People

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 193, 12 March 1904, Page 3

People

DR. R. Y. Cleveland, the darkeyed young dental surgeon, who ' came along from Chicago just on two years ago, and very soon built up a thriving practice at Fletcher's corner, in Willis-street, has packed up his forceps, and is off to fresh woods and pastures new. He was thinking hard of a trip to see the St. Louis Exposition, and drop in upon the old folks at Home, whom he hadn't seen for many years, when an offer oame along to purchase his practice. That is the genesis of his going. He left on Saturday for Australia, to have a look at Sydney and Melbourne, with a view to putting up his shingle at one or other of these cities when he gets back from St. Louis and Chicago. • * » Dr. Cleveland and his sister (Miss Cleveland) made many friends during their brief stay m Wellington, and left it with much regret. Being used to a city built on a plain, they were not at first wildly enthusiastic over hillchmbmg in the Empire City, but they have long since been reconciled to that, and to our storm-at-sea horse-trams at well. The young Chicagoan has improved a good many mouths, and shifted a lar^e number of toothaches since he came amongst us. Also, two young Wellingtonians — Minogue of Cubastreet, and Harry Pope, a one-time "Post" comp. — have gone to the metropolis of the West with, letters of introduction from Dr. Cleveland in order to study and win diplomas in dental surgery. You may have noticed that the Stars and Stripes which the Chicago doctor used to hang out from his surgery on gala occasions, just to show that Uncle Sam was not objecting, hasn't been in evidence of late. Thereby hangs a little tale. Dr. Jones, the clever young dentist from Virginia, who took a hand in showing Dr. Cleveland round Wellington before himself leaving for Invercargil, was recently married to a Sydney lady. Cleveland got news of the pending event, and wanted to send an appropriate wedding present. So he gathered in his star-spangled banner, and mailed it along to friend Jones, in order that he might, on the festive day, salute "Old Glory" to the strains of "Hail! Columbia." Dr. Cleveland is succeeded in his practice by Dr. Glendining who comes with high credentials as a clever dental surgeon. He is a nephew of the Mr. Glendining who is partner in the old-established house of Ross and Glendinine, and sprang himself from Hawke's Bay. • • • "General" Booth, head of the Salvation Army wants your teeth. He doesn't want them until you are dead, and he doesn't want you to die just to let him have your artificial molars. All he asks is that you bequeath your artificial molars to the Salvation Army in your will, so that the masticators may be sold as brand-new goods to people who still survive. The General's economic soul is aghast at the burial of valuable teeth with useless clay and he calls upon the world to alter all that. It is about the most novel appeal ±o charity heard of up to date, and it makes us shudder. "We'll go on masticating our humble crust with the two fangs nature has left. We don't want Salvation Army teeth which, being left to that insitution by dying philanthropists, have been polshed up to sell as new goods.

