ODD ORIGINS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3548, 22 November 1882, Page 4

ODD ORIGINS.

Confucius was a carpenter ; Mohammed, called the prophet, was a driver of asses ; the Emperor of Morocco was a pawnbroker ; Bernadotte, King of Sweden, was a surgeon in the gai'rison of Martinique when the English took that island ; Madame Bernadotte was a washerwoman of Paris ; Napoleon, a descendant of an obscure family of Corsica, was a Major Avhen he married Josephine, the daughter of a tobacconist, Creole of Martinique ; Franklin was a printer ; President John Tyler was a captain of militia; Oliver Cromwell was originally a brewer ; President Polk was formerly an innkeeper ; the stepfather of Isabella, Queen of Spain, husband of Queen Christina, and brother-in-law of the King of Naples, was once a barkeeper of a coffee-room ; King Christopher of Hayti was a slave of St. Kitt's; Bolivar was a druggist; Columbus was a sailor ; King Louis Phillippe was a teacher of the French tongue ; Catherine, tho Empress of Russia, was a camp-grisette; Cincinnatus was ploughing his vineyards when the dictatorship was offered to him ; a governor of the island of Madeira was a tailor; and a minister of finance in Portugal was a dealer in bottles of Madeira wine. There are at present in Portugal and Spain several dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts, and bai'ons who were formerly cooks, tailors, barbers, cobblers, sweepers, and mulatoes.