Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1900-06-22

i
| s1bJects In Which He Is Engrossed.
His Piety, Temperance and Nodes
| ty-Hovy He Rebuked Lord Methuen.
| The following are some of Julian
! Ralph's impressions Of Lord Roberts,
| founded on experience at the front, rs
published in the London Daily Mail:
The first time the correspondents
saw Roberts was at a railway car win
| dow at Modder river. He sent for
| them and addressed them as one who
speaks to friends. 1t seemed TO them
| that he lifted every disability and
brushed away every Limitation which
had hampered and almost crippled
them in their work up to that time.
They We're to write what they pleased,
he said, and 1t was not TO be censored;
their kilograms only would be scruti-
nized. They We're to go wherever he
went, wherever they willed to go.
To me his face suggests the front of
O granite mountain-seamed,li lined, bat
tered by storm. strain and racking
change. 1t records acquaintance with
every trial to which mortals are put,
all suffered in the solitude of undivid-
ed responsibility. Care. worry, sick
had left their marks there, yet all We're
written across n gentle, sympathetic
countenance, never gay or merry, yet
seldom stern and wholly ignorant of
passion. 1 have known many great
faces. but that of Lord Roberts is 4
face apart. l fancy that in the minds
of their worshipers some of the soberer
gods of the old mythologies had faces
like his.
He dresses in serge khaki which,
plain as that always must be, he rem
ders palmer by Kidding it of all orders
and decorations. There are men on
his staff-there was even an American
newspaper reporter with one of the
armies-who wear Il line and half of
ribbons, but the chief, who is entitled
to perhaps four lines. appears every
day, for every duty and function, with
a tunic as bare of decorations as that
of any civilian. He is so neat and pre-
else in his dress that 1 suspect he must
have been a dandy in earlier life. He
is quick and nervous in his movements,
and his constant habit is TO thrust ell
Their one or both hands under his belt,
a practice which makes 1t easy for
artists to familiariZe his figure with
the public. He is instantaneous and
direct in conversation and goes as
straight TO the point in view as a well
aimed bullet TO Il target.
/ have noticed that when he meets Il
new acquaintance he advances toward
him eagerly, listens intently, and in
three minutes either engages him in
earnest conversation or has done with
him with 4 decisive nod of parting.
With the army in South Africa his
headquarters form q court, almost as
if he We're part of the royalty he rep
resents. You do not call on him. You
sign your name in book, and he
sends for you later If he wants to see
you. 1t may be duke whom you find
in the sale Of the residency-as it was
in my case-and who offers the regis
ter for you to sign. The field marshal
works continuously and to do so has to
be free from interruptions; therefore
visitors meet him only at luncheon or
dinner.
In Bloemfontein, where he was liv-
ing between walls, his table was 4
small one standing n few feet from the
head of the large, long table at which
sat his staff, his ponderous, impressive
tocracy You dined with "Bobs" in
khaki of course at his small table, IL
you were highly honored, or you may
dine with his staff and be presented to
him after the meal for n long or brief
interview as he pieases- That is pre-
cisely the amount and extent of state
about his surroundings.
But all state vanishes when you
ha Of IL, nj
talk with him about the two subjects
which engross him-the war around
him and politics at home. If you Won
der that politics finds such spacious
Judgment as it does in his mind, you
have not remembered how politics
has affected him in his career as a
general here 10 South Africa-when he
could have prevented this war by a
vastly smaller one-in kandahar, in
many fields.
Lord Roberts never smokes tobacco,
and with drink he has little to do. One
glass of wine with two of the three
meals suffices him. He breaches tenn
perance TO his soldiers, and they all
know that he shows no patience with
those who drink TO excess. He pre-
sides at meetings of the Army Temper
ance association and eXtols sobriety;
but, like all broad minded men. he re-
trains from advocating the impossible
one form OF which Is total abstinence.
He has never been known to use an
oath, and, indeed, there must be COM
paratively few men whose religion in
luences them so deeply as does his In
every affair of life. He never parades
his piety. never forces it on those
around him. Yet on every Sunday
since he Joined his army he has attend
ed divine service Not a word has he
ever spoken to his staff suggesting or
ordering their presence; yet he is GER
tain to atteHd the weekly serviceAan
example to che army so modestly and
so persistently presented that it cannot