All Sorts Of People

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 242, 18 February 1905, Page 3

All Sorts Of People

ifIHEY say that Victor Tiumper, */ I the champion batsman of Austra- ■** ha, is one of the most shy and retiring of men. He dislikes extremely the hero-worship to which he is subjected on the other side. He iuiis a little slhop m Market-stieet, Sydney, and is accustomed to get there and home again by way of the back streets. It seems he can't appear m the busier streets without hearing at every turn the stage-whispei , "Theie goes Trumper," and getting stared out of countenance. The man who acquirer fame with the bat or the ball over hi Sydney or Melbourne has reached the topmost height of ambition. Premiers, Archbishops, and even prize-figh/tens aie fan- beneath him in popular estimation. * * ♦ Seed is leaving us. A few people will be glad, but most of us will grieve, for the man who practically 01gani&ed a campaign against cruelty m Wellington has gloried in his work, the mere lact of has services to the Society foi the Prevention of Cruelty to Animak being paid for with £2 a week for the past six yeats not having dammed his enthusiasm. Mr. Seed's story is sad. One by one be lost has familv — foui sous and a daughter. Last year he went to his home in England for a holiday, with his wife, who al&o had been a devoted friend 1 to dumb animals. Mrs. Seed died after but a foitmght at Home. And so, ac he says, he is "a ship without a ruddier," and will go Home to live, returning only should he feel disposed just to renew acquaintance with the people he worked with. *-<Even befoie Mr. Seed donned the unafoim which the society recently invested him with, he was so well known to carters and others that has presence often cieated a mild panic. He oared nothing for profane carters oti surging crowds. If there was a soieHshouldered hor^e, or an animal with founder, or a suffering quadruped trying to draw thiee ton.-, ot jarrah, there was Mr. Seed and you could bet he'd see the job through. He tells us that, standin Victoria-street one recent dlay for twenty minutes, he sau four crippled horse-, pa&s, and that a fashionable equipage one day was getting along much too lapidly for the comfort of one of the hoises which was dead lame. Seems the glare in the Seed eve, the smart-kveried driver .slowed down. * • • A^showing that Mr Seed's wonk has beeii a labour of love, when he went Home last year, via Melbourne and Sydney, he created quite a sensation by tracking down a numfoei of cruelty cases in those big cities. He followed one lame horse a mile in Sydney, and handed the driver oven- to a constable. The Australian crowds began to wonder who the person who stuck up the traffic could be, and the seoretaiv of a branch of the S.P.C.A. "reaied" badly over what he considered the liiterferenoei of tins stranger. * * * , And if only Wellington citizens would interfere oftener! If they would only "bail up" the drivers of suffering animala if they would wilhnglv go to court as witnesses, if they would rouse up and pay an inspector a living wage, they mishit, get a man as good as the one who is leaving. Such an inspector requires to be a humane man, a firm man, a man with a sharp eye, and some

veterinary knowledge. He must be a man who won't take bluff," and a man who oan sway aOl owd to his view - point. Are there any other Seeds around looking for a job? The influence of Temperance advocate Father Hays, now in Australia, is almost hypnotic. At a recent lectuiiein. Austialia, when he called upon the audience to promise total abstuneuice the whole 2000, with about ten exceptions, stood up. One by ome the aishamed minority upended, and a& no one pet son oould follow each cif the two thousand to his door, it hn cliai itable to conclude the whole went grogless to bed * * » King Dick went aboard the Huddlait Parker steamer "Wimmera" (cadi it "Wim'ra," not "Wimmeaia") on Thursday last, and found the Opposition very strong indeed, but, as he said 1 , the finest fun in the world was to be in Opposition — he had been there for twenty years— he advised them to stay theie. But, of course, the big crowd of lepiesentatave men men who went to' shake the hand of Mr. Appleton, the shipping firm's managing director, didn't talk politics.. They lunched very heartily indeed, and, as the way to a man's heart is through his appetite (the originail epigrammatist wrote it "stomach"), so did the Wimmera fare find a way to the tongues of the lopresentative men afoiesaid. v The local manager of the Hudidait Parker Company (Mr. C. W. Jones), in that intensely serious way that distinguishes him, fired off a veiy telling little