All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 204, 28 May 1904, Page 3

All Sorts of People

MR. La Trobe, M.A., successor to Mi . Riley, as director of the Wellington Technical School, has been m England for ten years — and it hasn't htu t him. He speaks English in the unencumbered way adopted by educated pei sons m New Zealand, and all his Cambridge culture hasn't-^-as it is alleged is common — made him. stand aloof from the mere man who has had but the State school to teach him. His college was St. John's. We asked the lengthy scholar if it was true that poverty was a ciime, and colonials unwelcome or despised at CaanbnMgie. He looked down at our smallness from his seventy-four inches, and pitied us. "Cambridge University is more democratic than America, or any institution that calls itself democratic." • * • Befoie he went Home, Mr. La Trobe was a pupil at the Paiterairugi School (in the Waakato), of which, his brother was fceaid-teaiohei. While there he won a State school schola.i'ship, and 1 took it out" at the Auckland Grammar School. Subsequently, this stalwart son of a Waikato farmer went Home "on his own" to Cambridge- He was a highlytrained mathematician before he went Home, and when he entered Cambiidge lie had no difficulty in romping into honours, and was a long way up the ti-ipos - paper in mechanical science, with an M.A. degree, in two years. About that M.A. degree. It's misleading. The average person imagines that a "Master of Arts" is a person who has grasped all the learning lying around. As a matter of fact, at Cambridge, according to Mr. La Trobe, he "simply pays has thirty pounds, and waits three years" — having, of course, previously previously been made a B.A. He "grafts" for his B.A. • • • After he secures his B.A. degree, he may rest, and forget all he knows if he wants to as long as he is in residence. It is the student's special passes in specific subjects that are the guide to his scholastic achievements. As everyone knows, there 1 are m&n at Cambridge from all over the earth. There were Boers at St. John's during the war. As a matter of fact, young Van Zyl was president of the Debating Union while his two brothers were getting Taid^out per Lee-Enfield in Afrioa. Fischer, son of the celebrated; Boer delegate, was also in residence. • • • Foi seven years past Mi . La Trobe has been a lecturer at the Engineering Laboratoiy at Cambridge. It as a University institution, separate from any college. Here most of the men who take their course are sons of the great engineers and iron-masters of England. The piofesskm is leaping ahead at «i great rate. John Bull is just about as keen on the matter of keeping pre-eminence in the profession as in other things, but he doesn't howl it to till the world in black, leaded headlines. • * « Mi La Trobe has done much private "coaching. " He says the spirit of snobbishness is absolutely absent at Cambridge. Colonials hold their own at the universities too well to be "sat on," even if bounders abounded. There is no rivalry between the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge except in spoit, and colonials are pretty frequent in the "eights." the "elevens," and the "fifteens." Mr. La Trobe's scholastic

caaeer is &uigularly like that oi Pioiessor McLaurin. Both, were Auckland, country boyo, both State-school sehoilarship winners, botli Auckland Gianunar School pupils, and both Cambndge men. * ♦ •» "Plum" Warner, journalist and cmcket skipper, has a pretty wit. Perhaps, you've read what he wiote about lai rikumsm. in Sydney. Perhaps not. Here are chunks . — "The big cricket of the wo i Id is becoming very serious. This is what might have happened on Saturday. An official lushed tq the telephone, and rang up the War Mjuiister acioss the wire., and this took ptooe . 'Send troops.' 'What for?' 