the administration of the Public Trust Office. South Australia instituted a denartment on the lines of the New Zealand one, and New South Wales recently sent an emissary to Wellington to make inquiries as to the operation of our Department with a view of copying it. Mi PoMiton finds time even now to dabble in chemistry history, and the sciences generally. Talking about earthquakes, he ridicules the idea that the recent tremors experienced here had anything to do with the West Indian catastrophe, and he also believes that the "outbreak" of Mount Redoubt, in Alaska, was nothing more serious than a

busk hie Mi PoMiton admits ha\ ing pas-sed an extiemeh uneventful lite, excepting tliat lie lias woiked haid both phvsicalU and mentally lucidentallv neithei kind ol work has done him am haim He understands human capability thoroughly, and m the admimstiation of his high office he brings the svmpath\ of experience to beai on all his relations with Ins subordinates All Malcolm Niccol, secietaiy of the Giaud Masonic Lodge of New Zealand, who haiS recently come to Wellington after a life-time spent in Auckland, is' an aleit, pleasant gentleman, with a bright smile and a winning extenoi Auckland did not put on many ans in 1844. when the infant Malcolm was bora, and the said infant has giown and tlimen with the city and its, institutions The father of this, worthy son was the first best-known shipbuildei m Nei\ Zealand and he- started business in 1842 Young Niccol used to disport on the beach w here the centre of Queenstreet now happens to be, and went to the Rev John Gorrie's school, with Wellington's James Coates, and when he giew to youth he, together with Wellington's John Duthie and Auckland's well-known i.ieohoi^-o owiipi, Tom Moirni, went nonmongeiing behind the counteis of Cruicksliank, Smart, and Co Of couise, he shouldered the usual gaspipe in bl 10 Maon war, and was a quaitpimafctei with the troops Then, he took to shipbuilding,, and public life. Public affaais at Devonport, where Mr Niccol has In ed continuously all his life were admimstoied m their early da\s by a Road Board, and his first entry into loca.l politics wa& as a membei of that Board. He became chairman, and, with the change of Government m 188(> Devonport started to hit out for itself, became a borough, and Malcolm Niccol became its first mayor. He sat light along for five years and was reelected on three subsequent occasions When the finances became disorganised the\ sent for Malcolm and asked him to guide the municipal plough He knows neailv as much about haiboui matfeis as Mi W J Napiei foi he was a member of the Auckland Haibour Board for twenty-five years. and was elected its chairman seven times You cannot disguise the fact though, that he is a J P , but don't be too haid on him on that account He stood for Parliament during the Atkinson legime against the Hon. Mi. Mitchelbon of timber fame and three years ago lie actually faced the brainy Bollard in open contest He was returned as elected, but it was discovered there weno some unstamped voting papers put in. They were taken out and a le-count was made. It was found that Mi Bollaid had scored three more than Mr. Niccol Meir\ Malcolm consequenth lost his thiough a blundei of the letuming officer. There aie seveial \oung Niccols There have been fourteen, but onh ele\ en survive. Mr Niccol doe.s not say whether marriage i,s a failure, but tells- us he has never been discouraged He has faced the altai three times The piesent Mrs. Niccol, whose youngest child is rising three years, holds two Humane Society's medaLs for life-sav-ing She rescued three persons from drowning in one week 'at Devonport. Mrs McMahon, who imagined she could swim, but who discoveied, when she got into de^p water, that <-he couldn't, was within an ace of drow mug in Devonport baths when Mis Niccol, who is an accomplished swimmer, dived under her and bundled her ashoie Later a young lady who had witnessed the rescue became hysterical while in the water and made an attempt with all the elements of success about it to diown herself Mrs Niccol rescued her from the great vast dampness ,i< though she did her best to strangle her

