All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 170, 3 October 1903, Page 3

All Sorts of People

MR. Thomas Lindsay Buiok, whose first book, "Old Marlborough, ' was a rich addition to the historical records of this colony, is stall a young man. He has lived, however. He is again in the public eye, having further contributed to the colony's valued records by writing "Old Manawatu." "Tom," as be is stall known among familiars, is an Oamaru boy, who commenced his industrial life as a carpenter. He hit out for Marlborongh, which province was going ahead when he was a youth, and was engaged there at his trade. And his first job was to help put up the Salvation Army barracks in Blenheim. * *■ * He was one of those young fellows who "po m" for things, and having made the very best of a decent preliminary education, he "swatted" knowledge early and late. We find him "going in" for lecturing, and his lucid talks on "Home Rule" and other subjects agitating the public mind when "Tom" was twenty-two or thereabouts, gained him quite a reputation. He was asked to travel and talk, and he did so with great success. "You ought to go into Parliament Tom!" whispered somebody. Mr. Buick thought he was a pretty cheeky kind of a young fellow who, while under twenty-four years of age, opposed Mr. A. P. Seymour for a Marlborough seat. * * * Mr. Seymour had been Superintendent of Marlborough in the provincial government davsi, and he had, m the natural course of events, drifted into the House of Representatives, where he held the honoured position of chairman of oommitttees. Still, "Tom" tackled it. and, as he had already kissed the blarney stone, be romped m an easy winner. The youth of twenty-four had a clear, easy literary way with him that endeared him to the Parliamentary reporters. He was something of a whitet-haired boy with the then Premier (Mr. John Ballance. of respected memory). In fact, the Premier placed him on a pedestal as "the coming orator" of the House. He was in two Parliaments, and then went out after a stiff fight with the Hon. Charlie Mills, in which the future Minister just managed to bump out the coming orator by some twenty votes. Then, Mr. Buick became a journalise in the hub of the Manawatu, where he gathered the information that made his successful book. At present, l^e is part proprietor and one of the literary chiefs of the Dannevirke "Advocate," a paper which is fulfilling its mission in "Sawdust Town" with much success. * * * It is announced that Mr. Lionel Caselberg intends to make the grand tour with Mrs. Caselberg shortly. Mr. Caselberg, who is in charge of the city business of the Wairarapa Farmers' Co-operative Association, is the eldest son of a gentleman who built up one of the most prosperous businesses of this island. For it was Mr. Caselberg pere who founded the Wairarapa Farmers' Co-operative Association, which venture has now extended its operations throughout the Wairarapa, and even further afield. The descent upon the city was made some six years ago, and Mr". Lionel Caselberg was sent down to build up the concern. He has several brothers, who also, with their father, take a prominent part in. the management of the W.F.C.A.

Miss Ada Crossley is the teller of a good many stories, none of which, however, throw the limelight on. herself. Her chief characteristic) is modesty. However, here is 1 one story . — "I was engaged to sing at an 'At Home' in Grosvenor Square, but the coaohiaan by mistake set me down at a corresponding number in Grosvenor Gardens. There was an awning over the entrance, and every sien of an entertainment in full swing ; so without noticing the surroundings further, I went in, took off my wraps, and made my way to the hostess. # * * "She appeared surprised, the more so as I was perfectly nonchalant; but, knowing me from sight on the co<n>cert platform, s!he soon guessed the situation. 