PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 105, 2 May 1908, Page 13 (Supplement)

PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

The Princess Stephanie, danghter of | King Leopold, has takeh out a patent for a. new kind of gas stove. The Rev. Prancis Paynter, M.A., aged seventy-two, of Stoke Hill, Guildford, Surrey, who was at his death reputed to be the wealthiest clergyman in England, his income being estimated at from £70,000 to £80,000 per annum, equal to property of a capital value of from £1,400,000 to £1,600,000, has only left £43,814. In order to celebrate the 80th birthday of Count Tolstoy on August 28 in a. befitting manner an international appeal has been issued by the committee, formed at St. Petersburg under the presidency of Professor M. M. Kovalesky. A story which shows the Parisians' appreciation of King Edward's lack of "side," appears in a contemporary. His Majesty was at a ball given in aid of a charity, and was conversing with a Parisian tailor of a world-wide reputation. "The company is a very mixed one," said the latter with an air of disdain. "What of that?" replied King Edward, smiling, 'we cannot all be great tailors, you know." Emperor William 11. is never without his revolver,and he is extremely skilful in the use of the weapon. It is inspected and freshly primed every morning, so as to make sure it is in perfect working order. Firmly convinced that he is goinn to die by the hand of an anarchist, this fate having been prophesied for him long ago, he is determined to make a stern fight for his life, and to have, at any rate, the satisfaction, if he falls, of inflicting some injury upon his assailant. Queen Amelie of Portugal once nearly caused a revolution at her Court by photographing with Rontgen rays the wasp-like waist of one of the Court ladies. The Queen developed the. picture, lectured on the evils of tight-lacing, and help up her unfortunate as an awful example. All the ladies were ordered to let out their waists. But the grumbling and discontent threatened severe trouble. King Leopold mingles with his subjects so unobtrusively that he frequently goe3 unrecognised. One day h e called at an old Flemish woman's cottage, and asked for a glass of milk. Presently he heard the dame muttering in Flemish, "Well, I wonder how much that long-nosed Englishman is going to pay mc for the milk." The King replied in the same language, presenting her with a five-franc piece, "Madame, do mc the favour of accepting this portrait of the longnosed Englishman." A return issued from the Treasury of the receipts ad disbursements of the Duchy of Cornwall for the year 1907 shows that a sum of £92,450 received in rents and profits of courts accrued to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. Royalties, dividends on stocks, and a number of the small items brought the total receipts of Duchy to £140,949. Payments amounting to £80,407 were made for the use of the Prince of Wales, while over £16,000 was expended for the benefit of the estate. President Falieres, who is to visit England, is a very homely man of 67. His grandfather was a blacksmith. He made his fortune, cultivating vines. He is a stout, white-haired, white-bearded man, with a calm, deliberate manner, and a remarkably unassuming disposition. When he was first photographed as President he resisted the proposal that he should put on a new necktie for the occasion. "What!" he exclaimed, "get a new tie in the latest fashion? Certainly not. I have worn the same sort of tie for 30 years, and I shall go on so." Stories of lan Maclaren are still cropping up. A contemporary has just unearthed the following incident which occurred on one of his lecture tours in America. He met a man who had just returned from Jerusalem. He was disappointed, disillusioned. "Sir," said he, "that Holy City is a back number. Would you believe it, there isn't a single trolley-car or daily newspaper in the whole place." Another gentleman, starbespangled and in a hurry, came to Liverpool. He tracked the renowned author to his residence, sent up his card, and immediately followed it into Dr. Watson's study. "My name is Elijah K. Higgins," he said, almost breathlessly, "and I am a busy man; you also are a busy man, and I have no time to fool away. Four days are all I can give to your United Kingdom, and I wish to shake hands with you. Good-bye; I'm off to Drumtochty," and he vanished. Lord Dudley, who, in a phrase that has become historic, "goes gallivanting off to Australia," shortly, as Governor-General, has been in those parts when ho was as far removed from the notion of revisiting them in a gubernatorial capacity as could be expected in the case of a youthful globe-trotter, fresh from Eton. He has, however, done something since those days, and in. the forty-odd years of his life has acquired the sort of experience an Australian GovernorGeneral finds most useful. He has, for instance, been Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade; he has taken his turn with the Yeomanry in South Africa; he has put in a popular Viceroyalty of Ireland. And he is the husband of a wife who has also had experiences of sorts, who has been left to fend for herself and to rub shoulders with Diana of Dobson's, and who has graced a romantic marriage with a perfect fitness for the coronet it gave her. As in Dublin, so on the other side of the world the Viceroy's wife will be one of his best credentials.—"Pall Mall Gazette." Richard Benham, whose career has closed in a Soho lodging-house, London, was, some thirty years ago, in the zenith of his fame as a philanthropic plutocrat. As his plutocracy was bogus, his philanthropy was expensive to a good many people. For, at any rate, he was a born actor, who could look and paly the part to the life; he had a suasive tongue; his documents in support of his case were so entirely like the real thing that they deceived the very elect, including the late __. J. Mundella, Mr. Gladstone's Vice-President of the old Education Board, and a subsequent President of the Board of Trade. It was supposed to be some transactions with Benham, into which Mundella had entered in perfect good faith, that motived his resignation, in 1894. The ostensible reason was that the Xew Zealand Loan Company, of which Mundella, with Sir James Fergusson and Sir George Russell, had been a director, got into low water under circumstances that necessitated a public inquiry. Lord Rosebery wanted the President of the Board of Trade to withdraw his resignation, but, in the result, it Lad to be accepted.

According to the "Header," Sir Thomas Lipton is said to have told the following story in an aftel-dinner speech. He ■was speaking of bachelorhood. "Bachelors, I admit, are villains, but it is a shame to play such tricks on them as it is customary everywhere to do. A nasty trick was played on a bachelor friend of mine at a dance. A woman was reproaching him for never having married, when her husband, a little bored, perhaps, said gruffly: Tie says he could have cut mc out and married you if he had wanted to.' The woman started. 'Indeed!' she cried. Why didn't he do it, then?' 'He says he owed mc a grudge,' the husband explained with a chuckle." Most of the best known Socialists in Great Britain are persons of wealth and leisure. Mr. Bernard Shaw makes £25,000 a year, has motor-cars, and mixes freely in plutocratic society. Hia wife has a handsome fortune. Mr Sidney Webb also married a well-dowered wife. Mr Bamsay Macdonald and Mr Philip Snowden did likewise; the latter augments his income by writing for newspapers and reviews. The Countess of Warwick has explained that she would; willingly divide her worldly goods with the poor if there was enough to go round. She certainly is not now among the wealthy Socialists. Mr Henry Mayers Hyndman _3 a most successful specula* tor.—From "P.T.0."