"Mr. O'Shea, the new city solicitor, is a busy man. He is a man who doesn't mind being busy. He is also a man who would pine, and perchance evaporate like an oyster, if he didn't work. He isn't exactly the style of man one imagines as typical of a city solicitor, for he is but twenty-six years of age, and looks less. His beauty is of the dark kind, and his short, black hair is very crisp and curly, his complexion boyish, his manner sprightly, and his accent colonial. "Haw" has no place in his vocabulary. f- * * Well what about him? He is the son of his father, who was for many years a law clerk with Messrs. Sievwright and Stout (later Stout, Mond~ and Sim), solicitors, of Dunedin, and was rather too busy to swat fer examinations. Young O'Shea, always busy too, found time to perfect himself scholastically, and! to chase the leather, for in 1898 he came to Wellington' in the Otago representative team of footballers. It doesn't matter about the examination papers that went down in the Mataura, and prevented him winning his M.A. degree before the patriarchal age of twety-one, or about his getting first-class honours and his LL.B. degree two years, later, or how he went into the office of Mr. J. A. Hislop (brother of our Hon. "Tom," and got four years' court practice. * * • Although so distinguished a scholar, Mr. O'Shea now takes no interest in academical matters, and there is no question that he won't have any time. The City Council wants a sharp legal eye on it in the opinion of the Lance, and the twinkling optic of Mr. O'Shea is sharp. Mr. O'Shea is exuberantly youthful, and full of vim. When the Lance asked him to tell it about the race he won at the City Council sports, he exploded in merriment. His youthful enthusiasm hasn't begun to get wilted yet, and it is "up to" the Council not to do anything extraordinarily foolish that will dim his eye and silver his ebon locks. „ „ * * * a Ex-constable Timothy O'Rourke, who is Irish has oust retired from the police force, but stays in, Otaki, where he has been loved like anything for over fifteen years. Tim has been, a policeman for twenty-one years. One time the Government called for a "return" of his services. Thought Tim wasn't doing enough for his money may be. He held nine important billets, and a mixture of little ones, has an accent you can chop with an axe. and is very black-eyed and very stern. His Wellington friends — and enemies — will be grlad to hear that he isn't leaving Otaki. for he has been made clerk of the court in that salubrious town. * * * Miss Gertie* Miller, who obtained special mention in the recent examinations for school teachers for having obtained the highest marks in the Wellington provincial district for her paper on English History, is a daughter of Mr. , William Miller, well-known in oommer- ' cial circles, and a past master at the gentle art of kissing the "kitty." Miss Miller who last year received an appointment on th© staff of the Terrace School, has so far had a fairly successful scholastic career. She received her early education at the Terrace School, under that sound dominie, Geo. MacMorran, and, after passing with credit the public school scholarship examination, she went to Miss Sheppards Brougham Hill School, to be finished off. Here she carried off various prizes, eventually passing the matriculation examination which, under the new regulations, will qualify her for a "D" certificate. Her present success speaks well for the thoroughness of the educa^tion imparted by Miss Sheppard and her staff of teachers, and is also creditable to Mr. Wm. Foster, whose coaching classes she attended during a portion of last year.

The Hibernian element in Wellington was rather stronger last week than usual. Our curiosity was excited, and when Michael J. Sheahan, of Auckland, loomed above the horizon, we asked him the ca.use thereof, knowing that, as a Jay Pee, he' would give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was merely the Northern delegates of the Hibernian Catholic order getting home again from the recent Grand Lodge or District Court meeting, at Timaru, where, it appears, the brethren had ''a great toime intoirely." In fact, everybody that was anybody in Timaru went down to the railway station to see them safely off, and a traveller by the express, noticing that something unusual was afoot, rushed to the station-master to find out if King Dick was aboard the tram. * * * Mr. Michael J. Sheahan is the Grand Treasurer of the Order, and a fitter man to carry the purse could not easily be found. In Auckland he is just as well known as the town clock, and a good deal more reliable. Ruo-by football is hi^ special hobby, and he is one of the pillars of the sport in Auckland. Although he doesn't kick the leather himself, he has been "on the ball" ever since he first started to barrack for the blue and white, which is a good many years ago now. • * * Mr. Sheahan is quite convinced there are no points in striking Picton in the "wee sma' hoors ayont the twal." He was persuaded by some sight-seeing brethren to look in at Blenheim on the way home. Also, he allowed himself to be driven from Blenheim to Picton by nigh <- to catch the steamer for* Wellin~+on. But, never no more. It was two o'clock m the morning when Michael and District Secretary Kane w ere dumped down on Picton. There was no brass band waiting to receive them, nor any reception committee of citizens. P.eton was in the arms of Murphy — not even a hotel light visible. And Brother Sheahan was dog-tired. If you had chanced along just ten minutes later, you would have found the Grand Treasurer of the New Zealand Hibernians fast asleep on a hotel door-step, and the Grand Secretary patiently mounting guard to see that no prowling Robert ran the sleeper in for vagrancy. It says much for Brother Kanes tenacity of purpose that, while Michael's "forty winks" lasted two solid hours, he saw him through it. It was 4.30 a.m. before their steamer showed up. * * * Massey-Watson, who briefly scintillated in the incandescent radium of publicity, and who was the darling of Auckland society, filed his schedule, shouldered his shovel, and went "gumming" up North. Now he has relinquishthe gum - spear, and was last heaid of attired magnificently in a bell - topper and frock coat, with a red tie, carrying a swag in the Bay of Plenty district. It appears that the pseudo-aristocrat (who, however, doesn't use aw — oulchawed English) is looking for harvesting. * • • Claude Bantook, the large-sized serio-comic, who made such a "hit" in Wellington months ago, as the Celestial papa in " San T<w " worked off a good joke during the progi ess of the England v. Victoria cricket match the other day. Just now his Rajah of Bhong is one of the features in "A Country Girl," at Melbourne, and when Claude arrived at the cricket pa*vilion a smart young man-about-town asked the deeply ineresting question, "Well, Banty, how's the 'Country Girl' going. Houses still good, eh?" Banty never moved a hair. "Rather," he replied, "We're introducing a new sonor to-night, 'Mother's Little Garden Roller' — d'you know how it goes?" "No " replied the smart young man eagerly. And the company simply 1 oared as "Banty" said ouietly, "You push it!"

