Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 352, 5 February 1903, Page 2

Personalities.

DUCHESS AS A DSTJMMBE. queer phase of the reoeSt trip Ia 1 ! of the Duchess of Sutherland to Bussia, in company with the Duchess of Marlborough, didn't get into the papers in London, says the ' Pittsburg Gazette. The Duchess, who is rich and lovely, is one of the moat erergetic young women in the kingdom, end especially interested in the peasants who make the' Scotch tweeds. For the sake of promoting their industry she packed several of her trunks with samples oil Highland tweeds, and on arriving in St. Petersburg spread out her goods like any other commercial traveller and issued invitations to the leading tailors of St. Petersburg and Moscow to come, see, and buy. She believes that as a result of her effoi ts a new market will be opened for the product of the Highland cotters.

JEWS AS FAEMEES. Mr. I. A. Kovalski, appointed some years ago by the Bussian government to superintend the Jewish colonists in the province of Ekaterinoslav reports that it is only necessary to have passed som? time in these villages in order to convince one's slf of the zeal and cleanliness of the 10,000 Jewish peasants of Ekaterinoslav. Every Jewish village gives the impression of a model fai m. The streets are marked by their cleanliness, and the houses are surrounded by gardens, where tbe Jewish peasant women grow their vegetables, etc No village possesses an inn or place for the sale of spirits. - The people have a healthy and flourishing appearance, and the Jewish recruits of th'se villages are taken for the artillery. ' The very common opinion,' he" concludes, 'that the Jews are unfit for agriculture receives there a very striking contradiction I myself have for n long time. partaken of this opinion. I have now altogether given it up, and am persuaded that under, certain conditions an excellent peasant could be made of every Jew.

A POINTED FAREWELL. Rex. M. J Hann did his beßt for a congregation in Centerville, N. J., but finally concluded tbat the members were not doing their best for him. Whereupon he called a meeting of the church and took leave of them »ll in this pungent fashion: ' Brothers and Bisters, 1 ccme to say good-bye. I don't think God loves this church, because none of you ever die. I don't think you love each other, because you have not paid my salary, sTour donations are moldy fruit and wcrmy apple?, and by their fruits ye shall know them. Brothers, I am poing to a better place. I have been called to be chaplain of a penitentiary. Igo to prepare a place for yon, and may the Lord have mercy on jour souls. Good-bye.' PEACE CONFERENCES. The conference between tbe Prussians and Außtrians, terminating in the celebrated treaty of Prague, took place in August of the year following Lee's surrender. There the Iron Chancellor proposed his hard terms, and proud Austria, stricken to the heart by the blow she had sustained at Sadowa, could do nothing but submit to the demands of Prussian greed. She had gone into the war ostensibly for the purpose of protecting Danish sovereignity in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. By the treaty of Prague she acknowledged she had no voice in the matter She was compelled to give Veaetia to the kingdom of Italy and to pay a large indemnity into the Prussian treasury. This war and its resulting treaty constitute two of tbe principal ' glorious achievements' claimed for Prince Bismarck. But a bright crown he won by his triumph over the French between 1870 and 1872.

In t>at same magnificent Versailles in which Louis XVI. devised heavy 'falls' for some cf the German states, and whose walls are covered with famous battle paiv.tings representing tbe triumphs of the first Napoleon, among them the victories of Jena and Eilau —there it was tbat Bismarck held his famous conferenee with the dismayed representatives of crippled F-iance, and when they ventured to protest against his 'inhuman terms/ re rose, and, placing his foot dramatically upon tbe parchment upon which the proposed treaty was written, announced that he ' stood on tr osa terms.' In still anot! er famous peace conference was tbe Iron Chancellor destined to take part, although this time it was as presiding officer, rather than partisan participant. The Berlin conference of 1878 was a meeting of representatives of the European powers to decide upon disputes growing out of the Russo-Turkish war of the previous year. It was called by Prince Bismarck acting for the German Emperor at the suggestion of Austria. Of the eight diplomats who took part in that celebrated contest of skill, seven were already illustrious men and powerful ministers, and the other—Lord Salisbury —has since become one. Acting on behalf of that Austria whom as a lyoung man he bated and from whose domination he plotted to relieve hiß native land, the brilliant and fascinating Count Andrassy, of Hungary, over whose name there yet lingers that glow cf poetry and passionate patrio'ism we associate with it, was successful in saving Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Austrian crown.

D'Tbbaali at the Berlin Congress. Before the advent of Bismarck the Russian, representative, Count Gortschakoff, was long the most powerful minister in Europe, but though he now summoned all his skill he was outmaneuvered. M. Waddington, the French envoy ; the Italian Count Corti and the gallant Cara'heodori Pasha were all illustrious men. But the picturesque figure of the congress of Berlin was the prime minister if England, d'lsraoh,Earl of Beaconsfield. To divert the attention of V e people from the corruption and abuses of his government he made a sensational pilgrimage to Berlin, from which he returned at'er a fantastic m' tley performance bringing back as he declared 'peace and honour.' Certainly he had succeeded in humbling Russia and in wringing from her some of the hardwon fruit of her victories. La return for the services rendered the Sultan, his majesty rewarded B'aconsfield by a virtual cession of Cypress and control of the Suez canal by the British government. The Treaty op Paris. Last of all is the peace congress at the close of the war with Spain, when representatives of the Uni'ed States and Spam met in Paris and arranged the terms on which the conflict should cease. Like the Boers the Spaniards upm their righte, but bowed to the inevitable, and a treaty highly satisfactory to America was signed, although when the tarms of it were made public in Spain a revolution was threatened.