All Sorts of People

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 282, 25 November 1905, Page 3

All Sorts of People

MU. Rudolph Tudor, the suave and travelled Hungarian, whceame over from Sydney some seven months ago, to manage for the Empire Hotel, Limited, has resigned from that position, and k>- about to return to sunny New South Wales. Mr. Tudor is that class of hotel manager that New Zealand is hardly educated U p to — the sort of polished) person that Continentals look for at the. head of the establishment at which they stay, who knows the ins and outs of every department from the duties of a pantryman to welcoming royalty. New Zealand has been mostly used to the brawny Irishman, who, on hearing a complaint about the thickness of the beer, gets pugilistic. With the influx of English and 1 foreign tourists, this sort of individual widl gradually be replaced by the "hotel manager" — the man that has travelled, knows what the travelling public require, and endeavours to give it to them in the nicest manner possible. • • • Mr. Tudor has managed' the Lornnitz Hotels (three in number), n the Carpathian mountains (the frequent resort of Continental royalties), the Grosvenor Hotel and the Grand Central Coffee Palace, at Sydney, and other leading hotels in various parts o' this hotel - haunted world. Mrs. Tudor was formerly the wife of the la*e Mr. Dudley EH well, editor of the "Brisbane Courier," and bar impressive personality is well-known in the Australian capitals. She has a son studying electrical engineering a I the Stanford University, California. The young man promises well, for he recently climbed Popocatapetl (Central America), 17,000 ft., and planted the flag of the university on its topmost height. The feat was criyen a column in a recent, issue of the Sydney "Sunday Times." • • » Mr. Daniel C Nugent, the merchant king from St. Louis (United States), who was in Wellington last week, 's a dapper little man of middle age, whose speech does not advertise his nationality to any marked extent. He says that his line is "dry goods," which is American for a Kirkcaldie and Stains sort of business. "Dry goods" are drapery, clothing, fancy goods, etc., and "wet goods" in Yankeeland are much the same as anywhere else, only mixed up with a shunk of ice dropped in. • • • Mr. Nugent does mot cavort about the world on his merry lonesome. No, sir! He takes his wife and family with him, and feels all the better for it. Some time ago they did a trip^n famille to Japan, China, and India, and were so mashed on the experience that, after the great Exposition, they resolved to put a belt round 1 the earth, and so hit out for New Zealand via 'Frisco andl Honolulu' a few weeks ago. From New Zealand they "do" Australia, and then dodlge up to Colombo and Burmah to see — 'The elephants a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, qudigy creek, And the silence 'umg that 'eavy You was 'alf afraid to speak, On the road to Mandalay." Thence on to Europe for next summer, and so away home again to Hail Columbia.

While at the Royal Oak, Mr. Nugent gat chatting to a, Lancer on America as she is, and other lofty subjects, amd amongst them was municipal corruption, of which we hear a good bit. Our American cousin said it ceirtairly did esxist, but was much exaggerated. He tells a yarn of how things are done. St. Louis was in charge of Boss Eb. Holder, or some name likj that. If a firm wanted a "switch" (a raiilway branch) into their premises, an act was required. The firm would make application in the usual way. A few days later Eb. would stroll along. "You, want a 'switch' here. It would be a very good thing, I opine!" Eb. would say. "Yes, it wouldl be a good thing," the head would reply. "Oh, yes, a firm like this wan* thenown Shoves business ahead. I've always heard that a thing worth having is woirth paying for. Neow, what would it be worth to you, eh ? ' "We've never thought of it that way ; couldn't say." "Well, neow, lemme see, I shouild say it would be* worth 1800 dollars, what d'ye think?" "Well, Mr. Holder, we've never gone* into it, so we don't know." "That's what it will cost you," Eb. would! say, and away he would go. Absolutely mothing would be heardl of the matter again unless the firm called! Mr. Holder in and said- "Ye®, Eb., I think it wouid pay us at that price." The money would be paid! over, and! the act or resolution would go through at the next meeting. » • • Mr. Nugent says municipal corruption exists because mem of the higher stamp are too closely engaged in business to attend to muraiciipal matters. They are too busy making money to interfere, unless it gets too bad. when they seize it by the throat and shake the corruption into the river, and, start afresh. Just' now St. Lou;s had a gerotileman and a man of integrity and honour for a mayor, and 1 ; Council that were as pur© as a lily. ♦ » ♦ When Wellington was calling for tenders for the. institution, of its electric tramway, American corruption shoved its slimy nos© in. The' Town Olerk received! a visit from an American person, who, after beating round the bush for a time, asked how mucn it would cost to square the Council ~o that his people could get tine job. He explained that his firm put by so much ©very year for the purpose of "buying ' contracts, amid it was only a matter of mentioning the amount. The Town Olerk showed him to the door, saying, in the most pleasant terms, that we dEd not do business that way m New Zealand. Nothing abashed, the man ascertained the names of the councillors, and waited on several, but he reoedved no encouragement, and 1 left, the place, wondering what sort of "blanky dashed idiots he hadi struck to refuse his good gold." » * * McLaren was haranguing the multitude from th© steps of the Queen's. Statue the other d'mner-hour. A socialist person rushed into the ring, talked "Davy" down, amd took his crowd from him. "Davy" faded away, and left the other Scotch person to tell the people, that he didn't care how they got rid of the capitalists, "whether at the barricade or at the ballot-box." Several working men told him to go and get, work, but he didn't do anything so sdlly. Things would be a bit Russian if this person was to have the handling of things. He may be honest, of course. A lot of people got heated with the person, but when people get heated with persons of this stamp, the person tells them to run away and wash their necks, or something equally splendid l , and the crowd roars, and their own necks are saved.