speeah, in which' he skilfully avoided giving offence to the great politicians present by lemaiking that it was up to all shrppm>g people to love tlhe Government. Mr. Appleton is a thick-eyebrowed, soant-haored, and bushy-moustaohed person of taict. He didn't forget to refer to Mi . Sedidlon as "that great mam on my left," and he seemed to be fearfully soary he hadn't bad an opportunity of kvinig all his life among the magnificent people who inhabit these islands, and benng governed' by the superior laws that have made this land an earthly paradJise, and of worshipping every day at the shrine of tlhe Union Company. Mr. Appleton's exuberant legard for the Union Company wais the most touching thing about his speech. y * * •• V/ Sir Joseph Ward, always tactful, didn't seem to quite know whether New Zealand would have been discovered if it hadn't been for the Hudidart Parkei Company. W T hat small emjunenoe we had achieved seemed to be drue to the ' Wimmera" and the ooilonaial recoid of Captain Rainey. His Worship the Mayor, who it> so soon to retire* into municipal oblivion, was "vei a glad m — d-e-ed to be there," but he wished the Huddart Pairkeir people would make the saloon seats broader in tihie beam. On the other hand, the oompamy maglit charge its passengers by weight • • * Y. Captain Rainey made the best speech of the series. It occupied about two lines. The fekippei is a clean-shaven . taJl man, with an alert, defcei mined look, and hais skippered Whate Star and other boats. He was proud to be the skipper of the "Wimmera," and remained, theirs veiy truly. He bobbed up and sat down in a breath. Wimmera recalls the Australian district of that name, which is mostly under wheat, and sun, and fcweat ; where the farmers think they are doing all right if they get a twelve-bushel crop, and where the fire sweeps down and burns thiem out now and again. If the hard-fa-ced, _ sun-burnt Wimmera farmeis oould just g&t under the ornate dome m the saloon of the steamship Wimmeira, and be coaxed by Wimmera dishes, and Wimmera stewards, and Wimmeia wine, well, they wouldn't want to go back to Wimmera wheat.

Hei" Imperial Highness t*he Czarina ot all the Russias is a cairioatuiusit, and he.i latest essay mta tihe realms otf pictorial comment represents Nikolas, her royal husband, as a fat baby, who is being led l on a string by the Grand Dukes, which is pairticulai ly unkind of Her MJajehty. Besides being a. oanoatumst, Hei Majesty ls a coloaieil of Uhlans, but is, of course, very .small military potatoes, indeed to her few-months'-oid son, who is genet al commanding the division of Imperial Guards'. * # * It i> one of the. vast absurdities of Ru&sian 1 ule that the regimental orders of the .said Imperial Guairds are ' signied" by this small sprig of royailty, and that his ''sanction" has to be given to all military acts done or perforated by any officer 01 man in the division under has "control." Our own Queen Alexandlia i^> a colonel of the lltli Hussars, and holds tihe same rank in a German cavalry regiment. * • ♦ The Chief Justice of England (Lord Al veins/tone) "Journalists have not the siame code of tumour as other people." And what sort of a tame has the indiscreet greiat one been getting ever sdnlce ? Half-penny papers have stood on therr veiv end and roared, penny papers have ol imbed on a box to insist that he shall withdraw this statement, the threepenny journals have screamed] out of the third-storey windows, and the sixpenny weeklies climbed the dome of St. Paul's, and used' a fog-horn. And so Lord Alverstone has remarked that if he said' it he didn't mean it, amd that the Press of Great Britain was oomidlucted by men of honour, on honourable lines. Consequently, he is still Ohief Justice. * *r * Mr. Oliver Johnson is coming along very nicely in the literary ikne. Several yeans aigo he was a compositor on the Palmerstion "Times." Now, h)e is a reporter on David Pirama's Cambridge "Independent." And a recent number of the "Seiezitafic American," which leads the world in its particular line, devotes two whole pages to an illustrated article bv Oliver on the Waimangu Geyser and the natural wonders of New Zealand. The young man from Palmer&ton is graduating on the samei lines as Tom Mills, of the 'Tost." He also was still picking up "stamps" from the case when he started to exploit the American magazines with special airticles. In nine cases out of ten when tihe oomp. catches the itch for writing it never leaves ham, and he trams out the best kind of newspaper "copy." *■ *• * U''Fat.heii Patterson" is too staff in style. Nobody thinks of calling him anything else but "Father Pat." Have you a lightly-built