'You are singing at Grosvenor Square to-night?' she said graciously. Then the mistake dawned upon me; but the most amusing part of my blunder was that both ladies, though friends, were rival hostesses, and had an almost exact interchange of guests on that evening, as I found out later." * * # Recently stated that Charles Dickens, son of the famous novelist, had died in, New South Wales. He was a clerk in the Lands Department, and had been sent out West. Charles Dickens the younger was never in New South Wales. He followed l hisi father's journalistic footsteps in London. The Dickens who died m New South Wales was a cadet of the family. His name was Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, and he was called after another famous novelist, who was his god-father. Edward saw many ups and downs in Australia. His father sent him out to "gain experience," and 1 afterwards he was a squatter and a member of Parliament, representing Wilcannia, which included Broken Hill in those days. Then, he suffered reverses, andl latterly he was in the service of the Government. But his connection with the West was not as an officer of the Lands Department. * * * Another son of the authof of "Pickwick," older than Edward, was also an Australian colonist, and may be in the Commonwealth now for all we know to the contrary. He was named, after the late Laureate, Alfred Tennyson Dickens, and bore a striking resemblance to the portraits of his father. He used at one time to lecture on his father's genius, and made a half success of it, but not for long. He is remembered as a' singularly genial man, but without any conspicuous talent. It is worthy of note that he resented the practice followed by the generality of those who lectured on Dickens, in referring to the novelist's early life and dwelling on his lowly beginnings. Alfred had almost persuaded himself that his father was a born aristocrat. It was an amiable failing. * # * A good story is told of Edward Dickens, recalling his Parliamentary career. A member named Willis had been scarifying the novelist's son, and wound up a long harangue by making distressful allegations. Dickens rose. "My celebrated father " he said, "was known to have remarked, 'Barkis is willm' ' Might I be permitted on this occasion to observe that 'Willis is barkin' ? " It was his only repK to the allegation, but it had its effect. * ♦ * Mr. and Mi's. Edward Pearce, vho left for Rotorua last week, for the purpose of enjoying a well-earned ltst, have been associated for many years in building up the big business in boots which their shop in Cuba-street to-day enjoys. Mrs. Pearce has been closely identified in the development of the Pearce business, and is a keen and courteous business woman, and an 1 admirable first lieutenant to her wideawake husband.

Mr. Walter Ataok, who went to Sydney in charge of New Zealand's team- of amateur boxers, is one of the bestknown sports in the colony. He has, from his youth up, been identified with either the theoretical or practical elide of almost every branch of sport and pastime in the colony of which he is a native. He is a Chrcstchurch College old boy, and the younger brother of Mr. William Atack, manager of the Press Association, of Wellington. Like his elder brother, Mr. Walter Ataok began his journalistic work on. the "Lyttelton Times." He is at present editor of the "Canterbury Times," having succeeded to that oomfortable seat when Mr. W. P. Reeves decided' to give up journalism for the larger amd more strenuous life of a politician. • * * The two journalistic Ataoks were prominent on the football and crioket grounds of the City of the Plains. The elder excelled in crioket, and the younger was noted for his ability to "keep on the ball," in the winter game. He played for the East Ohristchurch Club. Both brothers were keen awd enthusiastic admirers of the fistic art, and Walter especially has kept up has practice of the art. Hence his appointment to represent the Council of the New Zealand Boxing Association at the conference of governing bodies of Boxing Associations, to be held m Sydney this Week. • * * A unique conference was thait held in 1 the Cabinet room in the Government Buildings last week, when delegates — mostly ladies — assembled from various parts of the colony, at the call of Mrs. Seddon, to consider what should! be done with the six hundred odd poundte collected throughout the colony for the up-keep of the graves of New Zeialanders who fell in the late war in South Africa. Mrs. Seddons, who had been appointed acting-president of the Soldiers' Graves Guilds for New Zealand, at a meeting held whilst she was in London, presided over the conference. Other ladies who were present at the London meeting, and also at last week's conference were : Miss Seddon, Mrs. Yon Haast, and Mrs. Seymour Thorne-George, wife of the well-known Auckland M.L.C. Mrs. (Dr.) Findlay was also present at the London meeting, and was to have been at the conference, but sent an apology. • * • Mrs. Way. a prominent member of the Christohuroh Committee, which, had raised the largest contribution -towards the fund of any of the branches of the colony, made the voyage from Lyttelton specially to be present at the