All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 184, 9 January 1904, Page 3

All Sorts of People

DID you ever stumble in on a group of chess players, gloomily fighting for a chess championship, with set faces sw elling brows., and eager eyes ? The Lance did so on Wednesday December 30th. Chess isn't a cheerful game for the onlookers. Am air of intense concentration sits on the brows of the players. A loud footfall seems a sacrilege, an unpreventible sneeze an unpardonable sin. There is no particular "chess head." One sees a man with apparently eighteen inches of forehead playing with an opponent possessing a small but bulgy brow. The budding parson plays with the farmer, and the commercial traveller with the schoolmaster. * * * / There is Mr. Gnerson, last year's * champion, intent on scooping in the honour again. A tall, good-looking man, with a benevolent expression. Belonged to Ponsonby (Auckland) Chess Club, and won the championship of the club and handicaps. Went in for the Auckland district championship, for which there were twenty entries. Won it, with a score of \b\ games : an intellectual feat. He joined the Auckland Club, and was second in the championship, winning it the following year, and was fourth the year after. He has five championship wins to his credit. * • * <^Mr. Barnes, well-known in Wellington, and who tells us that when he plays in championship matches interesting family events frequently take place, is an enthusiast of the deepest dye. He has been champion of New Zealand four times. He is handicapped rather badly with neuralgia this year. A keenlooking ex-champion is Mr. W. E. „ Mason, of Messrs. Skerrett and Wylie's. He also has been New Zealand's champion four times, and the Wellington Club's champion for some years. Over iv the corner, wrestling with the redoubtable Mr. Barnes, is the gentleman with the least hair -in the assembly. This is Mr. Mackay, the bookseller, who , plaintively tells you he's been runner-up many times, but "never won anything. ' Mr. Mackay is of the anxious type of player, and stretches himself nervously now and anon while his oDponent rests his chm on the table, and glares malevolently at the wooden soldiers. * * ♦ j The sun-burnt dark man, with the i^neavy moustache, playing with a fairhaired gentleman with tired eyes, is Mr. Pleasants, a Ilangitikei farmer. He • was second for the New Zealand championship in 1895, and is not a typical • chess player. He has the square, practical look of the man of action, and dreams but little. His tired-eyed opponent is Mr. E. J. Miles, of Auckland. He is a lay-reader, and can probably write as well as he can read, for he has the typical journalistic head — long, narrow, receding forehead, with the inevitable "thinking" bumps showing prominently on the pale skin. He has been second for the New Zealand championship, and second for the Auckland championship. * * • The spruce, intellectual, middle-aged gentleman, with the black morning coat, is Mr. D. Forsyth, a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Scotland. In 1901, he won. first place at the Chnstchurch meeting, and in 1902 he tied with Mr. Miles for second place at Auckland.. In 1903, at Dunedin, he, with three others, was third. Intellect has pushed Mr

Forsyth's top locks off the face of the globe. A keen-faced gentleman, also thm on top, and wearing "specs," is Mr. N. Fnberg, a Palmerston North schoolmaster. He is a man with a face that denotes an ability to go to the root of the matter. The long, slightly tiptilted nose says so. * * * That handsome middle-aged gentleman, with the fine brow, and the beard, is Mr. J. Edwards, a commercial traveller, of Dunedm. He wears a red and black check tie, and has a hair lock situated on the organ of benevolence that won't sit down. He is dapper, and wears a white waistcoat. Stubbornness is his prevailing characteristic, and he demonstrated this 1 in 1894 when he was runner-up for the New Zealand championship. He got third place in 1895 at Christchurch, and in Dunedin in 1901 he was chammon of Dunedin. * * * The clean-shaven young man, with the orator's face, the round brow, and the bamboo cigarette-holder, which, by-the-way. is empty, and is being chewed thoughtfully, is Mr. W. Sandford. who distinguished himself in the Oxford and Cambridge Universities tourney in 1892. Sometimes he buries his face in his hands, and thinks hard. He is a Cambridge graduate and, although we haven't heard him, his forte is fluency. One' of the most-fancied players in the present fight is Mr. J. Mason, of Timaru, who tied for second place at the Dunedin meeting last year. He wears spectacles and a large eye-shade. Also, he wears hair of tlie colour that Rembrandt most favours, and which is popularly believed, to be most common in people not engaged in intellectual occupations. Mr. Mason is reading for the law, and is keen and clever. * * * Another florid gentleman is Mr. J. A. Ccnnell, well-known about town as an e^-journalist. who has beaten the present champion at this tournament. Mr. Connell was for twenty-five years turning out newspaper copy. In 1879, Mr. Connell drove a nib for the "New Zealand 1 Times," later was editor of the Nelson "Star," and was present at the birth of the Timaru "Morning Post," and brought that journalistic infant up until it could walk pretty well. He is a man with a good deal of iron in his constitution, and determination is writ large all over him. * » • The old gentleman, with the half-clos-eJ eyes, the spectacles, and the irongrey beard, is, of course, Mr. W. Brown, of the Wellington Working Men's Chess Club. In earlier days the veteran, who still plays a game that no ohampion can afford to despise., swept everything before him. He has brilliant flashes of play even now. and no one would be surprised at his popping into an excellent place. The bluff old gentleman, who looks like a good-natured skipper, and fills a lot of waistcoat, is Mr. Benbow, who has been president of the Association since 1876. His recent fine speech on the origin and growth of chess may be considered the finest delivered on the subject in New Zealand for many years^. * • • Another "frother" is Mr. C. T. Richardson, with patriarchal white hair and beard. He beams benevolently through his "specs," and is an expert chess "lawyer." What he doesn't know about the rules isn't worth worrying about. His aid as an executive officer is most valuable, and he is the happiest-looking man in the crowd. Of course, he isn't playine. which may account for his lack of seriousness. An able executive officer is Mr. E. W. Petherick, whose closecropped head and stalwart form are instantly noticed. He wears ear-rings, and a greenstone pendant six inches long, with a large cats-eye shirt-front stud. He is an architect, and has a look of sturdy independence.