lcstuei. The thud ca«-o v\ as that of a child who was disappearing in the watu foi the thud time, when M^ Niccol fished it out Mi Niccol is nation of e\ cry football club that is looking tor guineas from honorary members, is mtcipsted in the upbringing of the young and he lias a pretty extensive home contract of his own, and has scattered his vaiious olive blanches around in mam branches of industry. The Rev Ronaldson, who foi ten yeais, held the position in the Grand Lodge Mr Niccol now occupies, letires on a pension The various institutions with which Mi. Niccol was associated in Auckland fairly deluged him with presents when he left Auckland, and he has illuminated addresses and puises of soveinoins enough to lejoicc the hearts of citizens less> amenable to universal kindness than the public-spn ited man whom Wellington has gained and Auckland has lost Mr A. F Wnen, of Wellington, was born with a quenchless enthusiasm for encket a,nd "football. But Destiny maiked him out for the law, and last week he was duly admitted to the Bar "Andy" is the son of a Swedish father and an English mother, and it is probable that both were of a modest and letning disposition, for their son certainly is Mr. Wiren, senior, was attracted to Victoria in the days when lioises were shod with gold, and nuegets were more frequent than potatoes, but not so valuable. He fossicked on Daylesford diggings, and started a store o i the proceeds- He raked in gold chM on thei Ovens and at Kyneton when flour was £40 a ton, and sold kerosene in Captlemame before the beer industry broke out. The nugget ' Andy" came to light at Bairn&dale diggings, Gippsland, and when he wa6 four years old his father bi ought him to Wellington He would "play the wa,g" often for a game of cricket, and if he was bowled out" by the wielder of the willow-switch, he could always make a good defence, _ although he had no thought of ioining the Devil's Own then-adays. He assimilated knowledge at Wellington Weslevan day school, and enlarged it at the Boys' High School. Then, they made a draoex of little Andy and sent him to measure tape behind the counter of Turnbull, Smith, and Co., who were afteiwaids bought out by Sargood's He was a encket critic aU this time, and he has written many useful things about the game. His mother believed he had brains, and urged him to study law, and when he went into the wastepaper department of Mr Ollivier's office, a, 4 - the a^e of fifteen, he read bite of legal dry-iot in between the matches He was on© of the Wellington twentytwo that played a drawn match with the English team in 1888, and he played for the Poneke Club whenever he got off the chain He is the keenest sport the Ponekes ever had, and we have it on the authority of the Rugby Union, the "whitest." He has followed the law with Mr Ollivier, his partner, Mr Brown, and their successors, Messrs. Skei rett and Wvlie, for twenty-two years, and he showed his appreciation of the treatment of the firm by marrying Miss WVlie, the sistei of (;he "boss " » -v He has a young cricketer coming on, in the person of a three-year-old son, and the "little chap's sister, who is older aids and abets him in his aspirations. Of course, Andy used to belong to the Rugby Union before he started to "swat" in eajTiest, and to the Wellington Cricket Association. "Swatting," however, did not prevent hun croinpr to see the test match "in Sydney last February. Finally, if the new solicitor and old sport, has an enemy, let him lodge hie complaint. He would probably require a wearer of silk to win a case disproving Andy's claims to the title of the "White Sport."