conference. Mrs. Seddon represented the Grey Borough and the Inveroargill branches', and also the London meeting. Her daughter, who had acted as secretary throughout the history of the branch in New Zealand, represented Kaikoura County. Westland, and Hokitiika. Mrs. (Dr.) Kendall represented the Ross Borough, and the West Coast had yet another representative in the Hon. J. Marshall, M.L.C, who represented Grey County. * * * Mr. Marshall and ex-Mayor Kidd, M.H.R., of Auckland, practically put the ladies through their business paces at the sitting of the conference. Even Mrs. Seddon, with all her experience as the wife of the most public man of all public men in the colony, had to appeal to the two parliainentairians on questions of ruling during the meeting, and Mr. Kidd made a very happy prompter. Wellington was represented by the president of its 1 branch (Miss Coates) and secreitarry (Mrs. John P. Luke). The Maori race, wliich had contributed £100 to the funds, were represented by the son of a famous warrior, Te Heuheu. of the Taupo district. Mr. Yon Haast, who had also been present at the London

meeting, just prior to coming out to settle in Wellington to practice his profession as a lawyer, was present by invitation, and proved so helpful and 1 so willing a worker in the cause of tihe Associaition that the ladies ultimately unanimously appointed him to tihe dual position of seorettary-treasureir. Mr. Yon Haast is the only gemtlemam on the executive. * * * A round dozen of enthusiasts had a meeting last week, and decided, to continue the institution of "Hospital Sunday," which was inauguratled after miuoh discussion and newspaper warfare last year. The leader in, tihe movement was Mr. George Richardson, of the firm of Richardson Brothers, a gentleman as full of energy and enthusiasm as is the proverbial egg of meat. He was ably seconded! at the meeting by Mr. T. Wilson a well-known musician, and Mr. 0. Francis Shaw, the latter gentleman occupying the chair at the meeting. A new enthusiast was brought out, in the person of Mr. Fisher, the energetic secretary of the Wellingiton branch of the St. John's Ambulance Association). Mr. E. J. King, the musician, was also present, and gave evidence of a big capacity for enthusiasm in the cause of benevolence and charity. * * • The principal ladies present comprised a trio who took a prominent part in last year's demonstration! — Mesdames F. Grady and Moorhouse, and Madame Cope. The twelve enthusiasts threaten to maike another well-organised assault upon, the pockets of charitable Wellingtonians, and this, year the amount raised on Hospital Sunday is tk» be divided between the St. John's Ambulance Association's nursing-of-thc-poor department, the Convalescent Home (which participated in last year's collection), and the Home for the Aged 1 Needy. * * * Two directors were wanted for the New Zealand Farmers' Dairy Union last week, and four gentlemen were desirous of filling the vacancies. , They were: Messrs. W. H. Millward, Mathieson, Thos. Moss, and F. W. Bills. The last-named couple were rejected' on the ballot. Mr. Millward ia one of our most prominent citizens, his family having been closely identified with the early history of Wellington. He has risen' by sheer ability and 1 merit to the managing directorship of the Gear Company, one of the most successful com mercial concerns in New Zealand. He entered the company's service as a clerk, and was for years secretary of the company before being placed upon tl c directorate. As one of the directors of the New Zealand Farmers' Dairy Union his experience and knowledge as an exporter should prove very valuable to the farmers who compose the union. » * * His many friends were pleased to see Mr. Samuel Brown back on Lambtoni Quay once more this week. His health-seeking trip to Australia and the islands of the South has 1 proved beneficial, for the genial merchant is browner than ever, and his face is more smilesome since his return. • • * In making a presentation! to Mr. Victoi 1 Waters, at their annual meeting last week, the members of the Phoenix Cricket Club' did the right thing. "Vic" has been one of the mainstays of the club these years past, and he has stuck enthusiastically to the club in which he learned the art of wielding the willow and sending down fast 'uns. If the Phoenix Club could get a stock of such strong Waters, it would come out as victors at the end of the season, and the Phoenix would thus have the "abhes" to show that it was rejuvenated like the mythical bird from which the club takes its name.