Arthur East has com© out of the West, and is right here. He is young man in a bilue suit and a light waistcoat, and he is the brother of Messrs. Ea&t andl East, the two hustlers who conduct, a, real estate business on Lambtoii Quay. Arthur, like hn> birotheirs, is a bit of a wanderer, for the Eat.ts come from Londbn, and the last place he came from was 'Frisco, the home* of the "grafter," the. noboe, the hooligan, and) other gentlemen not at 'all objectionable. Before he. hit out for 'Frisco, he was a voluntary member of St. Paul's (Cathedral) choir, m London,, and when he got to America was mopped up. by St. Domenic's Church, 'Frisco, as solo bass. -<fle was in the real estate business there, and it is a good! business. Perhaps, a hoboe knew about it. One day, in the suburbs, Arthur was get>ting away home when a gentleman slipped out of a shadow, and remarked, in a pleasant voice : "Hold 1 up., durn you I" Arthur "held up" accordingly, because he happened to be gazing affectionately down the 'hole end of a "gun." "Guess I'm in such a dun hurry youll have to look greasy!" said tlie man, so Arthur handed over his real estate things, and a watch, and little things like that, and went home. • • * _^ Another pleasant way the hoboe has is/ to "lay for" the town-to-town trams lift the conductor's cash bag, 'go through" the passengers, and then evaporate into the night. The hitherto East firm found that the business in Wellington is getting; too kurge for :i couple, so they imported Arthur. Tho new arrival didn't take long to work into the musical life of Wellington, for, at the Wellington Accountants' Student Society gathering, on Wednesday, at Godber's, he lifted! up a voice, that offers some excuse for the position he held in that 'Frisco choir. • • • Presbyterian Moderator Brewster, of Westralia, has been indulging in parsomaoal meandermgjs about "a white Australia," which is, he believes, a "heathenish, selfish cry." If a man thought less of his coloured brethren, he was disloyal to Christianity. There isn't a white man, therefore, in India, New Zealand, the United! States of America, Canada, all the Africas, and Australia, who isn't disloyal. The parson didin't propose to give the 1 Australian blackfellow the same rights of citizenship as the Australian white, neither did he advocate the intermarriage of the savage Kanaka with the dainty ladies of his flock. We m'ught, of course, welcome the Hindoo ias a brother, if we don't want India, and form a Cabinet of North Queensland Japsi or Sydney opium-den Chinamen. We nought overlook the nameless horrors that have fallowed the introduction of Chinese into South Afuca, andl declaim that white ladies driven insane by the attacks of yellow brutes, the murder of white farmers there, and all the rest of it, are neeessaiy to Christianise our coloured brother. • » » It is the ma,n who dloesn't know the first thing about aliens who whoops for their intermixture with the whites, never thinking that history shows us that mongrel races are the cutthroats' of the world. There is, as a local paper once said, an area of land in the Naith where the Jap would succeed, and where he could' marry our women and settle down. A proof of the sincerity of these advocates of unnatural blendings would be the offering r f their own daughters in marriage to the black or khaki stranger from afar. But the said stranger is only a fit mate for the other fellow's sister or daughter.