'International match now on ; crowd on hill armed to the teeth with umbiellas, bottle®, melon-skins', and rude language, advancing determinedly on the wicket. Three policeman and ground-man's dog doing good work. Umpires Giockett and Arga.ll retreating to the mountains.' This is what might have been. V- * * "Thais is what it will certainly come to. — 'A cable has been leceived stating that the English cricket team has left London for Australia, accompanied by a complete army corps. General Fiench is in command, and the opinion is freely expressed that this time, at any rate, the cricketers will be adequately piotected. Several batteries of new German Maxim guns go out with the troops, atnd they are expected very effectually to sweep the hill om the Sydney Cricket Ground.' *• * * "Coming after the umpire dispute, the ordinary 'larrikin' had! it firmly screwed in the back of his ignorant skull that I had 'squared' the umpires , indeed, I received two anonymous Letters to that effect this marmng. Then, when play did start they yelled, andl shouted at every ball — and there were 35,000 people looking on — they chanted 'Crock,' 'Crock ' 'Ci ook/ and advised the umpires to get i-eady their coffins and inquired 'how much did you pay them, Warner <" * -r * "Then, they tried to baulk Rhodes by shouting 'one, two, three,' in timei with the Yorkshireman's stride up to the wickets, thouefh this probably disconcerted the batsman more than the bowlei. Yes, they are a lovely crowd at Sydney, and any one who has taken part in a test match in Sydney may consider himself thoroughly salted, and fit to play befoie an audience from the infernal regions. As Albeit Knngiht says, 'The howling of the crowd reminds one of the dog Cerberus barking at the gates of hell.' " • • • Dr. McCarthy, the man who did not make raan in Broken Hill, is at it again. He threatens to cause a fall of two indies of rain at Hay (New South Waies) whenever the next, drought comes along. The next drought at Hay will come alone in about October, and will stay until' February or March. Hay is so dry that the streets of the httile town craoble into big gaps. The wind blows the grass off the Murrumbidgee flats for hundreds of miles, and piles it in heaps against the fences. The- wild birds become tame, and staereer into human habitations with opem bills out of the sun. ♦ • • At Hay, the beer trade is the only tJ/ne; with any life in it. Sweat and °oitow are the prevailing features The Murrumbidgee dwindles dfown to a seiies of pathetic mud-holes, and the that live on its banks get bogged therein If Dr. McCarthy can wet that country he's worth the £500 he asks. Ji ib a country that can't even be irrigated, for the river itself gets thirsty and fly-blown Let us hope the corpulent doctor — do you remember him when he lived) on the Adelaide Road? — will make Hay while the sun shines. Heigh -ho I

The late Nellie Farrem amid! tibie late Phil Miay weie great chums, and during the visit of the Leslhe JFaaii em Gaiety Company to Australia Phil practically lived with the company. He made some splendlild .drawiruss of the unrivalled }>uiiilasque. piair in Melbourne, and these will (gossips Melbourne! "Punch") last' longer than the fame of Nellie Fairem. At a picnic, attended 1 by tihe Gaieties, Phil drew a lively sketch of Nellie on am envelope, using a popular politician's belil-topper ais a desk. After looking at it for a/ while, Nellie said : "If I look as sraiairt and saucy and' smappy as that, 1 doln't wonder at the gads loving me." • • • The Hon. Kennedy Macdonald, at a social function the other night, admitted that Legislative Councillors weae a sleepy lot. Many of them were men of advanced ace. The drowsiness, however had been induced by the "ventila/tion" of the "Lords' " chamber, which supplied foul air. The air had' been taken in hand, and 1 was now pure, consequently the councillors were quite likely to wake up during the coming session. He himself sits in a draughty spot, consequently his work will probably be of a brilliant oi'der. All oouneiHors, however, aie not Kennedy Macs. Still, enthusiasm and a general joyousness are "catching." • • • Mi. J. H. Williams, of Wellington? is smiling still. He is the largest shareholder in. thi& Wellington Steam Ferry Coimi>any, allso the miamJagmg director thereof, is a man of wealth, and is as well known as the town clock. Likewise, he is the som of tihe. late Captain Williams and the beneivolemt lady who gave £7000 for the erection of the Missions to Seamen new building. A telegram aarivecL for Mr. Williams the other day. It was aidsdiressed to Feafcheirsifcosnstreet. DaufokUeiss, the