lrfctile nian, in a beill-toppeir, and with an open, manly, smiling face dodiging about Wellington? That's "Father Pat," from Auckland. Of eoui-se, you. think he's an Irishman ? Well, you're not quite right. He is a Yorkshneman, whose parents were Irish, and the bun- straggles witti the brogue, and the brogue wins whan the exuberant pi lest gets warmed up to his subject. He is going to have a look round New Zealand, and then he huts out foir ould Ireland and Yorkshire for a, tmp of nm,e months. # * # \ It's a long time since Cardinal Vaughan ordained 'him, for in 1881 Father "Pat" rolled up his _ cassock, boxed his bell-topper, 'and said "Here goes for Sydney." Sydney shook ham by both hands. He went along to Sydney's St. Mary's Cathedral, with a triumphal march he 'had' written- on, the boat and played it at the opening of the great church. While in New South Wales he visited every church in the diocese, and it's a job one can't do even with a goodi horse ot a Glidlden motorcar in an afternoon. "Father Pat" rode the 2500 miles on horseback, and took six months to do it. "Arrah, this was the finest time I iver had in me lorife,"

he says. "Shure the people would! give ye ainnything but sorrow, and bedad they don't kape that in stock." * • • x/Tather Pat" opened St. Patrick's organ in Auckland m 1884. But it is art; Palmerston North tinait he is best known, for he was there at its christening, took a hand at rockmig its cradle, and for sixteen, sothd years helped to blow the trumpet for the coming Chicago of New Zealand, besides looking .after seven churches there ''on his own." To-day five priests do the work. He was there when Palmerston North was "up like a rocket," and he was also there when it "came down like a stick," amid stuck in the miud. He was there before there weine any biidges in the distinct, and he had to ford all the rivers and creeks on horseback. * * * Father "Walter" (Maodotnald), the much-beloved and self-saoiifieing priest, of Auckland, died, and "Father Pat" took up his work five years ago. The ruddy priest pireaches the gospel of cheerfud ness, and he laughs heartily on an average five tunes a minute, with bieiaks for sleep and food. He telils a story. A Manawatu Iroshmian caane to ham to be maimed. "It's glad lam to hear it," said "Father Pat." Mack looked gloomy. "But it costs money," wailed Mick. "And it's mighty little cash. I have at all. Perhaps yez'U take it out in thrade, father dear?" "Father Pat," like a true sport, offered to do the job for nobhong, but Mnok was adamant. He would repay the priest "m tihrade." * * * Mick was married. "Father Pat" asked ham what his "tii'ade" was. Muck replied he would surprise ham by starting to repay him next Sunday. "Next Sunday" Mick rolled up to church, with a big baize bag. "Is that your stock in trade, Mick?" Mick dived into the bag, and produced a trombone! "It istlhat. It's a musician I've been for twinty years, and the laste taste of brass m the choir will do ut good!" "Father Pat" had a haird job to turn pale, but he dad it, and to thus day Mick has never "taken it out inthradte.'' His riverenoe didn't thank the congregation could stand Mick's trombone. * * * "VMr. Hoinsby, ex-M.H.R., will never, no never, try to get the "ex" removed. Read him as he says it: — '"The Premier's hold upon tfhfe hearts of the people has never been really relaxed. Theie have been days of impatience and mutation on both sides, but the people recognise the great work tlhe Premier has done far New Zealand, and so long as he lives and remains in New Zealand, so long will he be the people's king." Abomah, the dusky giantess, who was doing hen- turn last week in Wellington, and helping to keep His Majesty's fuller than ever, is a prohibitionist but is not shouting that fact in any loud tone of voice. The reason is that she suffered for it when she first came to New Zealand. Seems she was a fel-low-passenger fiom England with Mrs. Harrison Lee, who took a special interest in her. Not only that, but Mrs. Lee wrote to Prohibition friends at the Bluff to look out for the good-natured giantess on her arrival, and give her a warm reception, as she was a friend) of the cause. She got su<dh a oordiial reception that Bung stood on, has dtiemity, and would have nothing to do with her. It was quite a long time before his nund was disabused of the idea tlhat she was a Prohibitionist freak intent on a saloon-smashing campaign. By the way, Miss Abomah confesses to being twenty-nine, and when she marries means to have a small-sized husband. If there are aniy local Johnnies five feet and under who yearn for a seven and a-half foot wife. Abomah is still in New Zealand.