The indispensable secretary is always left until last though why we don't know. The scribe of the congress is Mr. C. W. Tanner, the solicitor, with the twinkling eyes, the pince-nez, and the amused expression. Mr. Tanner won the last Wellington tourney, at which time he probably looked more gloomy than he does in his position as secretary. He tells us that as a destroyer of the home life and a cure for insomnia chess has no equal. Although it is essentially an intellectual game, it is, he believes, rather a handicap, for instead of thinking of business problems the average chess player works out chess pioblems when he should be making money. The public show a keen interest in- the play, and crowd the room at nights. The silence is so profound one could hear a cough drop or a water fall. * * * Mr. James Brackenridge, the champion bowling skip of New Zealand, "dandered back" the other day, from Scotland, just the same old six-and-eightpence that he left us. He went away in the Gothic at the end of May, and he came back in the Tokomaru, and he had haTdly got his traps ashore when he found that the Victoria Club was waiting for him to take charge of its pennant team for the Auckland tournament. James speaks modestly of his travels. He went ashore at Rio, on the way Home, and, failing to discover any bowling greens about the place — thus proving its backward civilisation — ho joined a party of passengers who were intent on seeing the Public Gardens. * * * The military gent, who was on duty at the front gate stuck them up, in a haughty kind of way : "Ye cannot enter here," or words to that effect in onionflavoured Portugee. Why, General? Because you are not in zee proper dress. Well, what's missing, old party? Why, you have not zee cravat mit your — what you call zem — ah, colaires, and it is only zee vagrants, zee 'oodlums, that go about wizzout zee cravats. Plowever, they soon settled his scruples on the score of dress for they tied their handkerchiefs round their necks as cravats, and in this garb were permitted to enter and range through the gardens. The New Zealanders thought it strange that a community which can ezist amid so many stinks as that of Rio should be so punctilious about cravats. « • • Mr. Brackenridge went Home to look up relatives -and old friends, and do a bit of bowling now and' then. His father was hale and hearty when he arnved, but a few days later the octogenarian fell ill, and ten days after his son had reached the old ingleside he passed av r ay. The man from New Zealand, in the course of three and a-half months, saw a good deal of Scottish bowling. He took part in two tournaments — one at St. Rollox (Glasgow), and the other at Wishaw (between Glasgow and Lanark), and also managed to get a good many other games. Altogether, he played 33 games in Scotland, winning 24, and losing only nine. # * * When the Scotch have a bowling tournament on they don't believe in hustling it. They take their time over it, just as they do in playing, their bowls. A tournament will last two or three months, hundreds of players taking part and the matches going forward every afternoon. They don't bother about slippers, either. They charge the public sixpence a head for admission, and lose no points in drawing good "gates." "The New Zealand Champion" was a regular godsend to them. They played the electric light on Mr. Brackenridge. advertised him whenever he was going to play a match, and had the newspaper reporters chasing him around for interviews. * • You will find his picture in the Glasgow "People's Journal," of July 25th, headed with the lines "A Famous Scot-