Mr W. A. Kennedy, Wellington manager for the Union Company, who has been hard at work asking and answering questions in the Arbitration Court lately, is the sort of chap that you would probably have to get up before daylight to persuade into saying am thing he did not want 'to. Mr. Kennedy is a man with an aquiline nose. with a suave, courteous way, with a sheaf of notes and a startling array of figures at the tip of his fingers. Being suave and agreeable, one was pained the other day to hear him say "he never prave any information to reporters," and that the papers were not to be depended on. Tom Mills, of the "Post," duly shovel led at the Kennedy blast, and the ruddy stripling of the "Times" blushed a rosy red. We, ourselves, perceptibly blushed. When Mr. Kennedy had done being sarcastic, a scribbler in search of "copy" got quite a batch out of the severe Kennedy. The only thing we could find out about him was that he went outside the court-room to smoke cigarettes occasionally, and to laugh at the weary old "aggravation" business going on inside. * Mi. A. H. Turnbull, head of the wellknow n Wellington firm who is watching the seamen's dispute, is manager of the Aorere S.S. Company, and he has sot a tull note of every point. He is a young man with a handsome personality, and when he grows old he will be an antiquated fossil of the deepest dye. He is wealthy, as perhaps you know, and he is an ardent collector of curiosities in art and literature, and has one of the finest libraries m this country dealing with New Zealand subjects. He was born in Wellington, and when he is not collecting books, or learning something new, you will find him in a yacht, clothed in dungarees and jumper, poking about the coast of this end of New Zealand. He is vice-commodore of the Wellington Yacht Club. By the way, Mr. Tuinbull's hobby for books set him thinking out something quaint in the wayof a book plate. All his books contain it. It represents a regular "Quo Vadis" sort of a bull being turned over by a classical person in a toga, and the inscription reads "Fortuna favet audaci." Mr. Turnbull is a quiet customer, but he gives one the impression of having "an infinite capacity for baking pains," which is somebody's definition of genius. But, if we proceed tihusly, Mr. Turnbull will want us to celebrate peace by the. bending of elbows, so we leave him to his more or less dusty tomes and Maori curios. * * Captain Tonkin, of the Scilly Isles, but for goodness knows how many years of Napier, is listening to arguments in the seamen's dispute on behalf of the shipowners of Napier. When he is on the water he is the skipper of the Hawke's Bay Freezing Company's boat Ahunri, and when he is on shore he brings a whiff of the salt sea with him. He is a deep-chested, cron-bearded, shagerv-browed veteran, with a laugh as jolly as a schoolboy's, and the seriousness of dry-as-dust debates on whether a fireman should rule the slci^oer, or a skipper work in the hold, does not amuse him as much as running before a 12-knot breeze, with the engines ffoing at top speed. For eighteen years he was in the Shaw-Saville service, and for ten years commanded in turn the Langstone, the Adamant, and the Halcione. A young son of his is making a bid for fame as a newspaper man in Napier, and frequently hits upon ideas that are outside the province of the serious daily press. * * •* The Rev Mr. Chappie, of Eltham, is not a very discreet man, however truthful he may imagine himself to be. Followinc is a sample of the Chappie gospel as preached by the gentleman in question — "What does the average New Zealand politician care either for the righteousness of God or the Bible? The

best ot them sail \ei\ close to the wind on these matteis Theie r.un be a tew exceptions but toi the most nait God and the Bible come second, and the tot a lisa* 01 s take hist place." Somehow, pulpits and politics do not blend and, amhuw Mi C'happ'e is C|Uanelimg w ith his biend and butter when lie mdiiect'K atcusr, tlie people of New Zealand ot letui ning iepi c-entatn es who are supposed b> him to ha\e no mind abo\e totalisatois Admnal Sir Ham' Raw son tlie new Go\emoi of New South Wales, is bound to be popular in Svdne\ . Win ' J Because he has kissed the blarne\ stone, and lia« lost no time m staiting to lav on the jam thick Someboch must li.ae told him the best «a\ to win the heait of Sydney was to crack up its harbour to the skies. And this is .the willing st\le in winch he let himself go in his hist official aftei landine 'Youi magnificent haibour so wellknown fiom^pictuies and descnptions, bvAt now seen h\ us foi the fust time, lias been a revelation, asd no descn.pticm can do it justice. When I know that we aie going to live with this lovely Mew as a constaait companion, and with a climate