PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9617, 15 September 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

Professor John Stuart Blackik can repeat nearly all of St. Paul's epistles by heart. Since the age of twenty-one, when he first entered the ministry, General Booth has delivered upwards of nine thousand addresses and sermons. The Countess of Aberdeen wears at State functions a coronet, the distinguishing features of which are five emeralds, said to be the largest in the world. Mr. Balfour's style of play at golf is described as good, especially off the tee, and ib is said he has a long, easy, powerful sweep. Nothing impairs his temper or his coolness.

! Tolstoi never drinks any wine, nor 1 smokes, nor eats meat, eggs, butter, or pastry made of lard; but supports his system entirely on bread, vegetables, fruit, and porridge. Instead of tea, he drinks a beverage made out of hot water and raisk s. Mr. John Wanamaker, the American, is one of the most heavily life-insured men in the world. His life is insured for £340,000, and his annual premiums amount to £18,000. It is said that with the accumulation of dividends his insurance now totals about £400,000. Mrs. de Navarro (Miss Mary Anderson) has returned to her home in London, where she lives in complete retirement. Her love for domesticity has completely gob the better of her love for the footlights, and she prefers peace and obscurity to hard work, excitement, and fame. Mrs. Langtry turns out in gorgeous attire. At the recent meet of the Coaching Club, she wore a French gown of mingled blue and purple, and a hat loaded with pink and magenta rosea. Her black poodle sat at her feet in her Victoria, and wore a ribbon

matching his mistress' flowers. The Empress of Russia possesses an automatic scent fountain capable of diffusing no fewer than twenty-seven different perfumes. All that is necessary to do is to move a lever opposite the name of the scent required, after the manner of some of our automatic sweetmeat machines, press a button, and forth comes a spray of the selected perfume. The Queou of Greece is a remarkably charitable woman, and is nob content with the sort of philanthropy so many people indulge in who figure as patrons of institutions of which they know little more than the name. She is the president of a sisterhood which is devoted to the reformation of criminals, and she is very often to be found visiting the prisoners. Like many other authors, Mr. Conan Doyle converts his shirtcuffs into a notebook, on which he jots down ideas which strike him when paper is nob handy. One of Sherlock Holmes' most enthralling adventures was nearly lost through this habit, the telegraph having to be brought into requisition to prevent the laundress expunging from a cuff an idea that bad not been transferred to paper. Herr Schneidereit, an Austrian printer, boasts that he has just completed one of the longest walks ever made by man. He has marched on foot the whole way from Calcutta-to his native town of Rathenow. In the year 1892 he was informed that a kinsman, who had lately died in Australia, had bequeathed him a considerable fortune, and so he set out with his wife and children to take possession of his inheritance in the English colony. When he arrived he found the fortune to be little more than a fable, and set his face again towards home. The ship was burned on the voyage; Herr Schneidereit lost his wife and his two children, but was himself marvellously rescued, and carried on board an English ship to Calcutta. There he quickly spent the small remnant of his property, and found himself utterly without means of livelihood. So the venturous man resolved that he would walk home to Austria. He travelled on foot across India, Afghanistan, Persia, Turkey, the south of Russia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Hungary, into his Austrian fatherland. The journey on foot occupied him nearly the whole of two years. ____^___