All Sort of People

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 259, 17 June 1905, Page 3

All Sort of People

THE Very Rev. Father Hays is the calmest apostle of temperance the people of New Zealand have ever listened to. There us no bitterness in a two-hours' leofcure, not a single sample of mud-throwing, not the slightest evidence of personal baas. This small, delicate-looking priest, with tihe big subject, has a face on which there is a deep sadness. The eyes, darkly shad^owed by heavy, black eyebrows, only occasionally light up with the fire of the man's tremendous earnestness, the mautu as drawn down at the corners — the whole face is the face of an ascetic. » * •* His attitude is always devotional. He speaks to the people slowly, and never with heat. But always with feeling and force. He convinces by thie simplicity of his diction, the subdued force of his always clear argument. Having made a poant — perharjs a witty illustration — he stops and looks gravely at the audience, then bows his head, while the greatest meeting ever gathered in Wellington, vn. the cause of temperance applauds. Then, to begin again he advances the left foot a little at a time, like a person of weak sight feeling has way in the dark. Every movement is slow, every word is carefully produced. ,- His horror of the evil he has given his life to fight doesn't lead him to hate. It moves him to pity. The small gesticulations — the uplifting or the hands — seem like a blessing, and the huge audience feel it would be sacrilege to let any manifestation of disapproval hurt the man, so there were no dusturbances, no dissent. So carefully and completely has sectarian differences been subordinated to the real object of the priest's mission that the committee has representatives of each Church, who are willing to 00-operate in a common cause for once. Father Hays' s quiet, gentlemanly lecture is enriched by happy illustration, dainty satire, and true humour. He so deftly manages to rob allegory of its sting that, while he vastly amuses, he neveir offends. One point m illustiratwwi. So many good 1 people, he told us, had the tired feeling. When they saw tue inroads being made by the Empire J s chief sin they said, "Let us pray!" People could stay indoors and 1 pray, and otherwise have a good time, and do nothing practical. There were once a little boy and a little girl — brother and sister. The little boy was just a boy, t>nd he had fixed up a perfectly beautiful bird-trap, with which he was going to catch the back-yard sparrow. / * * The little sister was kind She ha/ted to see birds caught and killed. She told heir mother she hated it, and had prayed to God that the trap wouldn't catch any birds. "And do you think, dearie," asked the mother, "that your prayer will be answered " The little girl was sure. "Why have you such faith in your prayers?" "Because I went out into the baok-vard, and kicked the trap to pieces!" The third standard boy would be able to understand so simp'e an illustration. * * » " Father Hays 's all simplicity, and said "I am earnest because I can't heln it." When the aoostle of tern-

