ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 14

ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

The appointment is gazetted of Prince j Antoine. Gaeton Philippe, of Orleans and Braganza, to be temporary captain in the Royal Canadian. Dragoons. He.,was ; born in 1881, the third son of the Comic dTSu, by his marriage with Isabella, Princess of the Braganza and Princess Imperial of Brazil, and ia a cousin.of the Duke of Orleans. ■ Count de Lalaing, although no longer (Minister of,' Belgium to. the Court of St. James, still remains in England, and has taken a house at Haslemere, where .lie and- Countess- de Lalaing have spent the summer. Another - diplomatist who remained in 'England after his diplomatic duties came to an end was M.. de Bille, so long Minister from; Denmark. He and Mme. de Bille, iwbo was an American, were very popular in English society. Sir Ralph Paget, the new British Minister to Copenhagen,, is the second son of the late Sir Augustus Berkeley Paget, who for' so many years represented the Court of' St. James in Rome and in Vienna. Sir Ralph married, his cousin, the only daughter of Sir Arthur Paget and hie beautiful American wife. Lady (Ralph) Paget did splendid work in Serbia, nursing the sick and wounded, and was at one time critically ill there from typhoid fever. , Much sympathy ie being felt for Mr. J. L. Garvin (editor- of the London " Observer ") and Mrs. Garvin on the occasion of the death of their brave son, Lieut. Gerard Garvin, who died gallantly in action on the Somme. He had been a year at the front, earning high, praise in that time from his superiors. A fine type of young-man, English in all his qualities, his last words as he fell were, ." Carry on." ■ Careless of danger, it is told of him that while waiting to move into the firing line, Be took out a pocket edition of Lβ Bruyere's " Les Caracteres," and attuned bis mind to his placidities. Had he lived, Lieut. Garvin would have made a great name for himself. Aβ it is, he leaves behind him the memory ..of a life nobly .surrendered to the great cause for which the manhood of Britain'is fighting. Lord Cromer will increase still further the Empire's indebtedness to him by presiding over the Dardanelles Commission, says a London Press writer. One of the most famous and successful of all our great pro-Consuls wae very much of a younger son, being in fact, the ninth of ten. The father of this big family, which also included three daughters, was Mr. Henry Baring, third son of that famous merchant, Sir Francis Baring. Lord Cromer's fifth brother was created. Lord Revelstoke; his uncle, Alexander Bar- : ing, was created Lord Ashburton; while • his cousin, Francis Baring,, wae created , Lord Northbrook. This record of four . distinct peerages all acquired within a j comparatively brief period by one family , is hard to match, and is all the more ; remarkable when it is remembered that . the first Baring to settle in England— < the father' of Sir Francis—was not ■ naturalised till 1727. '■ Mr. TJamd,;,, MarVume Mackay, .of , > Suburb, chairman of Laughland., Mackay, , and Co., 50, Lime Street, E.G., and of j Australia and New Zealand, who died on : Junei' 27, has. left" estate of ~ ?the gcose ■' value of £150,561 2/7,' with net personality amounting to £88,643 11/4. T3ie testator gives (among rother bequests) ' £1,000 to Regent Square Presbyterian ' Churoh for general congregation and mis- ' sion work, £500 to the U.F. Church of ' Logic Easter, one-half for. augment- ! ng the stipend of the minister and the other half for the poor; £250 each to the Central Fund, the Highland and! Island Fund; £250 to the Presbyterians Church Fund for work carried on in the East End of London; £500 to Mrs. Mar] ory Kennedy Fraeer, "in appreciation, of I her untiring efforts in collecting the oldT music of the Gael, and arranging and publishing it, so preserving it for the ' generations .unborn." .There was no braver soldier than the ' Due de Rohan. He had barely recovered from injuries received at Verdun when he returned to the front and was- mortally wounded in the fighting on the, Somme. The Due was 37, and twelfth holder, of a ducal title that is synonymous with the word chivalry, and with him a very..gallant gentleman and notable figure in -Parisian society and the representative of one of the noblest families of the ancien regime has passed away.- Josselin, Due de Rohan, who married his relative, Marguerite de Rohan-Chabot, bore the name of his historic home, the Chateau de Joaeelin in Brittany. The chateau was a fortress, but in 1162 Henry II of England demolished H. In the fourteenth century it was reconstructed practically as it stands to-day by the fortune of Marguerite de Roban, an extraordinary woman, whose heroism in defending Josselin against De Montf ord, Duke of Brittany, is French history. Perhaps the most scholarly of news paper correspondents, and certainly the one who knowe most of Russia, i> a New Zealander—Mr. Harold Wilhame, ' the Petrograd correspondent of. the London "Daily Chronicle." Mr. Williams is the eon of a Methodist minister in New Zealand, and tarn four brothers serving in the British foroes at the front. Hie etory has in it some elements of romance. When, as a boy, he tort begun the study of languages, he found ' the subject mysterious and difficult. Then, as he has expressed it, something seemed to burst in his brain, and everything became transparently dear. He mastered Latin and Greek, studied several Polynesian languages, and was working eagerly for his theological degree, intending to follow his father in the ministry, when again something burst in his brain. On* this occasion the dynamic came from without, being provided by a perusal of "Anna Ksrcnina." He read -all he oould of Tolstoy, with the result that the whole realm of' religion was transformed. He turned his sack on , the theological college, and entered upon a four years'study of philology in Germany, in the course :>f which he acquired a knowledge of Ruseian and several Oriental languages. When on a visit to England. an opportunity presented itself of taking up his residence in Rnssisv This opportunity Mr. Williams eagerly seised, and now, at the age of thirty-nine, he is recognised as one of the few Englishmen who really know Russia and the Russians. A native of the country has said of him: "He knows Russia, better than we do." His hook, "Russia and the. Russians," has' become a /classic. His deep understanding has dime much towards making the Russians love and respect the English. Mr. Williams has a deep admiration for the Russians; he believes that they are co ,i ifoundly spiritual that they will be lovable even, when they are modern.