' The Scottish American," published in New Yotk, in ltt. issue of Noveanbei 9th last, contains am obituary notuoe lelatmg to Mr. James Thaw, whom it terms "one of the best amid kindliest Scots in this vicinity." Thomas Ballanger, of Wellington, and J. Bennie, of Waniganui, are. both prepared to back up that opinion. They weae members of the New Zeailamd bowling team that went Home m 1901, and had practical expedience of Mr. Thaw's geniaLty, winch was w <iii m enough to thaw an icier reserve than is prevalent among New Zealand devotee* of the kitty. ' The- story of theni meeting i.s w orth telling, if only just to show how small the world is after all. BaJhnger and Bennie, after playing on the English and Scottish bowling greens, took a ran across the Atlantic to have a look in at New York, and to see if Niagaua wa*> a,ll it was cracked up to be. The morning after his arrival Balhnger was ove;h'aulinec has luggage for a fresh collar, on the sixth flat, of a Noo Yark «kvns,orap«r. Up to him came the negro waitei , with a card, "Mr. James Thaw, president New Jersey Bowling Club." He was in a great hurry to get off to Boston, but curiosity to learn how he had been tracked down in a, city where he didn't know a living soul stayed hisi haste / /Mr. Thaw pioved to be a Scot of the largest-hearted pattern. Bowhmg friends in Scotland ho,J written over about the dloiiw>s of the bowers* "frae the ends oi the eaith," and had )asually mentioned that a couple of them Wt-ie off for Ne \ York. With this clue, he had hunted Balhnger down, and nothing wou.ldu but he must u Dit his fit doon" at N^u Jersey. For Bennie and humselif Balhnger promised Ne^\ Jersey a game. "Hoot awa mou," quoth Thaw , 'it's no a wee bit game we want. It's a 1 icht quid Scots' nicht." Ballmgei promised to play it on his reitiurn from Boston. On the day prior to has return to Liverpool he was on the 20th story or theieaboute of a New York warehouse doing business when Mr. Thaw emerged from the elevator, a.nd slapped him om the shoulder. "Got. ye again, my lad," hie said. "Couldn't find you at the hotel, and. so a've tracked ye here. Noo come ,wa to New Jersey." y •* The long and the short of it was that Bennie and Bail linger, of New Zealand, with a couple of raw substitutes, played a rink game at New Jersey, and 'o^l it. But the ' 'nicht" they had with the New Jersey bowlers is the j oiliest j.ik most congenial that befel them m their world's tour. Mr. Thaw was in the ohair, and the company started to tihaw — it was a very warm night, by the way — by sheddtmg their coats, and many of them removing their collars as well. • • • The chairman was supported on the right by Mr. Balhngei , and on the left by another visitor from Melbourne. "Allow me to introduce you to Mr. H. Tindale, of Melbourne," he said; "ye maun be close neebours." "Oh, I've seen Mr Bal linger before," said Tindlale. "I watched his rink won the Stewart Dawson olooks at Auckland last year." That is wheire the smallness of tlhe world came home to the New Zealand'ers. Thaw, at any rate, was a regular prince of a good' fellow, and the most enthusiastic of bowlers. May the earth he lightly upon him. • • • John Rigg hafe been giving the Chinamen away dow u in Christohurdi. Told how a man went into a Chow fruiteiy for a dozen oranges, and how, after receiving the bag, 'he addled! two others "for paying cash." And how the Chinaman pnotested volubly, but without effect, andl how the cituzein went home a.nd found there were only eleven afteir all! He told the plains people that the moral was Support British mdusifcrv That's all right, of course, but where in New Zealand are there British people industrious enough to tackle the fiuit tradie, and oust the Chow ? It is only