peranee perorates foe shows his power of stirring the people by bus personal magnetism, but is js evident that the fraill frame is incapable of standing passionate utterances, and he curbs his desire to wander out of his habitual quiet calm. His great power is in his great calmness — and temperance. \Musically, Mr. Maughan Barnett is the "he-miust-be^obeyed" in. Wellington. There were ructions the other evenung at a practice of "The Orusaders," when the talented, but highly-strung, conrduotor got foul of the brasses for not obeying his instructions to "keep down" at a certain place. The offence was apparently repeated, for the conductor said something moire forcible than courteous whereunon the best trombonist in New Zealand, accompanied by hus confrere, left the practice-hall with their offending bugles under the <r ai ms. * * tr Wellington dentists were "thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa" at the tooth Oonlerenoe last week. There were interesting people among them. Who doesn't know Prohibitionist Hoby, of the belltopper, ghort coat, and tan boots, on a bike? Then there were the soldier dentists, Mr. W. Hobbs, captain of the new Hutt corps, an excellent shot, and who was, admitted by visiting dentists to have shown a sample of the finest dental woik they had ever seen, and Mr. McDiarnud, another volunteer, who shows has braw "laigs" in the kilts of the local Scottish Corps. Mr. Denniston, who is the son. of Judge Denniston and lifted a large dividend from TattersaH's lately, is also a soldier man. l Mr. Bulkley wears a high hat and glasses and there weie Dr. Glendinaing and Messrs. Forte, Tripe, and Mereweather, all splemdlud hands at their profession. The fact is, a duffer at the game cannot live m Wellington. Too much competition. The man who uses twelve-feet advertisements and a town crier may have a lot od: business and no skill. He may even be a D.D.S. of America, and never have seen the country, and he need not know enough about dentistry to get a toothache. A propos of advertasijig, one starter up North advertised that he was using the "latest Russian method" of painless extractions. This should be a decided recommendation. * * * v Agreed at that Conference that a degrees of dentistry might help a man to get a practice, but xt didn't make him a dentist, and that the apprenticeship system was the only way to get real knowledge of practical work. It was shown at that big talk that the cause of physical decay in Britain was through the carelessness of the authorities about the teeth of the people. When you talk of Dr. Cox, the dentist, we don't know which you mean. There's the six feet twoer, from Timaiu, and the black-bearded and spectacled brother, from Auckland, or the other brothecan the same line from Gisboine — .all tooth doctors. -Dentist Rawson (brotheu of the local # well-known doctoi) was the retiring president, and Mr. Hunter, of Dunedin, will preside at the next tooth talk to happen in his town.. Although it wouldn't pay dentists, they all want school youngsters' teeth looked after. If this were done, theie would be no dentists required in about twenty years. Like the prohibitionists, they want to work themselves out of a job. Discovered that the English dentust who obtains a degree has to swat more theory, and that the Yankee-trained man is more practical, but that the man who learns dentistry bv correspondence ought not to be allowed to exercise his skill on anything but the "teeth of the Ktorm" or the "gums of the forest."

Many admirers of the emaneiut soprano, Madame Emily Spada (Mrs. Phil Newbury), will grieve to learn that she has been suffering sorely from canr ocr during the past two years. Two operations have resulted in the cutting away of bothi her breasts. # * # < // x His Excellency the Govern or, having at various times and in divers places let slip an Irishism, is now expected to open any public remarks he Ihias to make with a sample of Hibernian wit. He opened the outside dioor of thei new Customhouse Building on Thursday of last week while standing inside the long room where the Customs officials will in future "take down" the public. "He-re's the key," said he, "but whiere's the hole to put it in?" The Horn. Major Bmgbam, A.D.C, appeared to be about to look for it, until the gathering saw the joke, and subsided. * * * The Hon. Charles Mills, as Minister for Customs, was, of course, the copingstanie of the gathering, and, in endeavouring to climb over his watchchain, he remarked : "It was his pleasure and privilege to be heaw" — a word the brainy Minister has learned untj'l he has it almost perfect. The habit New Zealand politicians have of firing off long streams of figures at social functions, which everyone besides the politician who is talking may have access to, is one of the largest kind of bores suffered by the public. The Hon. Charles, however, proved to his own satisfaction that the more we were taxed! the better for us. * * * The elect (the red ticketed ones) were Viiiven into the working part of the long room, while the great British public (with white tickets) looked longingly across the counter at the nobility and gentry, although many outsiders (notably a pressman) wore the nail-keg and claw-haoumeir of respectability. The joyful Sir Joseph Ward didn't bore anybody. He made a humorous excuse for the sorting out of the two classes in the building, and wondered if the wnate tioketers were expecting the red ticketers on the other side of the counter to "pay out." It will be the other way about as soon as the curtain goes up. • • • v^Mayor Hislop began to talk in a quiet, smooth little voice, gently tolerant and obviously kind. One expects him to agree with the Hon. Charles that it's a fine thing to be taxed heavily enough to buy big buildings, but when he refers to such a proceeding as aigaanst the best interest of he crizens, whose civic leader (he is, and 1 quite jovially talks of Customs "robbery," you incline to the belief that "still waters run deep." Probably there was a ioker hidden in that new building. As H ® Worship tilted at the "robbery" the lights went out, and Mr. Mills is credited with having made a joke. He may have done so. We will think it out, and let you know. • ♦ # while Their Excellencies (Cady Plunket shook hands with Mrs. Gr. F. C. Campbell as she retired 1 ) were leaving the room the light again appeared, but subsided as the footman crashed the carnage door sihut with a bang. The distinguished throng then, went on a cake and tea consuming errand' on three floors, and, as the bill will possibly be paid out of the surplus, nobody can grumble except the awed! populace who didn't have tickets but who may be jodned as debtors to the caterers. Two things we would suggest fdr thte conduct of social gatherings : First, if it is absolutely necessary to quote figures for the quote r to quote them correctly : secondIv. that the authorities placard the walls with them, so that the people may only see them, and be spared hearin sr them.