Methodist parson Cocker, who was sorrowfully farewelled in Wanganui the other day, and who has now brought ft li - smiling countenance to Wellington, is a "good old sort." Nobody could po&sibly have taken Mr. Cocker seriously when, years ago, in the North of England, he threatened to become a parson. We feel sure that this wellliked minister is liable at any time to bieak out dancing or singing comic sona;s. and we know he has a sense of humour in keeping with his physiognomy, which is of the professional comedian type. He is a thick-set, bulletheaded, little man, with short hair, and a brief, spikey moustache, and he speaks with a strong North of England "burr." * ♦ # He admits being interested in sport, and he waves a facile pen with much inky humour. He isn't a puling parson, and he hasn't much time for the Stiggins type of parson. He is emphatically a parson who says, exactly what coaiscience piompts him to say in an emphatic way. Mr. Cocker impressed us thus when he, as secretary to the Methodist Conference came to Wellington a year or so back. Wellington gains by his removal, and Wanganui is sorry for itself. * * • Mr. W. H. Morton, the alert, up-to-date young engineer, from Sydney, who gathered in the billet of Wellington City Engineer against many applicants, is getting into his stride nicely. Mr. Morton is a man of fine appearance, well set up, and intellectual looking. Commonly, he carries a serious expression becoming in one who has tangled skeins to unravel, but. interested, the change of expression is very striking. He smiles all over, as if it did him good. Ho has never until he assumed his present position been out of Australia and has for twenty-one years been an engineer entirely devoted to his profession. In the early days the elder Morton put vi many years in New Zealand, and, in fact, carried a musket against the Maoris. His son, if appearance goes for anything, is self-reliant, and an excellent type of Australian manhood. He is saying very little at present, but is full of enthusiasm, and is convinced that J^ew Zealand is a very good place to dump one's swag in. * * • Auckland seems to grow life-saving ladies without trouble. Miss> M. A. Mays of Devonport, recently dived into the harbour and rescued a drowning girl. As the lady was fully clothed, and had to go down deeply for the disappeared girl, the task was heavy. Also, sue carried her ashore on her back. Miss Mays ia the daughter of the late Oliver Mays, one tame Mayor of Devonport, and an old identity. Her bi other Jack, to whom there is a monument at "The Shore," was killed in an accidental shell explosion during the African war. * • * At the funeral obsequies of the late Henare Tomoana, at Napier King Dick again repeated his oft-made assertion, "as, at present, the head of the colony." Some of these days Kint^ Dick will give the ruling Governor a show. * * ♦ E. M. Smith, Esq., M.H.R. for lion- \ sand, has been giving Wellington ' an air of respectability during the last few days. There is a decided change in the poetical personage, for he now wears a tie, a beauty-enhancer that he most frequently scorns. He still has the gold watch-chain and the Greenstone and the white waistcoat, and it is rumoured he has been seen to advance ia skirmishing order on to the stacks of Belgian rails in our streets, and strike them with his stick in anger, hissing at the same time, "Traitors to Taranaki." Coming down WillisLStreet last Friday morning, one citizen whispered to another, 'Who's the swell ?" "Don't you know? That's the German Prince you read about in the Lance !"