such as we are told you possess it seems little short of a promise of Paradise." But he didn't mention that his trip from the Heads to the wharf was made through such a dense foi- that he could not even lead the tenfeet advertisements of Pale Pills toi Bilious People which adorn the locks In fact, he took the beauties of the haibour wholly on tm^-t Mi C S Wnght, who died the othn day in Aucklaaid, was an uncle of Mr. Willie Witt, of Sargood and C'o.'s. Mi. Wnght was one of the local identities ot tlie Noithein capital, and took an active interest in borough affairs. He had served m both tlie City Council and Harbour Board, and, on one occasion, he aspired to Parliamentary honours by contesting the Ponsonby seat against the sitting member, Mr. Thos Peacock. Peacock only won by what, in sporting parlance, is called "a> small nose." Mr. Wright was one of the leading Oddfellows of the Manchester Unity in Auckland, and. like many another man who has. figured on the public stage, it was Oddfellow ship that brought him out. The cause of death, was a cancerous growth near the ear He passed away quietly in his sleep Mr. Y\ right was born in Wellington, in 1843, and the other day, when they were searching for his birth register, it was found bv Mr. Sprott among the archives of old St. Paul's Two or three days before peace was signed in South Africa, the press cables announced the capture of Jack Hinton, tihe notorious train-wrecker. He fell into the hands of the British at Balmoral, on the Delagoa railway line. Hinton has had a lather chequered career, and is quite a dare-devil cliaracter. He is English on his father's side, but his mother was Portuguese. He w r as born at Madeira, in 1853, and m his early youth used at frequent intervals to paint his native town a brilliant red. Also, he had rather loose ideas about the ownership of property Finally his father turned him adnft for looting his brother's shot-pun. The old man paid his passage to the Cape and gave him a fair sum with w Inch to make a fresh start in life • • • On the tup thither, he doubled his capital art poker by 'taking down" a number of professional sharpers from California in a wav that was refreshingly childlike and bland. They found out too late how they were done "

Young Hmton, it seems, woie smoked glasses -foi weak e\esight, he Mud Aloie than that, le liad painted ceitaui marks on all the lugh ca.rds, until a fine brush m 'luminous paint," winch, ol eouiso, couJd only be seen in tho <lailv or hv anyone wealing deeply-smok-ed glasses, and ncie tjintc invisible to others. He was, thus able to tell at once what cards wore out and to act accordingly. * * His next gieat deal occuued in London when he made Ins, first trip there in 1874. It was a wholesale oidei Huntley and Palmer's biscuits weie sold in 51b tins, and in each tin was a \ouchei guaianteemg i'ie weigl t It had two large "o"s nnnted on it, and boie the signa.tuie of Huntley and Palmer Hmton was (|Uic ! c to note its '•hong resemblance to a £o Colonial note and he invested all his c ish in buMiicr twelve gross of the^e 51b tins of biscuits On his, arrival at Capetow n he opened the tins, took out the vouchers, a.'id thon sold tlie biscuits at auction # # * Then, he hied awa,y to the Boers, and did splendid trade buying all sort* of goods from them and paying for them w ith his bogus £■"> notes, w hich, of couis-e, the Boers were too guileless to suspect There was a tremendous hullabaloo — in fact, noarlv a racial not—

when their spurious charactei Mas tound out, and the incident went a long way to iikh'asl' the Boers' hatred toi tlie Butihli. And, even to this dn\ , 't\h said the average Boei distrusts a banknote of any kind, and the chances aio he will refuse a Colonial fiver if ho tan get gold instead. » # » Other taJes> aie told of Jack Hmton. He tned hi&i luck on the stage. Then, he fell in with a quack doctor and the piecious pair hired a Cape cart, and, securing an old passport with the British armis o<n the heading, went out among the. sample burghers on a wholesale vaccinating expedition. Hinton lepiesentod himself as a Government inspector, and the quack as a doctor, and they compelled all the families, they \isited to get vaccinated at a guinea a head. When lymph ran out, the quack thought the game was up. Not so Hmton. He had only mst begun. Going to the nearest store, he bought a iow tins of condensed milk, and vaccinated the rest of his victims with that pie pa ration. No doubt, he argued that it aJ) came from the cow. Before the war broke out, and he took to the trainw recking business, Hinton had become so notorious that notices were up in most of the hotels warning strano-ers aeainst playing with him at cards 01 billiaids At the latter game he could hold hi<; own with anyone in Soutli Afnca.