tish Bowler. The Champion, of NewZealand." And underneath it a sketch ot his career. In fact, James must 'have got a bit tired of the electric light. One day he found himself at Girvan (the home of his fathers), visiting a relative. "Was there a good bowler handy with whom he could have a game?" "00, ay," said his cousin, "I dinna play, ye understan/ but I know a man wha daes." He was taken to the shop of the oldest bowler in the place, a veteran of 82, who carried on a shoemaker's shop. "Man, all play ye masell!" said the aged son of Crispin, and, stooping under his counter, he brought forth his bowls, and led the way to the green, carrying his "bools" in hj.i arms. • * * Mr. Brackenridge keenly watched the semi-finals and finals of the Scottish national championships, and he tells us he came away with the conviction, they could not teach New Zealand anything aI- bowls. The greens are heavier there than here (it was an exceptionally wet season). The favourite shot is a "raker" — a heavy draw ; or "a firm, shot" as it would be called m New Zealand. When.' they drive they drive with all their might. Mr. Brackenridge doesn't like the new rule of the N.8.A., that a player mustn't run after his bowl more than ten feet. • * « "Is a man to staund on his mat like a waux figger?" he asks, with unutterable scorn. "Why, in Scotland— the haine of bowls — every man follows his bowl, as he plays it, right up to the jack-head— leader, second man, measurer, and skip — they all do it. That's the way they learn to bowl, and they would be fairly scandalised if you told them it oouldna be allowed. Ido it, myself," added Mr. Brackenridge, "and where is the man that'll say I've ever kept a tournament waiting ?" • * * Bis old friends and bowling cronies gave the New Zealand champion a real good time in Scotland. A month after his arrival they banquetted him in his native town of Lanark, and they gave him a great send-off too, presenting him with a gold-mounted umbrella and a cigarette case as remembrances. He's not sorry to be "hame again." • • « Mr. George Reid, the eminent freetrader, did not find the Federal electioneering game all beer and skittles this, trip. At one small meeting held by him a mild-looking man mounted theplatform, carrying a light bamboo cane in his hand, and asked to have a few words with the candidate. He was an eld man, and very gentle. The candidate was willing. "That was a very clever speech the candidate made," said the stranger : "very clever, very specious but. gentlemen, do not forget the candidate is a Reid." • « • "This is another," he continued, and held up the stick in his hand ; "and let me tell you the blooming thing's hollow. And, what's more" — he held the bamboo to his eye and levelled it a€ George Reid — "it's darned easy to see through. There's your candidate, gentlemen." He held up the stick again, and then leaned on it a moment so that it broke under him. Then he continued, "There, you see what you have to expect if you trust to a Reid." Then, the old man departed, amidst a howl of laughter that was rather disconcerting to G. H. R. » • • The Countess of Roxburgh, who, until recently, was Miss May Goelet, with the pre-eminent attraction that she possessed five million pounds, is remarkably thin and serious looking. If one were shown' her photograph as beine; that of a much over-worked school-teacher, with £70 a year, one would believe it. His stalwart Grace the Duke is big and stout, and might easily he taken for a shrewd business man. He certainly deserves the right to be considered smart at a bargain.