x^Little "Jimmy" Reigel, the presiding genius of the Central Hotel's American bar, whose cocktails liave been a bright spot in Wellington's social life for some years past, is about to quit our little world, and retuirn to where the eagle screams loudest, the citizens talk loudest, and where people da-ess* loudest — America ! "Jimmy," of course, has been an exception, for he has the softest voice, and) mixes one a "Manhattan" with all the tender solicitude of an old family doctor administering a soothing summer drink to a patient who supposes himself ill and isn't. • • • C^ffTwas a pleasure to see "Jimmy" crack ice, a comedy to hear him. orack a joke, and there was real art in the alluring manner in which he suinrounded the blushing cheirry with goldbrown liquid, which lapped lovingly against many a tiny iceberg. Tv memory of "Jimmy" Riegei and his pleasant potions, one might add another issue to the local option paper : "I vote that cocktail bars be immune from all Liquor legislation." The local Bohemians feel quite tearful at the departure of the "Yankee Doodle Boy." • • • The "New Zealand Times" has a curious way of making itself a flat perjurer. In the leading: article last week on Mr. J. G. W. Aitken's speech, the "Times" states that "notable omissions (from the speech) were . . . and old age pensions." The truthful reporter, ni another part of the same issue-, 'n detailing the candidate's remarks, reports What Mr. Aitken actually said on tihe subject of old age pensions. Why will the leading columns of so excellent a newspaper go out of their way to deny what is actually reported in its news columns? • * * The kuig can do no wrong. If King Edward were, to commit the greatest solecism in diess to»-day, to-moErrow it would be the pink of fa&hion, so imitative a thing is man I—or1 — or some of him at least. It was reported a few weeks aigo that King; Nedj appeared! on the promenade at Marienbad in a darkblue short coat, white trousers, grey top-hat, brown shoes, and) a coloured shirt with a double collar. At once th« telegraph office was besieged! with orders being sent to Vienna tailors for exact copies of the King's "turn-out/ with frantic instructions to forward them at once to Marienibad. Other orders were sent in hot haste to Paris for similar rigs. TJp till His Majesty's act, the bon-ton of the Continent had considered brown boots and 1 double collars bad form, except when travelling, but "Ned" burst up that stupidity by wearing just what .he pleased whatever sort of guy he may have looked. Grrey top-hat, too ! The Peterkin, of Petone., is right up-to-date, not to mention Captain, Karon Burraoownsler Henderson. • • • Mr. William Gill, the local manager of the Alliance Insurance Company, who has returned from a Home trip looking exceedingly fit, has a brother in Sheffield. Said has brother: "Within a small area of my borne there are twelve millionaires!" We have no millionaires in New Zealand said our Mr. Gill, with pride, "and we don't want any." The other Mr. Gill thought New Zealanders very queer. The Sheffield consequence of these milTLonaiires is that it is impossible to-obt-ain a foot of land, and one foas thegreat privilege by permission of tlhese gentlemen to walk Godi's eartih if one is careful not to drop rubbish on it or picnic under the millionaires' walls ? or anything like that. Mr. Gill dined with Lord Rothschild one nigjhit. "How long are you going to keep Mir. Seddon in power in New Zealand?" he asked. Surely, Rothchild) isn't waiting for Mr. Seddon's retirement to run this country as well as England!?