l^Mt. Joseph) O'Meagher, whio, through long-continued ill-health, was driven to attempt Ma owni Hie aifc Oamaru, was one of tihe breeziest Irish gentJemlen the colony had. In his younsger .ays he waa one of the miost capable and eLoque-nt counsel in> New Zealand, amd had won fame in many "causes oelebres." Before he left the Old Country he toad been heard of as a promising barrister, and during thSSs long career "Tim Doolan" never allowed his almost uncontrollable Hibernian wit to cloud bis deep earnestness. As "Flutrna Flaherty of Taypot Lane," he contributed many vivid satires in ver&e to the Auckland papers, and' pointed many a moral under his better-known pen name of "Tim Doolan," which he usually compiled with the address, "The Blowihole, Mount Eden." * * * eWhen the Upper Thames mining boom drew lawyers to Paeroa like a magnet, Mr. O'Meagiher went with, the rest, although he was obviously lost in the conduct of d!ry-as-dust mining CPdiveyanoing cases. In fact, the sight of one of the ablest barristers being coaobed in mining precedents by the rawest juveniles of clerks was a common sight. Although even, then of advanced age, "Tim Doolan," was alert and active. TTm long grey beard, his black and white check suit, and his brown "spats" were carried! round quite jauntily. He made a sensation, one time during the elections by using physical force to quell a candidate who had, as he believed, made a damaging statement. w # * v^^Mr. O'Meagher's vitality was immense. Once he was leaving has room at the Criterion Hotel, Paeroa, and, his sight beang weak, he stumbled against a low balustrade on the landing, and fell about thirty feet, on to the. tiled hall floor. Although he was seriously hurt, and it was thought he could not survive, he recovered marvellously. Tims was eight or nine ago. Mr, O'Meaigher has a married daughter in Westralia. ♦ ♦ ♦ General Booth has the reputation of being a poor man. One of his books, "In Darkest England," yielded over £6000, but every penny is said to haive gone into the Army treasury- Commandant Herbert Booth, who lived in Melbourne for many years, was supposed to live on £150 a year. But he had a fine, commodious villa out at Kew y wiui a large staff of "lassies" to wait on his wants. He always kept his place of domicile secret, because the halt, the lame, and the blind hunted) him mornui'T. noon, and night when they knew where he lived. When some suburban robberies made public his address he ha)d to shift house. * • • E. J. Riddiford, the Squire of Lower Hutt, is, of course, like all rich men, the subject of many petitions, usually made with the object of relieving petitioners' financial tightness. When the new mayor of the budding city, together with Dentist Hobbs, the rifle shot and! officer commanding the new volunteers corps, called 1 on, him the other day, they thought perhaps. tihe big man would! be shy. Spokesman Hobbs remarked that if they had a piece of land on which to build a drillshed, they themselves could' find! tin© shed. Mr. Riddiford enquired whatthey were getting at, and ultimately, having him on both flanks and at the rear, they enfiladed him, andi told him they could do with a piece of land, about a quarter of an acre. "I'll tell you what I'll dios" said Mr. Riddiford. The deputation turned pale, because tihey thought he was going to offer to sell them a bit of land for a couple of thousand pounds or so. 'Til give you hfilf-an^acre !" And he did.