Reference was made in last week's Lance to the coming of Elijah Dowie, the most modern of prophets, who is making great profit out of the prophet, business. There is a branch of "the General Overseer's" Church — the Christian Catholic Church in Zion — in Wellington, and it became so full of promise to nourish like a green bay tree, that Prophet Dow le sent over one of his own people to direct the flock against his own coming — literally a second coming, as. he is said to have been New Zealand way before. The Wellington branch of the C.C.O. was organised by Mr. Harry [Roberts, the one-trme noted footballer and cricketer — a representative player in. both games— who became a very enthusiastic Zionist and Dowieite, and canvassed the religious men of the Government Printing Office vigorously on behalf of his new-found creed. * * * There was gieat astonishment in athletic circles when Harry Roberts "took religion," something like a decade aero. He has been an enthusiastic evangelist ever since, and has shown much courage in street-corneT preaching. But. something has gone wrong m the local circles of Zion, for last week Mr. Roberts, one of its deacons, publicly announced that he had retired from Zion, and on Sunday night he, from the street corner, advised his listeners not to be deceived concernang Dowie as the pj-ophet foretold by Moses ! Harry seems to have' come to the conclusion that the American citizen has not inherited the cloak of Elijah. # Mr. J. A. Frostick, who represented the boot manufacturers at last week's sitting of the Arbitration Court, was, as the Lance suggested some weeks ago, offered, nomination for the Brown locum tenenship on the Court bench. His reply toi the employers, who ur^ed him t_> take the position, was that he was too busy a mail to spend the time required by the sittings of the Court. And so the locum tenens came from Dunedin instead of Ohristchurch. By close application to business, Mr. Frostiok has made the Skelton-Frostick boot business one of the best in the colony, and apparently he was not going to lose the position gained for the sake of a 'Labour judgeship." That would be throwing away the substance for the shadow. Genial "Davy" Ingram, of the ruddy countenance, was in town last week, renewrna; acquaintances with his many friends in the city. Dave was as well known and as popular in Welling on a few years ago as he is in Auckland today. Now-a-days, he is in the tobacco business, on the staff of Messrs. Austin Walsh, and Co. * * * Lady Stout is the subject of the sixth article of the series of "Noted Australasian Women at Home," in the "New Idea," for September. The writer of the article is Frances Watson, who deals with her sublet in interview form The wife of the Chief Justice tells the interviewer that she has no hobbies exoeptmcr her children, and that, as the wife of" the Chief Justice, she is not allowed to have any politics — "hardly, indeed, any opinions , and lam now shut out from public life." Her Ladyship says, in the course of the chat, that she is a native of Dunedin, and attended, the Girls' High School there. She has not travelled much, and one of her most enjoyable out-of-thencolony recollections is a visit to Samoa, where she met and lunched with Robert Louis Stevenson. * * * Her earliest recollection of public life w ent back to the days when her father (Mr. Logan) was secretary to the' Superintendent of Otago Province, and she remembers as a child attending the levee given m Dunedin to the Duke of Edinburgh. Lady Stout was born with two strong beliefs— the enfranchisement of women, and the necessity for temperance. She gives some interesting details of social reform work in New Zealand, particularly with regard to the temperance movement — "a class of beer will not alter a woman's vote, as it may a man's," she says — and the operation in Wellington of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children. * * * A somewhat sad story was unfolded at the inquest held in the Hospital last week on the death of the little girl who died from bums received through the catching-alight of her dress. She was the youngest child of a seventy-year-old father and a forty-year-old mother. Some time ago the mother fell in love with a twenty-year-old youth at Karori, and ultimately eloped with him. The husband sued for, and obtained, a divorce, and moped so much after that event that he became a melancholic, and was lying in the Hospital receiving treatment when his daughter died from her injuries. Meantime, according to report, the young man and the middle-aged lady who eloped with him are married, and have settled down somewhere in the North. Her sixteen-year-old daughter is now looking after the family she left behind her.

