MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 127, 26 June 1909, Page 3

MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE

THE KING'S NEW GARAGES.

(From London M.A.P.)

I The King has been obliged to call ill , t|ie leases of several houses at Windsor, : close to the Castle, and overlooking the j entrance to the Long Walk, in order | that they may be pnned dawn and the ' grosnd utilised for an addition to the ; present garages at the Castle, which I have become too amail for his large I "stud" of motors, Practically evevy yard of space within the Castle precincts' is already in use, therefore it was impossible 'to provide the necessary accommodation in any other way. ]

THE QUEEN AS NURSEMAID. Queen Alexandra has lately told an amusing little story 01 an adventure she once had when in the neighborhood of Sandringham with one of tlr; younger children of the Prince and Princess of i Wales. The child was in its' perambulator, and the nurse had been sent into a shop to make some purchases while the Queen waited outside. She wheeled the perambulator a little way, and, as she confesses, she is nol very expert at handling a child's carriage. Presently, owing to her bad steering, the perambulator went off the kerb with a jerk. A:i old lady passing by, who witnessed the incident, went up to her Majesty in high indignation. "Are you that child's mother!" she demanded sternly. The Queen smilingly admitted that she was not. "No, 1 thought as much," snorted the old dame. "It is a cruel shame that the child s'hollld he sent out in the charge of such as you. If 1 knew who your mistress was, I would write and tell her of the scandalous manner in which you look after y"ur charge. It is perfectly disgraceful!" And she marched away majestically, while the Queen tried to look duly reproved.

A DUTCH FANCY. A pretty story comes from Holland. Before the birth' of Queen Wilhelmina's baby, when the whole nation was on the" tiptoe of expectation, it was a favorite occupation of the little Dutch children to look out for the s'tork carrying the royal child. This bird was to be no ordinary stork, but a magnificent creature with a golden coronet on his head and a golden beak. The Dutch children believed as implicitly in this stork as did the English children of a bygone age in Father Christmas, and from the rich man's house to the peasant's cottage boys and girls were all agog hoping to 'see the bird with the golden beak flying in the air towards the Palace with i'ts precious burden safe and'sound on its back. Although the Dutch are called a stolid race, folk-lore and fairy-tales are rife among them, and the story of the stork with the coronet which is to be seen when a royal child comtis to gladden the nation is a favorite legend among the little Hollanders.

THE KING AND THE YANKEE. A delightful tale is lieing told about the King of Italy, whose meeting with King Edward wan so cordial the other day. King Victor is a great motorist, and some time ago while turning a corner in his car he nearly collided with another car which was coming in the opposite direction. He stopped to apologise, but was greeted with great indignation by the owner of the other car, an American, who, quite unaware of the King's identity, shouted out, "Scorchers like you ought to he strung up!" "What, in front of th? Palace for everyone to see!" asked the King, smiling. ''Don't care where it is, s'o long as it's done properly," replied the angry American, as he drove off. Shortly afterwards the latter, who happened to be 'a well-known member of American society, was present at a gathering at which King Victor was a guest. To his amazement, the American found himself being presented to the motorist whom he had abused so roundly. His embarrassment was' painful until the King advanced and, holding out his hand, laughingly asked, "Are all Americans as peppery as you, Mr. Blank*"

A PABKOT STORY. One of the most interesting events of the recent earthquake at Messina, is told by the Queen of Italy, whose rescue work during that terrible time earned among ihe ruins of a once noble house, a thin, squeaky voice was heard culling, "Maria, Maria!" A party of sailors made a hole in the debris with gr<>at difficulty, and descended into a room ■where they discovered a parrot, which for li'i' Jo much admiration. From continued to cry, "Maria, Maria!" It was so evident that the bird was calling for someone that the sailors at once began to search about. In an adjoining apartment they found a young and beautiful girl lying quite unconscious, but, luckily, uninjured. But for tile parrot's' cry, she would never have been rescued, and the sailors were so delighted that they took both the girl and the bird on board the battleship Vittorio Emanuel* where the Queen was, and presented them to her Majesly.

A BEMAKKABLE KIXt!

Olio of the most romantic of royal life stories is that of King Charles'of Komnaniu, who celebrated his seventieth birthday the other day. When a young man in the twenties, and a Prince in the Prussian army, he was suddenly called upon to rule over the people of Roumania. He had to make a secret journey into his new country, as war was in the air, and there were other reasons why his identity should not be revealed en route. Xo one guessed that "Carl Hettingen," the name under which he was travelling, was on his way to govern a people; hut a catastrophe nearly occurred when the young prince forgot his name on the frontier, and had to look at his pas'sport before lie could remember it! Eventually, the prince reached his nciw capital and at once began to make himself popular. After some time the principality of Eoumania was raised to a kingdom, and King Charles became onenof the most respected of crowned heads in Europe.