telegjrapJi boy miade a search). It eventually got to Mr. Williams. In a, boyish hiand appeiars th© ead'orsiemenrt, "Told that he works ait the Steam Ferry Company." • • ' » Mr. Eudo L'Estrange, recently a "boss" in the employ of the Public AVorks Department at Taihape, went Home to England last week. It isn't often that navvie& rise to> the occasion, hut Eudo's men presented' him with a purse of sovereigns, and Mr. Joey Ivess the wielder of a local inkpot, eulogised him in no measured way. Mr. L'Esitranige has had a career. He is the son of a British officer of high rank. He has wandered in South America, ranched in Canada, trekked in Africa (previous to the Cape Colony Premier's little raid), and fought against revolting blacks in the "grave of reputations," and was a troopei in the Cape Police. • ♦ • Coming to New Zealand, Mr. L'Estiange joined the Government service, fought through the last Boer war as a non. -com., and subsequently as a warrant officer. By the good offices of influential people he was given a commission in the Transvaail police, which he held for a few days only, rejoining the New Zealand forces. Related of him that some of the navvies at Taihape committed a misdemeanour on one occasion. (They do queer things a,t Taihape.) Mr. L'Estrange, possibly forgetting that he was no longer a ser-eeant-maior, ordered them to "fall in," numbered them, stood them to attention, and severely lectured them. • • • It says something for the discipline of the "navigators" that they stood it. But they dearly love a ioke. One navvy of the gang asked Mr. L'Esfcrange to carry a letter to his father in Enp-land. The promise was given. The address disclosed was to a very prominent military official in high command. Would h© (the father of the navvy) be good enough to let Mr. L'Estrange have any shootincr that might be obtained on his estates p Takes all sorts to make a t. orld — or railway tracks.

"Hearts of Gold" "Will Ogilvie, whose verses bite deep into the marrow of tilings Australian, lias been living on poetry 111 his native Scotland. _ The tunefutl singer is going to America to grasp a more or less serious journalistic pen for a Yankee daily. • • • Mr. C. M. Gray, the modest mayor of the sinless city of the South — Christchuroh — does not keep a large staff of household, servants. He has no chambermaid. A gentleman, from faroff America has addressed 1 a letter to that person, telling her that a recent shuffling of the stars by his family astrologer revealed the fact that he was her fate. Would she be good enough to relinquish the post of chambermaid to the Mayor, and to order her trousseau? He would meet her in New York in three months' time. In the ni( antime, he would get his. house in the "Rookies" thoroughly renovated. He begged, to remain, her prospective husband, Hiram D. Van Bechner. Now, couldn't some nice girl, on the look out for dollars become Mr. Gray's chambermaid for the time beimgP • • • The Rev. L. M. Isitt, although chiefly engaged in helping to put down tihe accursed der-r-rmk m the Old Country, finds time to do a good turn for New Zealand. Thus, according to the "Stirling Journal," of Apiil 1 (auspioious date), he has delivered a lecture to the prisoners in Duke-street Prison, Glasgow, on "New Zealand, its dimate, geography, animal life, possibilities of employment, rates of wages, etc." Very kind of Mi-. Isitt to take such an interest in our welfare. TeetotaJism, no doubt, prevails in the Duke-street Prison, but New Zealand isn't exactly hankering after a flock of gaol-birds from Glasgow, or anywhere else. As iAxe Stirling paper remarks: "The fortunes of the sunny Britains of the South are surely at a low ebb when the prisons are being searched for emigrants." Mr. Isitt's kindness is positively killing. • • • Nikola. Testa, the famous inventor, opines he cam stand on Greenland, or anywhetre else up that way, and talk to a man at say the Gulf of Carpentaria. He says 1 he has found, that the earth is a conductor of limited idimiensrions, and that it is possible to faintly impress upon the whole world at one time the impression of osnie person's voice. He is gomng to magnify the impression. TTia little programme is to talk toi the world from his two hundred