n question of doggedness, and the Chinaman wins every time. The extreme independence of the few white fruit traders, especially in Wellington, prohibits them doling half the trade the suave Chinamen commands. • * « Mr. B Banks, the tall young man from Coromandel, who takes the place vacated by Mr J. H. Dixon, at Wellington Magistrate's Court, hasn't always been at Coromandel. Away back in the boom time, Mr. Banks was on the staff at the Wai den's Office, Paeroa, and the goldfields population hummed round the said office like flie^ round a treacle-pot. Despite the fact tihat the Warden's Office staff frequently worked till 12 o'olook at night, both Mr. Banks and the Registrar (Mr. Moresby) found time to swat law, so that when Mr. Banks was promoted to Te Aroha he was a passed solicitor. Mr. Moresby is practising his profession at Waihi. Of course, the Warden's Office on the goldfieldsi is also the Magistrate's Court, and, although Mr. Banks' experience has been all gathered in mining districts, he is familiar with the procedure of both Wardens' and Magistrates' Courts.

R. A. Wnght, who is appointed by the Bible-in-schools party as its organising secretary, at a salary of £300 a year, is the large, black-bearded man one sees every day driven bef or < the wind on a bicycle. He is also the gentleman who is seen' at tihe office of his business, Wright and Carman, printers. He is identical with the enthusiastic person who is a member of tihe reform Licensing Bench, m Wellington. / ' ~~Mr. Wright ls an ardent temperance advocate, and if ihe is seen leaning over the bar talking to a barman it is only m his capacity as, a comomitteemian. He is the gentleman, who, many yeans ago, was reported 1 dlead — a tree having fallen on 'ham in bush-falhng while he was really engaged setting type in a West, Coast office. His anneal to the editor to resurrect him, seeing that he'd never chopped a tree down in his life, was of no avaal, and, as far as he knows, has remains are still under the big ranu. But, Robert is very much alive — you should hear him laugh. There isn't any doubt that whatever the right hand of Wright finds to do, it will be dbne with all its might, and tihe Bible-m-sohools propaganda, whatever its demerits, will be shoved along vigorously bv the man with the laugh. / * * • "Little Harry Bedford, M.H.R , is nothing if not self-confident. • He's been lecturing about America round the country, and he tells a story as having actually come within his experience. He stayed m a house where in every bedroom was a big placard beaong the Lord's Prayer. He thought the Americans were veny religious, but lias personal enquiries elicited the fact that the Yankee is too busy to pray. He merely rolls into bed, and, flinging his hand towards the placard, exclaims • "Lord, them's my sentiments." Before little Harry was born, this kttle stoiy was going round the earth m all languages, and 1 if it is true that the Yankee house had these placards the Yankees ought to give up all claam to be an original people. * * * Evan Roberts, the Welsh evangelist, who has entirely revolutionised South Wales, is a dark young man, with a. striking resemblance to Mr. T. E. Taylor, M.H.R. if his photo is to be beLieved. The hysterical effect amdJ exaltation he produces doesn J t seem, to wear off — at least rapad'ly — and it is said that the life of the whole people in South WaJes has alteied for the better. One of the Welsh footballers, who was here with the British team last season (so we learn fiom a New Zealander now at Llandudno) at a Roberts meetimg stood on a form, and declared he had beem playing full-back for the devil for years. He became so hysterical that he fell down in a fit, and was taken to the hospital.

