K. OF K.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 June 1916, Page 5

K. OF K.

A PEN PICTURE. ' "' Sydney Brooks, a ■well-known writ**, • gave a bright character sketch of ijit- •' chener in 1911. Here are the main '*■ touches of the pen picture:—Kitchener \, uses his subordinates remorselessly, but 'j not more remorselessly than England r uses Kitchener. Almost the only part : of the Empire he has never had a chance of really knowing is England itself. For. *. the past three and ii-half decades he haa (,J spent more years out of his own counts than months in it. All Englishmen / know his photographs; comparatively! '.: few have set eyes on the man himulf£'."'*; fewer still would recognise hun in mufti,- r Two or three times within the past year -., I have caught sight of him in some of .'; the most crowded streets in the Weafc '}. End, wearing the glossiest of Bilk hats jf and a faultless cut-away, striding along. " with huge, lunging, ungainly gait, hi» -'•' body bent forward from the Slips, aix S£ feet three or so of loose-joined humanity '$ crowned with a massive, seamed, brickred face—and not a single passer-by haa turned round to look at him or has peno- ?„' trated the effectual disguise of his civil- 1 ian dress. Take away his uniform and •' rig him out in the ordinary ftttire of * the ordinary Londoner, and the most ', famous and the least known of Engli»h-' men might walk from end to end of the .; metropolis unnoticed. » MOST SPHINX-LIKE OP MEN. ' '"' I feel pretty sure ~e would not ha*fc it otherwise. A man more indifferent to popularity, more disdainful of the favor and attentions of the mob, never lived. One can imagine him meeting ' the importunities of casual admiral with more than the gruffneas of Wei. lington's "Don't be a damned fool, sfo.*Not that the temptation to any atich retort is likely to come his way. Nine-tcen-twentieths of his active life hat been passed in exile, and he is going, and going gladly, into exile (Egypt) Otto* more. He is at once the most dialing and the most obscure of all the servant* of the British State—his name and? achievements the pride of all men, K»\, ■ personality hardly even guessed at, his appearance so little familiar to thja' I '.' crowd that, when he doffs his unifonk ;;. he becomes unrecognisable. What chamsai ; ' indeed, have his. countrymen had w learning to know him? He was barejy' •"■, four-and-twenty when he left England ■ to spend four engrossing years on the ; ' Palestine survey. Another four year* ■■ devoted to similar work in Cyprus fol- ? lowed immediately. Their termination ,'• found him without a pause in Egypt, a»dj. : ' for the next seventeen years, with a single gap—a gap of a few month* \j; ! '. characteristically filled by service on Zanzibar Boundary Commission—land of the Sphink held the most ?<4 like of men continuously. Then MM}.'.<hJ four fighting years in South Africa, lowed at once by seven as Commander- , fi in-Chief in India, and rounded off with, a a tour of inspection and observation U-m through Australia, New Zealand, Chinajt;*| Japan, and the United States. ' 'iV^ WORK AND OBEDIENCE. '' a

| The Kitchener <jf common report, tiMt'7& embodiment of stark, saturnine effici* \<] ene'y, the relentless organiser of his and his country's success, is no fabUj; ]/S hut neither is lie the whole man. Hi ';<| believes, indeed, with nil Hip might lOf'ff, his simple, concentrated nature in thfr.'-Jj gospel of work and its twin gospel oi [* obedience; he has an illimitable self-con- ]J fldence; for bungling and faint-heartedj *| ness he is incapable of feeling sympathy! ',* or showing mercy; an officer who fails ,"<; him once gets no second chance. "Sun- , stroke? What the devil does he mean ojj by having sunstroke?" is the classic fa ■ j'i stance of his attitude towards the weak- ,;'| er vessels. A favorite captain of his *s was once entrusted with an important'. 'i commission. There was a dehy in •»•'' fr cuting it through his horse casting- a -£" ahoeshoe. "Very sorry," was Kitchen*' >■"' er's comment, "but I cannot rest my plan '. * <it campaign on a horse's shoe or an oh 'i fleer's carelessness." He has a grim, /i laconic humor. "Keep the pun," ho is -j said to have wired to the War Offlot>.',<J authorities, who were anxiously prefntoj' • rf a certain weapon upon him—"l «wV'i"! throw stones myself." ''^

SOLID. \A "I don't profess to be aVc to whi -,j battles without losing men" was his '-J sole contemptuous reply to the criticism J levelled against his gcneral-'liip ! at- "i Paardeberg. Few men feel comfortable „| in his masterful presence mid beneath "1 his steady, questioning, appraising gace; '|j fewer still feel real affection fur him; J but all men regard him with the lrjii*4'. ,jj| and respect that qualities M\oh ai his ,3 invariably rommnnd. He i'-s real all ,-jj through—which is the Miflicienl reason <| why children instinctively i.ikc to him. ■'? Every attribute rings inn-; there W '-' nothing of tinsel or smvhw.il.u- poxtur- •" ing about him; he is too big a man not to be simple, unconscious of himself, in- '*; different to effect. If he it, inexorable, f j he is also just; if strict, he is «|s o considerate. Perhaps nf lute years he hai '.* somewhat mellowed. No'one, at any '■',< rate, who m»t him at a country house "Ja to-day for the first time, and who ll*i ,*J l.ened to his quick, rank, terse talk, in. :| terspcrsed with froquent smiles, would jjf for a moment think of him ns a hard or Jg unsociable man. He enjoyed the honors « and festivities showered upon him after 'M Omdurman and South Africa with mi ffl almost boyish abandon. The reserve. 3a and shyness natural in one who nM ',j| spent nve-aiid-twenty indefatigable years .jS in the desert have given nway before vl the obligations of ofdcial hospitality in' i Calcutta and eighteen months of coun- i try and metropolitan life in Kngland}' * and Lord Kitchener to-day., so far from '1 being a woman-hater, rather delights in ,< society and its diversions, and finds In '' the company of pretty and intelliMnfc * ! women at least as much pleasure as in i his gardens, his china, or his golf He i& is allowing the world, in short, a of that side of him which,only a very <\ few intimates hove hitherto knoW-i 1 the side that .moved him to cheers that •$ quavered with emotion at the parade of ' 3 tlie veterans of the Indian Mutiny in th« | Delhi Durbar, the side that has mad» 4 him the most thoughtful, tender, «S i assiduous of nurses by the befekfe fll 'M many a stricken soldi** -,-M