feet tower m America,. • • • He reckons that it will destroy all nJewspapeirs. If you hear Roosevelt's voice booming through the town some fimei morning, don't be alarmed. "Teddy" won't have left America, but his Teslated voice will have. If all the hoarse-voiced conrespomdeaita of all the centres of the world, get to yelling the secrets of the earth all ait one time we are in for a disturbing period. The Czar will be aible to call out from St. Petersburg to Tokio 1 to know what the fur-ooateld Cossalck the insoknt f<*& means by their cowardice in hitting a fed low twice his own size. We're in for a lively time if Tesla triumphs. • • • Judge Edwards is ai democrat. Th© other day, at Gisborne, a witness cleared his throat, struck an attitude, and, says he- "Well, it's like this, yer Lordship — " The judge mildly suggested that he wasn't a law lord. He sand' he didn't mind being called 1 'Tour Worship." Considering that a J.P. is emtitled to the expression of adoration, we should think not, indeed. His Honor also stated that even learned counsel often made him a lord, but he didn't want to be promoted 1 . You may take it from us that counsel who aidctress a New Zealand iudeje that way is either trying; to flatter his vanity, or emdteavourins; to inmpress upon the heathen multitude that he has been used to giving his opinion before the lords of th<* Unw at 'Ome.

When we heard that the new daiectoi of the Wellington Technical School wab to be welcomed, we imagined that same lepresentiajtive. educationists were about t> gather loumd the convivial lemonade, drink his health, shake him by the hand, and! sing a song to ham. Nothing of the kind. The occasion was a solemn ouie. Two rows and a-haJf of gentleimiem with bulgy foieheads, and about two-thirds of a row of ladaes, with the utmost solemnity listened for two liouis to speeches bristling with learning Mi La Trobe, used to the gaze of critical eye\ turned not <i hair, but modestly looked at the naih on the floor in the lecture-ioom of the Technical School. • * ' » The Rev. W. A. Evans laid especial stiess on the help Mr^. La Tiobe would bo to her gifted and stalwart husband. 110 kne.w fiom personal experience that the wife-half of a paitnership ort en times made the. success of the husband-half. This was an opportunity not to be missed by that personification of Cupid, His Worship the uniniocent Mayor. He said sumethang about his being a poor oild bachelor. The Lance was thmk-ng that the mayoral mind was working samethtiirig in this fashion "I'm a large, r-aHght, luminous success just as I aim in one half. Now. if I were -joined by another half, we should! be the greateat, success as a mayor the oity ever saw." A soft ejaculation from a nearby vouma men. "Dear old) Cupid!" brought down a bit of the house. * * * Mr. La Trobe himself was fittingly solemn. He read a paper several daily paper columns long, describing miam-p Home technical schools from the ground floor to the Butish ensign floating on the top. The only smile m it was when he remaiked that on one flooi of the Manchester Polytechnic they madei "very good beer." Here he- looked ait Prohibitiomist Cha,umani Evaais, and was scathed with a shocked expression fro.tr His Worshio We believe Mr. Lai Trobe does not anticipate teaching the brewing ait in Wellington. • • • The late Lord Augustus Loftus. a man of some eminence, and once Goveinor of New South Wales, was a eieat diplomatist. He wasn't any kind of a success as a saver of coin. Hi« estate panneid out at £298. A New Zealand tiaidesman would scomi to die so poor. • ♦ » Archdeacon Eyre, Vicar of Sheffield, is terse, if not polished. He says — 'The unoer classes of England aie nndeirmiined with filth. Every man seems to be neiorhmg aftei his neiehboui 's wife. It is one of the most foul things on the face of the earth." * * * Mr. O'Shea, the retiring young -na-i who is doing his best to steer the Corporation clear of legal difficulties as its solicitor, doesn't exactly wear his hcemse im his hat. In fact, he doesn't wear a hat as a rule. When the young fellow . with the thick boots and the cap pulled well down over his pipe, boards a oar, he doesn't say "I'm the city sohcitotr; I have no ticket, unhamd me, vililaiii." He