His Excellency the Governor is an Irish gentleman, and therefore he is, by biith and association, permitted to exercise his national aptitude for making bulls. His Excellency is a careful and good speaker. To give due weight to his matter, he übually writes it. At the big Skating Rink meeting held last week under the auspices of the Navy League, Lord Ranfurly assured the dense crowd that "standing still is a retrograde movement." Many may have heard the "bull," but were too lespectful to laugh at vice^royalty. One Scotchman, however, was observed to be chuckling immoderately. He had found a threepeany-bit under the seat. * * * E. Horneman, ex-secretary to Mr. Hall-Jones and to the Health Department, has had a very short innings as manager of the Home for Consumptives at Cambridge, saj'S the "Observer." No reason is given for his resignation. It is known that at the time of his transfer from Wellington he was not in the best of health, but one would have thought that the clear, fine air of the Maungakawa hills would have braced him up. Possibly, the life is too dull. The population of the locality, outside the nurses and patients at the Home, consists chie a - of deer; and sfalkmeis not much of a diversion to a man who lives there. » * * Mr. John Erasmus, who was formerly managing clerk to Mr. E. G. B. Moss, M.H.R. for Ohinemuri, and a barrister, is now in Capetown, and he has beeai keeping his eyes very wide open. The boai ding-house he put up at in the Caoe Colony capital was a remarkable sample. The landlord opened negotiations with the whisky bottle, which "Jack" despises. Also, invited him successively to games of "two up" and 'Crown, and Anchor," a chance "sport" brought by "Tommy" to Africa. * * # A few of Mr. Erasmus's opinions — •'The Political Labour League, engineered by Gordon, a New Zealander, has a chance to hold the balance of power. lam helping it secretariat^." ''They might as well put the country up to auction as to hand it over to Dr. Jim." "Anti-Chow Labour League meetings at Johannesburg are being broken up by hired starvelings, at 15s per night. The Kaffirs are takinc their ousting from the Rand mines yerv seriously They hold mass meetings in the streets, and are generally frenzied at the injustice of being offered Is a day or nothing, and threaten openly to 'do things' if the Chow is permitted." * # * "Lord, send us back Kruger, the crusty to deal with the magnates. To the Chow advocate he would say "No," and no bullion could make him say '"Yes." "Africa is agonising. Thousands of whites staivmg and swearing, frozen out by Cape boys and cheap Continentals. Australians are scraping roads cheek and jowl with Kaffiis at 4s a day." * * * King Dick, sad to say isn't the lecord Piemier of the Empire after all. Although he has passed Honest John Forrest, and is still going very strong, the late Sir John Macdonald held office as Premier of the Dominio i of Canada for seventeen years. This is the rceord. However, there is more than seven years' "go" in King Dick \et. * * * Marie Corelh, the novelist, sued male novelist Fred. Winter a while ago for making a mis-statement in regard to the claims of Shakespeare and herself to be considered the greater person. Marie won her case. She was awarded damages — a farthing. Mr. Winter sent the money to Marie, but Marie referred him to her solicitors, who were authorised to receive the amount. They returned it to him, suggesting that, as a well-known philanthropist, the sum would be useful. He handed it to the Stratford Hospital. However, the farthinor has really been, the basis of a very handsome subscription-list for people have been attracted to philanthropy by the novelty of the first gift. * • * Did you meet His Serene Highness Prince Bernhard of Hanover when he was in Wellington? No? You know he left us by the Gothic, which sailed last Friday morning. Well, the dear man was not devoid of humour. We heard the other day that he told one of our own merchant princes, who called upon him, that he had met one good "choke" in New Zealand — and even it uas made in Germany. At least, it vras of German make. The landlord of a certain accommodation house that he stopped at one night, on the overland iourney from Rotorua to the Empire City, was a German Jew. He was filled with pride and glory when he heard a real Teuton Prince was under his roof, and he wanted His Gracious Goodness to understand he was German too. So, when he went deferentially forward with the lager beer, he blurted out. "Your Highness is Sherman, I believes. Goot! I also am Sherman, for I vas born in Shermany yen I vas em leetle boy. Dat ist zo.^' Ho really looked quite hurt when the Prince and the Consul exploded in laughter.

