ABOUT NOTABILITIES,

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 62, 13 March 1915, Page 14

ABOUT NOTABILITIES,

Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, of Grand Opera fame, has remarried at the age of 62. His bride is Mrs. Mary Miller Swift, an attractive and wealthy lady half his age. 6he divorced her first husband, Julian Swift, one of the partners in the j Chicago meat-pacting firm. The Rome correspondent of the' "Gaulois" announces that two of the brothers of the Duke of Parma, whose! sister, Princess Zita, married, the Austrian Heir-Apparent, have arrived at Pianore Castle in Tuscany. At the outbreak of the war seven of the brothers volunteered for service in the Austrian army. They are now said to have definitely left the Austrian forces.—Reuter. Lieutenant-Colonel Walter EdgeworthJohnstone, heavy-weight boxing champion ot Ireland thirty years ago, and a well-known footballer and cricketer, has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Police. He won the Navy and Army heavy-weight championship in 18*4, and the sabre challenge cup at the Royal Naval and Military tournament in 1898, and again in 1900. Hiiaire Belloc, military expert, poet, historian and novelist, whose famous forecast of the German advance through Belgium appeared in print two years ago, was born in England in 1870. His father was of French and Irish descent; his mother was English. As a young man be lived in France, where he became a driver in an artillery regiment, returning to England to enter Balliol College, Oxford, and, later, to ply the craft ot the pen, in which he has shown versatility and fertility. The immense fortune of £325,804, unsettled property, was left by Mr. Thomas Albert Cook <«?), ot Sennowe Park, Great Ryiwrgh, Norfolk, a member of the well-known firm of Messrs. Cook and Sons, the tourist agents and bankers. Mc left the whole of the residue of his property on trust for his wife during widowhood. In the event of her remarriage she is to receive an annuity ot £50. Mr. William Wimpennv Peters, of 126, Westbourne Terrace, Padding ton, left £091,000. The death duties will amount to £181,000. The floors of the rooms of the Royal Palace at Potsdam, are for the most part carpeted with Kidderminster, and the following story is told by the Kaiser's biographers:—When the late Duke of Cambridge was staying with the Kaiser several years ago, he remarked to the German Emperor: "We ought to feel flattered, Your Majesty, seeing that you think so highly of British manufactures. Well, British carpets can't be beaten anywhere, I am sure!" "Ah! Duke," replied the Emperor, laughing somewhat exultantly, "whenever 1 put my foot upon a British carpet, 1 say to myself, "Germany trampling on British trade,'" Prince Maximilian of Saxony, whose intervention is said to have saved Mulhouse from the destruction with which it was threatened for effusively welcoming the French troops, used to be a familiar figure in Wlu'techapel, where for two years he worked as priest in charge of the German Catholic church. Not long ago a leading Vienna newspaper, the "Neve Freie Presse," prophesied that Prince Maximilian would eventually fill the chair of St. Peter. The rule followed in recent years whereby the choice of Pope is restricted to Italian ecclesiastics might, it was thought, be broken in favour of a brother of the King of Saxony. , The Austrian Rothschilds are the only members of the family to manufacture armaments. As proprietor of the Wittkowitz iron works in Moravia, Baron Louis de Rothschild, the head of ' the Austrian branch, furnishes the army with metal for its guns and the navy with armour plates. These huge works, the technical organisation of which is perfect in eveiy detail, have grown out of a small foundry purchased by the late Baron Albert de Rothschild. The development of the Austrian railway system is also closely connected with the Rothschilds. They financed the two largest lines in the Empire—the North and South lines—and still bold a good proportion of the shares. It is stated in "Le Sport" that Georges Oarpentier, the heavy-weight white champion of the world, has lost the major portion of his savings owing to the destruction of the coal mines in Lens and Courrieres, in which he had invested his money. When Carpentier was in London (writes the >boxing correspondent of "The Daily Telegraph") I asked him what he had done with the thousands of pounds he had won. He then said that he and Desohamps, his manager, had invested very largely in coal mines in the Lena and Courrieres district, where he was born, and where, since be had become champion, he had set up his parents in a cafe. Brave old "Bobs" was well "blooded" as a raw ensign, to use a soldier's ex- | pression. In the Mutiny he had three very narrow escapes. While he was laying a gun a shot came through the embrasrure and took off the arm of the gunner who was serving the vent. In repulsing a sortie from Delhi he was hit close to the spine by a bullet, and, though the blow was partly deadened by a leather pouch, it was Severe enough to prevent his mounting a horse for more than a month. A few days after the fall of Delhi he saw a sepoy taking deliberate aim at him in a melee, but his horse reared opportunely and intercepted the bullet. To his last days the veteran warrior always spoke gratefully of the good fortune which had attended him in personal conflict. Death has spared neither the great families nor the humble ones in this war.. The Duke of Wellington has lost a son, and a son concerning whoee military career very high hopes had been expressed. All three of the Duke's sons entered the Grenadier Guards, and the elder two served in South Africa. The heir to the dukedom, Marquess Douro, resigned his commission, but Lord Richard Wellesley held a captaincy and Lord George is a lieutenant. The name of this family was Colley, the grandfather of the first Duke being the Richard Colley who was created Baron Mornington in the Irish Peerage. The Baron assumed the name of a Cousin, Wesley—he was a relative Of John Wesley—and afterwards changed it to Wellesley. The second BarOn was created Earl of Mornington, and the Earl's third son was the famous Duke; the present Duke is a grandson of the first. His father was a major-general and he himself commanded the first battalion orf the Grenadier Guards.