subsides into a. seat, and listens to the ti am-lawyer's injteroreta tion of the statutes, his own ability, and many interesting tilings. The people of Wellington naturally think that so exalted a position should be held by a grizzled veteran, with mutton-chop whiskers, and a hasrd face. They dom't know that the boyish-looking stranger, with the freslh complexion a.nd the curly ha ; r who is talking football, is anything; more seiious tbfcn the man next to him, who wears a thiee-inoh collar and addresses envelopes for a living. • » * The. late Sam Parkes, the "walking delegate," who died in Sing Sing Pnfeon, New York, was an unedu cated "tough," from County Down, Irelamd. Sam's way of arguing with any person who did not agree with him was to "gave h-m a belt on the jaw to clear hib mind." * * * Victorian Piemier "Tommy "Bent, although described' as a "political mountbank." and all that sort of thing, struck a good idea when he insisted that unemployed sent into the country should sign an agreement to pay wives half then wages. Tommy pointed out that m countless oases the housefather cleaied out, and the philanthropic societies stepped in and kept the family he had left. Australia, as you know, is the home of the expertest class of "bummer" in the universe. * * * The tearful and starving working man who is given work, and who consumes the proceeds in beei while the Salvation Aimy assists his T\ife, is one of the commonest kind. There are thousands of lost husband's in the Australian bush, wrecks of respectability, and thieves through the pockets and 1 the philanthtopyofthe public, and the said public's money. In one dajv within oui memory the Bathui st (New South Wales) police collected fifty-six men, none of whom had earned a penny for over a year, and none of whom would take work if offered.

Mr. J. Grattan Grey, foimerly of the New Zealand "Hansaid" staff, has, just been made a vice-president of the United. Irish League at Perth, Western AustraJia. And Jie is also wielding the edlrtorHail thunder of the West Austiaham '•Record," th& Catholic weekly of Perth. # Detective Maddern ought to be a successful novelist. What an eye he has for sensational effects ? Told the jury in, a cairgo-broaching case up in Auckland the other day that the life of a lumper who "split" on his mates would not be worth a modest "thrum." Somebody wo<uild b& sure to drop a bale of goods on top of him, or jam his head with a case. Maddern must, ha.ye been talking in a course of blood and thunder diama. aifc the Auckland theatres during the recent saturnalia of melodrama. Or perhaps he is a lively subject Yes, that's it — sluggish liver. British or coiloniall lumpers are* not. given to taking life after the fmtive methods of the Italian bravo or the Mafia gang. By the way, this cargo pilferiner, thouisrh, seems to be quite a legular business The Union. S.S. Company lost £1500 last year through it. • • ♦ Hi*. Excellency the Governoi will leave behind him something to remember him by for all time if he is able to institute the scheme he favours foi the instruction oi Nen Zealand youngsters in ImpeiKil maitteis. His Excellency, at Auckland, intimated that youngsteis should know something of the news of the day. The Lance long ago iema.iked that an intelligent knowledge of j><ifisiiis r events should be gleaned by youngsters in school bv the use of the newspapeis a-s ' school books." There i& no doubt that the average youngstei does not connect his pai 1 ot-loai nt geogi aplncal knowledge of say Thibet with the "nusfcion" that is teaching the heatnen of that pait to be kind and fijontle Christians like the "miBsioneis." Newsnajper reading is dull enough to a youngster, but the contents could be mtoestinglv dished up bv the lectuier. In shoit, Loid Ranfuilv's scheme of mstiuction in this paiticulai field of knowledge would foim the bnghtest in the school cnmcnliun.

One thousand pounds foi nothing' Where 3 Davis and Clatei's, so we understand. That hustling fiim intend giving to purchaseis of men's weaa who lsit their new pieimses hbei a] discounts until the sum of £1000 has been expended. Until the 30th of June, any customer may have his share of the cash. The enterprise of the firm cannot fail of it= leward.