THE 'AMERICAN' CHARACTER. Peter Fenelon Collier was a very remarkable cxampie of the gigantic" success that attends men in America—perhaps I might even gay especially Irishmen—who bring to that new country minds as versatile and resourceful, and spirits as high and purpose as strong and stern, as the conditions of the country demand, and are in consonance with the whole national character. For rising in a century—which in the history of the world is but an hour—from a th'iiilypopulated and virgin land for the most part, and rising by struggle with the most perilous problems of civilisation and exploration, with wild beats and wild men, with the trackless forest and tlie untrodden prairie, with inexperience and all-encompassing novelty of dilliculty and enterprise, America has developed a distinct national character. The main factors' fn that character are resolute, and almost arrogant, self-con-fidence and self-reliance; indomitable courage; boundless ambition; absence of all superstitious reverence for the past, or the accepted; and ft certain hardness corresponding to the hardness of the conflict of every man for fortune.

THE LATE PETER COLLIER. Tnto that fierce anil bleak atmosphere, of ferocious' and merciless and brilliant competition there entered some forty years ago a young man from the softer, sluggish, improsperous life of Ireland. He had the usual amount of capital with which the Irish emigrant reaches America | probably half - a-sovereign evonld represent its amount. Hut he had the advantage of having been brought up in gentle and educated surroundings; though .hut a boy, he had alr«ail\- w |earneil to cultivate' his mind and to interest liims'elf in letters; ami in a way was,thus better prepared for the Hpiuirenl.lv hopeless struggle that might have been apparent. Hut still it niust at first have been a terrible struggle; for it, begun in the days of the Civil War, whe-.i America was' torn and bleeding and all business was demoralised. Hut Peter Collier proved equal to the moment, organised a method of distributing newspapers and literature to the soldiers in the field, and thus gave the first .proof of having by natural instinct -that grains for adaptability of business to circumstances that is »'o essentially an American gift.

HOUNiDLESS AMBITION. At this period of his life he was what in , America .they call a "drawer'— ivnglicc, cnnimereial traveller. It is a lug and iiupurtant profession in Enghand, and. a hard one too; but It is bigger, more Important, and.a.great deal harder amidst ih'e trying conditions of American life, with Its vast distances, [terrible railway journeys, primordial j and remote communities', and its conI stunt and incessant competition between, men of great gifts of persuasion

land influecne. A short experience of | this kind of life was sufficient to make (young Collier familiar .with the inside. I story of the bookselling trade; and he I had courage, self-reliance, and" energy | I sufficient to set up for hini6olf. He hai j the natural born genius of a psychologist where the taste of the American reading public was concerned, and one J of his lirst great enterprises was ground-1 ed on the belief that there was no such people for self-education and constant thirst to supplement early want of education by, private study as Americans. So he employed another Irishman—brilliant, wayward, good-hearted Nugent Robinson, whom Irishmen of my generation love with tender memory—to write a popular encyclopaedia. The encyclopaedia went like wildfire, and when it was finished Collier was already a rich man. But he had the true American spirit of restless and boundless ambition j Collier simply used this immense fortune for the purpose of building up an oven greater business. He founded a newspaper x called Collier's Weekly, which in a short time became one of the most powerful and most successful pub licntions in America; he published cheap Imoks by the million; and, in short, this pemiiless young Irishman had become, iiv the time he was middle aged, perhaps the wealthiest and most successful publisher of the United States,

TRUE HOSPITALITY. Then, when he had achieved this cnoriiimis success, he relapsed into the hpical and historic Irishman: the Irishman whoso chief delight in life is to nuke his friends happy, and especially liis friends of his own nationality. Not in the days of the ancient Irish kings was there ever a man who exercised with greater splendor, frequency, or enjoyment the virtue of hospitality. He gave a dinner-party almost every night of his life; and always pleasantly, opulently, and tastefully. When he came to London you found his rooms full of innumerable friends; and nobody w'io paid him a visit dared to go away without joining him at lunch or at dinner. Another trait of his race ho also had highly developed, the love of horses. A daring horseman himself, he spent a large part of his time, in hunting and in polo-playing; and even when he was Hearing his sixtieth year ho was a daring polo-player. Every winter he returned to Ireland, took a hunting lodge in Ceunty Meath—the premier hunting county of Ireland—and there, entertaining his triends' and riding almost daily to hounds, he was once more an Irish squire of the olden time. And now, with his vast fortune and his dazzling success, he is dead, just after he had passed his sixtieth year. He died probably as' he would have done, at a horse show in Neiw York and quite suddenly. He had worn himself out by his frenzied pursuit of the comfort and entertaining of his friends as much as by his hard work as a man of business. 'Peter Collier looked what ho was: tall, very thin, very restless, exuberant and expansive; with the clean-shaven face, the alert figure, the keen look of the born horseman. And many will mourn him as a generous, unselfish, simple friend, who was never dazzled or inflated or hardened by his extraordinary prosperity.