''Mr. John Holmes, ot Wellington, ha* beein up at Wanganm, and bab fallen into the hands ot th& prebs interviewer as usual. Wheiever he goeis the pre^s interviewer seems to dag his steps. It us fate. NaturaJly, this partKsular pre^s interviewer digs up all the interesting facts about the completamess of Mi. Holmes 1 ' arraaigements as Royal Executive Commissioner if or the Duke and Duchess of York, and also his tour of the worldi as Trade- Comnusfcaoner for New Zealand. But Jie gets* down to something more recent when Mr. Holmes tackles the subject of flax grading. Its advantage, says Mr. Holmes, is found in the fact that whereas in 1897 flax was only worth £9 a ton f.0.b., today the same quality us selhng (under contracts sax, nine, and . even twelve months ahead) at £26 to £27 a ton f o.b. Also, New Zealand now exports from 24,000 to 25,000 tons of fibie per annum, of the value of about threequarters of a million sterling. Therefore, don't sneer at hemp. The exRoyal Commissioneir is full of ldteas. Just now, if you have half-an-hour to spare, and want to see ham with fullsteam ahead, tap him on the shoulder and whisper the magic words "Dairy Produce Exchange." It is; the one thing needed, sir, to make this magnificent colony absolutely perfect. * * Back m our school days, we used to reaid m the lesson-books about a person who b lagged that the King had spoken to him, and wheni pressed for details admitted that His Majesty had merely told him to stand out of the way. On somewhat similar lines two Taranaki men, F. Quin and B. Watson, just back from the Contmong, tell of a meeting which they had with the War Lord of Germany a few weeks ago. They were strolling in a park at Berlin when a detective came up and asked them to put out their pipes. As they did so, a pair of upturned moustachios appealed on the horizon, and presently the Kaiser himself passed aJloimg, with the Empaess and their daughter. * ♦ • There must have beeai something distinctive about the salaams of the colonials, for we ai c toldl that William, not on.lv acknowledged them with a "gracious salute," but recognising those who made tliem as strangeirs and British — whry not as New Zealanders? — -he bowed a second tame. '±Nat was all that happened, but it makes the travellers quite distinguished persons in. theoir home circle. * ♦ * "-Mir. W. J. McGrath will charge the Hawke's Bay citadel at next general election. From indications disclosed by this friends, Mr. McGrath is going to get in, seeing, of course, that Sir William Russell won't be a candidate. Mr. MoGrath a year or two ago drove a grocer's cart, and now he has carts of

his own, and is a budding Lipton. Sad that he will get the Labour and Catholic vote>. Mr. A. L. D. Fraser, by the way, says he is going to stick to Napier through thick and thin. • • « New news about Mr. Seddon. A Southern correspondent is guilty; — "In 1875 I was at a public meetonig in Hokitika whiein a burly miner addressed the audience as follows : 'Look here, boy^, we want water'; we know where it is. Let us bring it in ouinselves, and risk beang paid for it. If the Govern^ ment won't help us, let ut* help ourselves.' The speaker is now the Right Hon. R. J. Seddton, the Premier and Governor of New Zealand." Quite a, lot of foolish people believe that a joung man by the name of Plunket holds the latter billet. / * (vane blood 1 of Vu.s fighting amcesitors thrills in- the veins of Taaka Marnaia, nephew of the Hon. Mr. Ma.huta, ex■•kmec" of the Maoris. Taika says he is the Sandow of his race, and he's just about bursting to get to holts with some pakeha or other far the champion wrestlership of the earth. So he's called upon the redoubtable OonstiaWe Skin,ner, of Auckland, to face ham "ca,tch-as-oatoh^can" or "Cumberland" style. And so it is coneludled that a pakeha policeman spendis all .his spare time m looking out a suitable plot where has remains may be planted after Mr. Manaia has minced him up.