Mr. Woodley Piouse, don'tcherknow, w€o, in tihe days of Hatttrey West, w.u, the principal boy soprano at St. Petei b Church Willis-street, is now establishedasa tooth-extractor at Wanganui. Some high criticism was b&mg offered 1 at last week's Confeience of dentists on the conduct of dental examinations in New Zealand, when Mr. P rouse, with quite a superior accent, informed the assemblage that he had engaged a "qualified" man at one time whose qualifications weie that he had extracted two loose teeth from the lower law ot a blind old man in a benevolent institution, and had stowed one tooth— his sister's When that man came to him laden with a New Zealand certificate in proper order, he had not seen gas administered m a single case. IHe Conference guffawed. * ♦ * Speaking about the Dental Conference, if it dad nothing else it established Mr A. E. Smith, of Inveicargill as a comedian of high rank. Hiw specialty is "facial restoration." That is, you may inadvertently put your face through a sausage machine, in a weak moment, then trot down, to Invercarrill and Mr. Smith will restore your Adonis-like beauty with a few subtle touches. He demonstrated his marvellous ingenuity by showing "before and "after" photographs of a mans face Which had got in the way of a gun in action. » * * * -'The nose roof of the mouth, one eye, and a cheek were blown away leaving the poor chap unfit for publication. As soon as the flesh healed up, Mr. Smith took him in hand, built up false, painted cheeks, put in a glass eye, made him a new mouth and a silver nose, and bought some stray whiskers from a casual passer-by to complete the !<*. It was in describing the nose that Mi. Smith raised shrieks of laughter. No father can give his child a selection of noses to choose from, but Mr. Smith let his patient nominate the style ot nasal oignn he would wear. The four assistants were lined up en profile, and the patient selected a Marcus Superbus tsort of organ "that blew well. * * * v/frhe assistant whose feature was to be copied received half-a-sovereign, but it wa* well-earned, for, in taking a plaster cast of the beak, Mr. Smith omitted to grease it. The plaster stuck like a shell to its snail, and took over an hour to remove. The patient who is a Southland farmer, carried his face to a hay-field on a later day and, while forking down some hay from the top of the stack, an old slin-rail that had been weighting down the hay slid down, a,nd struck him on 'his silver snout. "If it had been a real one," said Mr. Smith, "it would have killed the man." * * * /Mr. Smith described! other cases he had spread himself upon, and mentioned in passing that he Had made half-an-ear for one person, and bits of this and bits of that for others. The foregoing stamps A. E. Smith as an exceedingly clever man, and Southland as a place to be careful m — particularly in the case of susceptible young bachelors. Mr. A. E. Smith ,by the way, has distinguished himself mother fields than dentistry. He is an enthusiast in the game of bowls, and at the 1902 Association tournament in Wellington he was skip of the runners-up for the Champion Pairs. * * • The "old boys" of Te Aro School Itave established a happy monopoly over the cadetships in the nmmoipal offices. If they didn't learn decimals under Mr. "Cockey" Watson, theydid&o in the dim long ago under Mr. "Dickey" Holmes, whose school merged into the "Te Aro" when the State took hold of education by the slack of the pants and the scruff of the neok. If one wishes to ask the Town Clerk about the best way of lodging an objection to the ridiculous increase in his rates, he mostly has to do so through genial "Bob" Tart, or A. G. Geary, of the surphced voice — both from Te Aro School. If one wants 1 to book the Town Hall, he waits on "Colonell" Pedder, who sits "foreninst" about forty telephone plugs. If one thinks it is about up to him to pay his rates, he does so to "Sooker" Harry Godber or A. J. Petherick who knows the difference between a spinnaker boom and a jib-cleat. * * \Jf it is desired to have words with the City Treasurer, you will have to pass over the prostrate bodies of "Charlie" Collins or "Jay" Stevenson, of the gold rims. Rush up to the Tramway Office to enter a protest against the new arrangement of sections, and you are met by "Dickey"' Waters, who, as a juvenile, was a sweet-voiced choristetr at St. Peter's. "Dickey's" troubles about the trams. — he is goin£ to be a doctor. But still an affinity will exist between the two walks in life — they'll break, he'll mend! The austere "Cockey" has turned out some bright and amiable boys, who would not discredit any service in the world, and the Corporation has secured a bunch of them.