Jfka.t fine old pressman, Mr. P. Galvia, of the "Mining Recoid," drops us a reminiscent note': — "When I wds nineteen to twenty-one I resided on Bendigo, Victoria, getting there my first colonial experience.. In the Mining Registrar's office (or sub-Trea-sury,! forget which) was Boyle, who captained the first Australian team that went to England. Meeting him here on the Basin Reserve, after the (I think) second visit to England, I asked him what was his greatest suiprise. "Well," he saad, laughing, 'I think it was that of an old English lady who came to the Oval with eleven red caps which she had worked for us with her own hands. ♦ • * /^'When she came on the ground to present the red caps to us aboriginals (as she fondly thought), her face dropped, and there was a great sense of disappointment plainly visible on her features. When she was introduced to me, she said!: "Why, you are white people just like ourselves. 1 thought you were the real Australians!" ' 'And did you take the caps?' I asked. 'Oh, yes,' replied the- genial Australian captain. 'But lam sure the old lady did not derive anything like the pleasure that she wou'ldi have experienced had we been blaokfellows I think most of us will stick to those caps. We enjoyed the affair immensely, though sorry for the disappointment of the giver.' " /# * * Mr\ S. E. Grevillet-Smnth, an Auckland pressman of many years' standing, has pulled up stakes, and 1 hit out for South Africa. An entertaining, cultured, and polished 1 writer, Mr. Greville-Smith was in the front rank of his profession, and should) make his mark in the wider field! of literary effort where he has chosen to make his future home. For many years, he was connected with the press of the Waikafco, " and was subsequently sub-editor of the Auckland "Evening Bell." During the Melbourne Exhibition period, he was associated with the daily press of that city. Recently, he has been attached to the ediorial staff of the "Observer." Mr. Greviller-Smith's bighly-traiaied faculty found expression; in many wellwritten dramatic criticisms'. / • • • \yMr. John Cabot, who came post haste from Africa a month or two ago to see his father, who has since died at Timaru, has been in Africa since 1890, and he knows. Mr. Cabot was a soldier with the First New; Zealand Contingent, and afterwards joined the Silent Sixth as armourer sergeant. He is an engineer. "Jack," who is about to settle down in Wellington, tells us that the enormous wages one reads about and hears about don't really happen. As foreman of the biggest engineering shops in Capetown, he drew £3 a week. / Vtn the current number of the "Sixth Contingent Magazine," a periodical edited 1 by Mr. F. E. Beamish of the Post Office', the writer says : — "Jack has tasted) the bitterness of being right down on his luck in several parts of Africa, and says the country is rotten absolutely. Be has seen white men, in Capetown, cleaning niggers' boots and thousands walking about who would willingly work for 3s a day if work was forthcoming. Jews are putting up many big buildings, but at present no one can afford to occupy them, and they gape blankly at one from all sides. / * v "Those who employ labour take on men simply when they are required, and the moment the job is finished off the men are put. Jack had several jobs under such conditions. On one occasion he went on work at 8 a.m., finished his job at 9 a.m., and was immediately paid up and! told to go. Th© last blow was when he was selling some furniture just before leaving. The stuff had cost him £30, and he was offered (by a Jew, of course) 10s for the lot, but eventually got as 1 much as £2. He was extremely happy to once more find himself in what he emphatically says is the only country." Police Magistrate Murphy, of Victoria, believes in flogging, and he >s right. Three youths were before him charged with seriously molesting a young lady. Mr. Murphy told the fathers of the youths that they could either thrash the boys, or he would send them to gaol for three months' "hard." One father said he wouldn't thrash his boy as he was "nearly a man." Has Worship said: "All ria;ht, then, the gentleman can go to gaol.' The gentleman's father relented. The polic9 sent for three new stirrup leath era, which Mr. Murphy examined. The police also saw that the three parents laid it on thick — thirty lashes. Whe * the beating had stopped, the magistrate merely asked: "Will youi molest girls again?" There was a trio of very pained "Noes 1 M It is the onily way to deal with that class of offence, and Mr. Murphy should have the thanks of ■every parent of girls.

The light of enthusiasm illumines the eye of the white-haared aaxd snowywhiskered but vigorous oldl gentleman who has come across from Adelaide to New Zealand to seek recruits for missionary work— the Rev. W. Lockhaic Morton. The great and enduring proof of Mr. Morton's whole-souled earnestness in this matter is that he gave up a Sootchbyterian puJpit worth £500 a-year to prosecute mission, work. Xt first he tackled 1 the reclaiming of inebriates, and the first old drunk he dealt with was a pressman. Just fancy, a pressman who drinks! How ridiculous ! # Though he prospered moderately in this up-hill fight, when h& got an endowment of £3000 for either inebriates or for the training of missionaries, he decided on the latter. (The reporter had taken a good bit out of him). And now he has two great homes — Hope Lodge and Angas College— at Adelaide, where missionaries are taught the approved method of rounding in niggers and Chinamen and any old heathen into, the Christian fold. Mr. Morton, has got a little list of a number of young people whom he intends to interview with a view of getting them trained as Christian opticians' — to cure "the heathen in his blindness." ♦ • • The lawyer asked the witness if he knew the prisoner well. The witness replied he had never knowu him ill in his life. The angry &ix-and-eightpence asked if he had ever seen the prisoner at the bar, and he said he had often seen him there, and had had many a drink with him. The lawyeir scratched his head, and asked bam how long he had known him. He said about five feet ten, but when he was a boy he was only two feet five. "You said he was a friend?" hissed the lawyer. "I did not," was the quiet reply, "I said he was a Presbyterian. He ain't no Quaker." Then the lawyer said he could retire. But, beforo he went, the witness remarked to His Worship that "some lawyers is very stoopid!" • • • Grant Hervey, the journalist, who, in Melbourne lately, firedl a revolvershot at actor Walter Baker, who had struck him on the jaw in the public street, is an Australian who writes the kind of verses much affected by colonials who have been' and! have seen things as they are beneaith the surface. He was one time on Kalgoorlie "Sun," and is one of the "Bulletin's" most constant versifiers. He shows in his writings how hard he hates things, and he hates the Jew and the actor with t© deadliest kind of rancour he can dirop from his pen. • • • He dropped out of journalism once to go. into a stokehold, wherein he learnt things about the world and the girls of _ the Argentine. Evidently, he loves with the same kind of fervour as

be hates. According to a journalist friend, he thinks big newspaper proprietors are rascals, he is always looking for an altar on which to immolate himself as a, martyr in some expressed cause, and "is capable of running away with a torpedo boat to vindicate the honour of his grandlmother." A genius is a quaint combination, isn't he?