Mr. Percy Grainger, the pianist who accompanied Miss Ada Crossley, lecentJy walked fifty-six miles in good time (Timaru to Oamaru). He has written about it. It's worth re-prmt-ing — "Leaving Oamaru at five minutes tj two (afternoon), I kept up a four-mile-an-hour bat to Studholme Junction (2£ miles), getting there at nine in the evening. Had a bit to eat at an hotel kept by some Irish people, to whom, on their mentioning musical yearnings, I reeled off a few pieces (on the quaintest piano) — that was the weirdest of the whole tramp, stiff and dusty, to grind away at, that "old" box. Leaving their cheer at 9.30 I then kent straight on till I reached Timaru next morn (Monday) at about six o'clock, a farness of fifty-six miles in all. * • • "I have never imagined anything so agonising as the last twenty miles. Of course. I was neither in training nor walking boots. However, it was an experience, and worth much. The sunup (from about four to six in, the morn) v-as glonously uplifting, salmon-tinting the big verge ranges back of Timaru , ,iuy thing more fairy, faint delicate is not thinkable. Also met some funny human showings on the road — Scotch farmers and so on, and two chaps who insisted on my being a ship's run-away ! Which is as picturesque as the musician's self. « * * Lord Wolseley, one of Britain's famous field marshals, hke most strenuous men who do not caie to live their latter years in idleness, writes books as a recreation. The great soldier makes some notable observations in his "Stones of a Soldier's Life." At this juncture, when the glowing East is calling for notice, a short quotation is apropos — "To me the Chinese are the most remarkable race on earth, and I have always thought and still believe them to be the great coming rulers of the world." May we be well under the sod when John w lelds the sceptre. Lord Wolseley ten years ago was promised speedy death from cancer. He has beaten the old man with the scythe and was, in a great measure, responsible for the plan of campaign in the South African war, although he took no active part. « • * Baden Pow ell, the hero of a thousand piesentations, had another couple of valuables thrust on him the other day bj New Zealanders. Our own New Zealand Agent-General took the chair. Reminds us that Baden-Powell paid the most flattering compliment ever offered b\ a British officer to New Zealanders. Notable, however that Baden at no time had New Zealand troops under his care, although they, with other colonials, helped him out of a hole at Rustenburg. the birth-place of Oom Paul, where he was entrenched. Baden said that the best soldiers in Africa were the "ones with the fern-leaf on their shoulder.*' This, of course, was said at a gathering in Johannesburg, at which King Dick was present. # * ♦ Miss Constance Barnicoat, who, you will lemember, took atrip round New Zealand a while back w ith the intention of finding out something about the denizens of her native land, got back to London, and launched her thunderbolts. She tells people, in an article, the somewhat weary tale about people going to Queensland being given letters of introduction to people living in New Zealand. She says that ladies have to make their own soap, and cure their own bacon. The infant New Zealander, in the eyes of Constance, staggers humanity. "One wonders if they are the worst brought-up children m the world." Miss Barnicoat, being a New Zealand 'brought-up" child, should have some acquaintance with herself. • * * Parental control is absent, she says, and New Zealand children are disrespectful. With the exception, of course, of Constance, colonial women are "presentable," she says , more so than colonial men, and their manners are better. Colonial men, of course, keep their finest manners for ladies. Colonial women, pursues the preceptor, do not manage their men folk well. Now, if Miss Constance but, there! we anticipate. ♦ * * Democracy, asserts the lady 8.A., rules New Zealand. It is "omnipotent, omnivorous, omnipresent." It is incarnated in Mr. Seddon, who regulates the whole of the affairs of the colony, "on the whole wisely." It should be noted that the lady who knows this country is governed wisely is not yet thirty." Our delightful critic waxes warm on the servant-girl question. She scoffs in an aristocratic British way about the young lady who asks the woman who employs her to lend her her bicycle. All domestic business is arranged for the convenience of Arabella Maud. # You remember that Constance spoke previously about our awful ignorance, insularity (which we can't help), and our dieadful lack of the weekly edition of the London "Times" and the solid reviews? Also, how she missed a train, and rode on a milk cart, and how the Lance said she would get back

oa us? The lady launches this as a parting shot :— " New Zealand, in fact, except in certain parts, is no paradise for anyone but the working man : not even a climatic paradise." Poor place as New Zealand is, it has the high honour of having produced Miss Barnicoat. without whose guidance life here would be but a howling waste. Thank goodness, there is a regular mail running between New Zealand and Old England. Mr. W. S. Pascoe, the young man who is at the present time going round flashing electric torches, and giving juvenile shocks with a pocket battery he carries round, is the representative of the Australian Manufacturing and Importing Company, which firm finds that Wellington is the place in which it must have its head office. One of the wonders Mr. Pascoe talks about, and for which the company has obtained the sole rights, is a gas burner that is as cheap as the ordinary one, and gives ai 300-candle power light. # A curious fatality seems to attach to the South African Cronje family. Cabled that Hams of that ilk died of starvation in Western America, "being found with his head on his Bible." Andries Cronje a relative of the Paardeburg general, who was exiled, was shot in the Capetown prison camp for disobeying the order of a "Tommy" sentry. Christian Cronje, of Potchefstroom, was killed by lightning during the war. Stephanus Cronje was thrown from a horse at Langewacht, and sustained a fractured skull, from which he died, and Paul Cronje was buried in Happy Valley prison camp in Ceylon. The afred general, who, by the way, commenced the operations in the first Boer war by a frightful slaughter of troops, who were marching to Pretoria, via Bronkhorst Spruit, with bands playing and rifles stacked on the waggons, isn't finishing up a long fighting career any too happily-