Mr. T. J. C. Warren, wearing the mess uniform; of the dear dead days, when be was captain of the "D" Battery, New Zealand Aitillexy Volunteers, complimented that useful corps at their smoke concert the other night on their "very splendid captain." He meant Mr. Courtney. The reason, for the popularity? Perhaps 'twas because he was free with his cash, Or perhaps because, like* Saul, He looked) like a king, and) stood, without boots, Head and shoulders oui>topping them all. And perhaps it's because' he's one of the best artillery officers and one of the keenest withal, in the colony. And perhaps because he has mot minded offending the authorities when he has had anything to say towards helping the "D" Battery. * * * , The "D" Battery is otherwise officered two dentists. Mr. W. Garter is a tail gentleman, inclining to fairness, and new "sub" Mr. Glendinnxng is a shorter man, decidedly inclining to the brunette type of beauty. Mr. Glendinndng hadn't don© any public speaking until he arose on the smoke concert night, but he clinked' his box-spurs and spoke of the "Army and Navy." We gathered comfort from his splendid sentiment that no combination of navies could wipe us out, and deprecated the ohuckle that may have shown a Jap bias. # * " Mr. Cracroft Wilsion is a lawyer, and used to be an "E" Battery (Ohristohuroh) lieutenant. He was there, and defended 1 the flag for about ten minutes. The jury found for the flag. These annual smokes are not merely smokes. At them the CO. awards the gun^nery and 1 other prizes won by the men. There was Gunner Raven (or Driver?), who was invested with the much-builioned small-arms shooting belt. We mention Mr. Raven because ht> shot a wild bull at Clyde Quay once. B ©member P

The C.O.s voice got quite -weak m coanplunentiLag Sergeant Brown, who, before the conclusion of the prize- giving, was mounted in silver (section and detachment cups, and no on as well as personal badges). Sergeant Brown wears the African medal and four bars, and is the quintessence of a "frother." In fact, with the possession of numerous "froth ers" of the Oaptain Courtney type among the officers, Sergt. -major Gibson, Sergts. Jansen and Brown, of the non-coms., amd a well-set-up sprinkling of hard-working gunners and drivers, the "D" Battery is a really strong, useful unit. Noticeable, too, that the men wear the uniform well, although they haven't got over the bad habit of saluting with their head-dressi off. It doesn't matter much, anyhow, but if the "book" says a soldier shall approach his officers standing on his head who shall say it nay? * * * King Dick as a prohibitionist, or something, to a Southern crowd . ''You know you're not compelled to drink beer; you're not compelled to drink spirits. I don't want the taxation on 'em. But if you will give it to me, what can. I do?" * * * Mr. A. E. Greenaway, who: will be the Romeo to Miss Tittell Brume's Juliet, is not unknown in Wellington. Every aotor worth the name has had at one time or other "hard luck diays," and Mr. Greenaway struck them pretty bad in New Zealand some eight years or so ago, and got piled up on the rocks in Wellington. Those were sentimental days, when the amateur in his blindsness assisted the distressed professional, and so it came about that a benefit show was arranged, and in due course the comedy "Betsy" and the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet" (Alf. always fancied himself as Romeo) were played in Thomas's Hall, now the upstairs portion of t<he New Zealand Express Company's premises. A substantial sum was realised, and duly handed over to Mr. Greemaway, who immediately fled the country.