PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1907, Page 11

PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

All goad wishes will attend Lady Glasgow's departure for Ceylon, where she goes, accompanied by her youngest son, to look after her youngest brother, who is in hospital a. Colombo, writes an English paper. Lady Glasgow was a Miss Hnnter-Blair, and her. brother, the invalid, has had the management of his brother-in-law's tea-estates on the island for some years, now. A tea-plan-tation, another distinguished planter has been known to say, is the healthiest;, place in the world -. but. then, he does j not live there aU the year. Don Carlos, once the hope of the malcontents in Spain, and now hardly the hope of anyone but himself, has just . entered on his sixtieth year. Indeed, it may be questioned even if he indulges any longer in the dream that he will one day yule in. Madrid, and a recent interesting event o_ probably demdfe>h.-._. , altogether the last of the Carliss aspirations. In the circumstances Don Carlos shows his wisdom in occupying himself with Venice and his gondola, with his favourite bull-dog sitting in the prow. Much easier than governing Spain, even in these quiescent days, one woultl say. That gondola, thouga, holds the man who, perhaps, is hereditarily the greatest person in the worldHe is tbe undoubted Head of Bourbon, though his right to the French Crown is barred by a treaty; be is tmdeubted head of the Spanish Bourbons, though his right to the throne is barred by the abolition in 1532 of the Salic law of the eighteenth century; and, lastly, he is about the thirteenth in order of some nine hundred persons who precede King Edward as heir of Charles 1., though his claina to reign in England is barred by the Act of Settlement. If the President of the French could be induced to join the meeting of the two Kings. Don Carlos would, presumably, admit bis I abandonment of his claims to three great States.

Lord Curzon, the new Chancellor of Oxford University, earned a literary reputation at the beginning of bis career. His earlier pursuits were really part of and preparation for what he doubtless considered a, larger ambition; therein be differs notably from Mr. Morley, who will certainly be better remembered by posterity as tbe biographer oi Gladstone than as a statesman; or from Mr. Bryce, who will be immortalised by bis book on the American Commonwealth. But Lord Curzon, bookman as he is, if hedied, to-morrow, would be rememberred for bis "Viceroyalty of India, rather than for his books. That a man whose foible is omrriseiesiee should be among other things a trackman, almost goes without saying. There is an air of gorgeous eompleteases. about Lord Curzon, as if he had walked straight out of one of Disraeli's aovels, or —dare we whisper it?—out of one of OaidaV. But bis friends energetically declare that he is not a vain man in the ordinary sense of the term, and that what appears to commonplace minds to be ineffable conceit, is merely the unhypoeriticaL, frank recognition o_ the plain fact oi bis own mental power.

At a certain point of Paris near the Halles there is every morning to be seen an instance for which it would probably be difficult to find many parallels of that benevolence which combines with money expenditure the element of personal service. Tbe ""Newcastle Chronicle" states that an old gentleman, well dressed, presents himself at an hour now well known by those concerned, and there distributes with his own hands a hundred large bowls of bouillon or soup, which he first tastes himself, to as many poor people who, it need hardly be added, are there waiting for him. Then he withdraws, walks home for some distance, and is taken up in a fine motor-car, which whisks hum rapidly away. "The Father of tbe Poor" is the only name which can be given to him.

.The Qneen of Spain is understood to have three hundred and sbrtyfiv» ladies-in-waitisg—one for every day in ■the year —so that it may be hoped there are plenty to take ime place of those who are reported to be laid up with colds, in. conseques<2e of the. liking cf their Royal mistress for fresh ait and open windows. Her Majesty appears to have inherited her tastes in this respect from her august grandmother. Queen "victoria, whose fondness for cool breezes amounted al•«os_ to a ini-_wW fisc Warty _jle

drives about Aberdeenshire in the late \ autumn, always in .an open carriage, i whatever tbe teniper_ure,.were enjoyed I by tbe Queen more than by ber la-dies, j One of King Edward's first concerns j when he succeeded was to install proper heating arrangements in Balmoral Cas- j tie. which during the late reign w-as a positive ice-house in cold weather, and ! was nicknamed the Castle of Chill-on. j

Recent troubles at Wormwood Serubbs prison have hail a sequel in the appointment as geyvernor to that gaol ot Mr Basil Home Thomson, governor of the great convict prison at Dartmoor. In rhe ordinary way such a change would not be considered as promotion, but Mr Thomson's methods are admirably adapted to doing away with any insubordination either anions' the prisoners or their caretaker*. At Dartmoor he has haei to deal with a choice collection of desperate criminals, and. as a strict disciplinarian, though a fair one, he has made a very succesful governor. Mr Thomson has had a very, varied career. He is a son of the late Archbishop of York, and an Oxford man. His position in the? colonial service first took him out ta the South Sea Islands, and for a time he acted as Prime Minister of Tonga. When trouble occurred at Tonga owing to the influence of the Shirley Baker, Premisr of the native kingdom, and ex-W-eslejaa missionary. Mr Thomson was with Sir John Thurston when.the latter visited the scene of the disturbances. Raker was deported, and iir Thomson reigned in his place. He wa3 then only -29 years of age, and, upon his return to England, was appointed deputy governor of Dartmoor. Four years later he was moved to Northamptonshire Prison. Mr Thomson was later made governor of Cardiff Gaol, and following this, governor of Dartmoor. The governor's salary at Wormwood Serubbs is esactly the same as that Mr Thompson received at Dartmoor, viz., £ 700, but it is understood that the emoluments of the new governor at '"the Serubbs"' are to be on a higher scale than those of his nredecessor.