Tlicie was a gathering of Caledonians in the city last week, in. the interests of the Caledonian Societies of the colony. Mr. R. D. D. McLean, of the Hawke's Bay Highland Society was again elected president of the New Zealand Association,. Mr. McLean was wont to be a frequent visa tor to the Empire City when he was the memibei for Nanier. He is one of his province's best-to-do men so far as this world's goods are concerned. Not a iev, of his old friends in Wellington still watch with interest the career of Mr. John Bailhe, in London. The tall ex-bookseller, of Cuba-street, is now fairly launched mi the great metropolis as an art connoisseur, and is doing so well that he has had to go into a larger gallery, in order to make a better display for the artists who conduct exhibitions under John's management. He is also striking out in a new line, word having come to town that he hopes shortly to appear in select literary circles as a publisher. So will be fulfilled the ancient saying "Now Bailhe was a publisher 1 ' * * * A propos of that entrancing subject, the barmaid, it is not only in the New Zealand Assembly that the membeis have their fun about Hebe. The Lord Advocate in charge of the Scottish Licensing Bill, m the House of Lords, said some things punctuated with "laughter" while an amendment ' fOlf 01 preventing the employment of barmaids" (in Scotland) was being discussed His lordship said he thought one might well ask the lion, member (Mr. Crombie) "What is a barmaid p " The hon. member did not seem to know. Particularly, he would ask the question, "Is a widow a barmaid p " Could theie be any impropriety in being served by a woman of a certain age 5 * * * Continuing, his lordship said it was all very well to say that a woman was exposed to temptation m a liquor shop, but to his mind she was exposed more to temptation if she was starving and left outside a liquor shop. He could not imagine anything more absurd than the condition of tilings which had prevailed in Glasgow last year. The magistrates tried to abolish barmaids. Most of the proprietors of licensed houses were frightened into compliance , but one licensee took the matter to the Court of Session, and the decision of the magistrate was upset and quite rightly, because he believed without something m

the nature of a by-law to confer the necessary power the abolition, of barmaids was absolutely illegal. It is clear, therefore, that Glasgow still has) its "wee draopie" served from, the hand of beauty as heretofore. i» * • Mr. Charles F. Johnston, of Gladstone, tripped hence to the Argentine a while back. He looked m at South Africa, too. He says the people of the Argentine are slothful, and their country is too big for them. Therefore, of course, we shall wipe them out right away as competitors m the mutton market. If you are a "big boy" ranchero, you may go out and shoot an^oo you want to. You will he "hauled up" by very fierce police who will accept from the senoir a small sum. The magistrate also will accept a small sum. Adios, senor, God go with you ! * ¥■ * There are no native drunkards the Englishmen filling these positions 1 with remarkable success. No one swears. Everyone takes off his hat with one hand, and shoots you m your tracks if hj feels festive. It costs but a few dollars. "The country wants a Seddon t.) shake it up!" Mr. Johnson, it should bo remembered, is a New Zealander. * * Johannesburg? Hell warmly expressive. The war has spoilt the Kaffirs. Why? They received 7s a day. Mr. Johnston is not correct for once. He says "Fancy a Kaffir at 7s, and "Tommy" at Is 2d'" As a matter of fact the Kaffir got £4 a month, and Is 2d is (less barrack damages, etc., etc.) "Tommy's" peace pay. He says Kaffirs are "brutes," and should all be exterminated. A laige, ghastly contract my masters. A grave containing fifty million or so would make South Africa the premier cemetery of the Empire. He returns to New Zealand, having visited Europe, Canada, the United States of America, South America, Australia, and South Africa, and is convinced that there! is no place like New Zealand. It is too small, however, he thinks. * ■* * Bishop Julius "Judged bv present religious standards, Christ, if he came down as vicar of a colonial parish, and he spoke in all reverence, w r ould be a failure." His Lordship- strongly advocated that the time has long passed foJ half-heartedness in religion, and that men ought to be one thing or the other.