"Prophet Elijah" Dowie seems to have come upon the earth for his second spell with a waspish tongue and a funous temper. Calling all Methodists liars in his Zion Tabernacle address, at Melbourne, last Friday, is a mere commonplace, everyday sort of thing with him. The pressmen catch it far hotter than even the Mehodists. Heie is a choice slab from the piophet's 'Leaves of Healing" — "I would rather keep my intellectual corpulency than to be like the lazoi -backed literary swine I see around me at these press tables to-night, who are wallowing in the mire of their own mendacity aad malignity. You are not even fat pigs, you are razor-backed pigs wolfish pigs, with the ferocity of wild boais. When did I become afraid of a sw arm of mosauitoes and flesh-flies and literary hce?" * * * Whereupon, one of these awful press people pertinently asks. — "Where has Elijah been, and what awful soit of company has he kept since he boarded the fiery chariot ? Nice sort of place he must have been putting up at all these years to pick up expressions like that. What would Ehsha think of him if he could hear him now?" It seems that Elijah of the Purple Wings is a native of South Australia, although now he boasts of being a free American citizen — vide his threat the other day to the Commissioner of Police at Melbourne. As a boy, he served in an Adelaide grocery. When he grew up he married his cousin, the daughter of an Adelaide' bootmaker. One of his cousins is said to have been in the money-lending business, but that is small potatoes compared with moneyniaking at Zion. Dowie's legatees are to take five per cent, on Zions assets w r hen he dies. As he values them at £4,500,000 who can doubt that he is strong on the "Prophets," whichever way you spell them? Mr. William Harris, of Christchurch (lather of Mrs. Arthur Blanchard, of Wellington), who died the other day, did more than any other man towards bringing the Cathedral Oitv right up to date in the means of fire prevention. He was superintendent of the Christchuroh Fire Brigade from 1865 till 1882. and was the means of introducing the steam and chemical fire-engmes possessed bv that city, as well as the electric fire alarm. He also built up a large boot business, helped to found li c Mutual Benefit Building and Investment Association, and was a director of the Kaiapoi Woollen Company, the Canterbury Tramway Company, and the Westport-Cardiff Coal Company. Singularly enough, he is the third ex superintendent of the Christchurch Fire Brigade to die within the last eleven months.

Poor old Oom Paul! The Boer great one is dying. The execrated ex-Presi-dent of the ex-Dutch republic was lookei' up to as something to be almost worshipped. Paul Kruger in real life was uglier than his photos, and was topical of one class of Boer. Everybody in Africa quotes him as the most fearless man the Dark Continent knew. The lion hunter, the Kaffir fighter, the statesman, the implacable foe, the simple pietist. The British nation clamoured for his head during the boodling campaign. Men who wanted hjs head then-a-days aver that he is wanted as head again. The nation ed at his prophecy that the war would stagger humanity but humanity staggered all the same. And, the place where Tantje Kruger dispensed coffee is now an hotel, the place where Oom Paul dispensed justice is now an arsenai • and the broken ex-president a mental wreck. We have to be cruel to be kind. Are we kind? Let the Africander say. * * * Tom Mann is very small potatoes at present with the Auckland "Star." The "Star," doubtless concluding that it was a fact that Tom had given, up agitating and had become a peacefus Cincinnatus, calls him "that incendiary agitator, Mr. Tom Mann." As Melbourne Trades Hall has letained the services of Tom it may be classed under the head of "ignorant and discontented wage earners," as per "Star" • —"No doubt the half-crazy diatribes of such moborators have produced some impression upon the more ignorant and discontented of the Australian wage-earners." It is a> pretty safe game to pelt stones at a distant man. * * * Soft and silky Japan, where the chrysanthemums wave and the girls smile slit-eyed love-lights at one, isn't all that the fancy of people who haven't seen it paint it. A literary person, who has just returned from the quaint country, says —"I have been spending much time in Darkest Tokio of late, and the microscopic misery to be found there would make a story appalling to those who fancy that Japan is nothing but swaying lanterns and softly-fallmg cherry bossoms. Buying and selling is conducted on such an infinitesimal scale among these submerged wretches that the sum of sixpence will provide a handsome stock for a hawker in popular lines of food."