Mr. Beesham is no more. Presumably the pills he sold will continue to be compounded, and may still be worth a guinea a box to a grateful world. We hope so. for, not to make a secret of our admiration for them, Mr. Eeecham spent £IGO-,000 a year in advertising. The man who began by selling pills from, a tray in st. Helens' market owed his fortune to a phrase, or rather his appreciation of a phrase's value. It was a poor woman v '-.o told him she had had a guinea's worth, and ha simply repeated her assurance till, as Mr. Shaw puts it with respect to his own boom, he had made tap world believe it. These reclame successes are immensely encouraging. Energy commands them easily, it seems. Why every man in the -street does not spend £ 100,----000 a year upon his newspaper is one of those" things which, in the light of Beecham's career, no fellow can possibly understand.

An interesting appointment is that of Mr. Sydney Olivier, C.M.G., to be Governor of Jamaica, in place of Sir Alexander Swettenham. Mr. Olivier is a Socialist, and one of the leaders of the intellectual movement towards the reorganisation of society. He entered the Colonial Oifke in 18S2, heading the open examination in that year, and has seen much service in the West Indies and elsewhere. He was Colonial Secretary in Jamaica for five years, and Acting-Governor at three dif.fsrcntifperipdse. Apart from, his 'distinguished services as a colonial statesman, Mr. Olivier is a writer of graceful verse and prose. In IS3I he published a volume cf " Poems and Parodies,"" but his work in prose has been confined to brilliaut essays and magazine articles an Socialism, economics, and art. He has been, from" the beginning, one of the leading lights of the Fabian Society-—though at present in opposition to the classic Fabian attitude —and was its secretary from ISSO to IS9O. He was one of the contributors, with. GeoTge Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Hubert Blard, and others, to the famous Fabian essays, which represent, perhaps, the greatest effort of the society in the j popularisation erf Socialism. Mr. Olivier I has also delivered many delightful lee- ! tares on economic and literary .subjects.

There is still living in Ciliingham, Kent, a veteran who acted as orderly to Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer. The veteran is George Parr, who has just celebrated his ninety-first birthday. Panjoined the Royal Marines in 183-1, and accompanied another famous navigator, Sir James Ross, when he took the Erebus and Terror to the Antarctic Ocean in 1539. That was a four years' voyage, and th-; expedition suffered great privations. Parr vividly recalls \be long days when the ships lay fixed in the ice. The monotony was broken by seal fishing and bear bunting, and Parr had several narrow escapes from death. It is interesting to recall that this expedition touched the sonthe-nt-most point np to that time, discovering Victoria Land, and naming its two vol canoes 'Erebus and Terror, after tbe two i ships. Parr had the distinction of going "furthest south " with his intrepid commandtrr. On bis return, from this voyage ihe was appointed orderly tn Sir John Franklin, and was keenly disappointed wh<m tbe Admiralty refused him permission to go to the Arctic regions. He was ordered to New Zealand, where he fought in the Maori WaT, was severely wounded, ! and had to quit the service. King Edward is keenly interested in Mr. Parr. When His Majesty visited Chatham last year he had a long chat with the veteran, asking him a number of questions about his Antarctic experiences, and he has inquired after him on several occasions since. So marked has been the King's j interest tbat Parr regards himself as His ' Majesty's "'" particular "' veteran.

Tlie Rev. "R. J. Campbell, at a conference in Bristol, was asked by a layman whether he intended to devote the profits of his book on the New Theology to the '"submerged tenth," as General Booth tiid in the case of his book. "Darkest England." Amid cries of "Shame" and "Personal," Mr. Campbell said he did not mind admitting he had n money personally in the world The only money he had was in the form of insurance. If when he died it was found he had left any money personally he gave his friend who asked the question leave to dese-crate-bis grave. The layman caused an uproar by stating that it had been found out that Mr. Campbell had received £ 10.000.

While, of course, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan had nothing to do with the incident, the messenger boys of New York are very much incensed against the great financier. It appears that a messenger boy, passing along Wall and Broad-streets, New York, where the Morgan offices are situated, espied a bulky bine envalcrpe. It contained many yellow bank-notes and other valuables. - The name cf the firm being on the envelope, the boy carried it at once into the office and banded it to the cashier. The rest of the story is best told in the boys own language, as related by him to the New York papers:— a Mc hones' lad/ says thsicasfcisa grow: Bg tobe

a seeo_ Theodore Roosevelt some day. I'll take your number, and you shall be rewarded. So he takes de swag and counts it, and finds 7000 -dollars in yellow bucks and over 60.000 dollars in checks and ! drafts. I gees away feeLhr' that I will get mc jist deserts, and pattln' myself on <le back for mc honesty. Yesterday I gets a note, saying, "' Messenger No. 1603. —Dear Sir. —Iv reward for your honesty I take great pleasure in hanelmg you two dollars, with the compliments cf the firm.— Cashier. J. P. Morgan and Co." I puts the two dollars in an envelope, and I sends it back with <its note:— '* Cashier, J. P. Morgan and Co. —Dear Sir.—Yer cant hand mc a lemon cf I know it. Take this back, and tell Mr. Morgan to get a shave with it. —Messenger No. 1603.-''

At home. Bishop Digirle. of Carlisle, boasts that he has knitted hundreds of pairs of seeks and stockings, and can make a shirt as well as any man, and not long ago his Lordship of Winchester took part in a shooting match, the Bishop of Kensington competed in a foot race, anil the lute Bishop Stubbs took cut a patent for a " Sleepy Hollow Chair."'

General Benjamin Johanis Viljoen. the man who captured Dr. Jameson after the latters premature South African raid, and later gained fame while fighting the British, is now postmaster of Chamberlain, NM.. Ontario, U.S.A.