PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LI, Issue 9138, 10 July 1906, Page 2

PARS ABOUT NOTABILITIES.

Count Leo Spannociu, once a spoiled child of Viennese society, has been buried ' as a pauper. On coming of age he imherited a considerable fortune, which he spent in reckless fashion. Some of Ms bete are still spoken of. Once he made a wager that he would ride his Arab stallion Sultan from BudaPiesth to Vienna against any coaching team of four. eHe won the match by nearly half the distance. The Count was also a famous wrestler. After running through all his money, he took various circus engagements, always falling lower, owing chiefly to the habit of opium smoking which he had contracted. Viscount Tredegar, one of the survivors of the Gallant Six Hundred who charged the Russian guns at Balaclava, celebrated the completion of hie seventy-fifth year on Saturday, April 28. His escape on that historic occasion was little short of miraculous. "I appeared to be Tiding straight on to the muzzle of one of the guns, and I distinctly saw the gunner apply his fuse," he says. "I shut my eyes then, for I thought that settled the question as far as I was concerned. But the shot just missed me and struck the man on~ my right fuU on the chest." The wonder, indeed, is that any of the Six Hundred

escaped.

A good story is told, says the Tatler, of the late Sultan Burghash and Sir John Kirk, then Ckrasul-General at Constantinople. The Sultan had a very savage chained lion, and as a happy thought he offered it to Sir John for Queen Victoria, reminding him that the lion form- ! Ed one of the supporters of the royal arms above the gate of the British Consulate, and that the presence of the real brute would therefore be highly appropriate. Alive to the jest, Sir John quickly capped it and at the same time escaped the necessity of accepting such an unpleasant gift. "I am but 6 that your Highness would never make an incomplete present," he replied, "and when you are able to accompany the lion with a unicorn I shall be delighted to receive your munificent offer." Three of the best-dressed men in the of the House of Commons one day towards the close of April were fullWooded negroes. One, Mr Sylvester Williams— - he certainly did' not look so Welsh as his name— <ame from Zululand ; another, the R<ev. F. E. Asaam, was from Cape Coast Castle; and a third, the Hon. Mackenzie Stewart, was* from Liberia. The clergyman was the spokesman of the group, who had come as a deputation to Mr Keir Hardie and other Liberal and Labor members, to voice the grievances of the natives of West Africa. Later appeared a visitor from Honolulu, a brownskinned) South Sea Islander. An effort is to .be. made to interview Lord Elgin.Negroes an© now very frequently seen m London, which they have apparently found very much to their liking, for they invade on terms of equality the theatre and the restaurants. Our Indian fellowsubjecte are on a different plane, but even theur position in London gives Anglo-In-dians some cause for surprise. They are no longer limited to the Northbrook Club out form a very considerable section of the membership of the National Liberal Club* It m lucky for the English-reared bride of. King Alfonso of Spain tihat the rules of etiquette in the Spanish Court have been altered since athe days when another English Princess— Marie Louise, grand daughter of Charles I.— became Queen of Spain. Jt was then so rigid that the poor lady's life was almost unbearable after the freedom of the EngKsh Court Among other tilings, it was forbidden for any man, saving the King, to touch a Queen of Spain under penalty of death. On one occasion this etiquetie nearly cost the life of Marie Lotus©, who whole riding one day was thrown from her horse with her foot entangled in the stirrup. None of the gentlemen about her dared to render her assistance, until a nobleman, more oudaciotw than the others, dashed up to the rescue. Afterwards lie bolted off, afraid lest his head would bo the forfeit for the privilege of holding a Spanish Queen in his arms. Stuurman, a Gape Bushman, is believed tc be the oldest man in the world. He is an old native of Cape Colony, said to be 146 years old. It is known for certain that sixty-five years ago he was a very old man ,and that his son, still living, is over ninety years old. He is one of the

few genuine Bushmen stall alive, and talks of* the days when he wandered over the veldt where Beaufort West now is. He holds that the farm of Sfcuurman's Puts and the country all round really belong to him, and, living as he does on the top of a hill -in a queer shelter of bushes and Tags, he ib monarch of all he surveys. He is. in full possession of his faculties, and has a wonderful set of teeth — without a trace of decay,, though they are worn down to the gums by a century and a lalf of use A life sketch of Sir Edward Clarke, giving seme 'inteiesting stories of the senior member for the City of London, is given in the Young Man. When working in the India House he managed to save £200. A reorganisation of the office resulted in a number of the clerks being retired with liberal pensions. One of these clerks, whose working days were by no means over, did not view the pension as sufficient compensation, and protested. Young Clarke went straight to the head of the department, and asked whether he might leave instead, saying that he would accept in compensation a sum which would show a considerable saving on the amount which, would have been paid to the official who objected to dismissal. For all concerned this was an advantageous business proposal, and it was accepted; the older clerk was retained, the department saved money, and Edward Clarke left the office with £250, which, when added to the amount he had saved, provided a sum sufficiently large to put him on the straight road for the coveted Tancred Studentship and the Bar. Lord Awbury entered- in his seventythird year on Monday, April 30. One of the most versatile men of these modern days, he need look to no one section of society for his well-wishers. Bankers praise ham as the introducer of many reforms, including the country clearinghouse system; every naturalist and botanist owes him a debt of gratitude for his splendid works; historians, geologists and scientists of every kind admire his research work; while the working man remembers him as St. Lubock, to whom the Bank Holiday system owes its inception. Lord Avebury** main idea in agitating for general holidays was not so much that he thought the worker had too little

vest, but lie hoped that the Bank Holiday system would facilitate family Tensions. "My business experience," Tie says, "had brought forcibly to me bow difficult it waa for members of a family who had gone

out in the world in various capacities to meet together, even though they might not be working so very far apart. A sectional holiday would not help them, for while one or two members might have a holiday, the others would bo hard at work, unable to join them. A universal holiday, however, would free all at the same timer, and could bo arranged for beforehand.

It has been rather wittily said of Mr Asquith, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that His best impromptus are premeditated. It so adequately expresses the wellconsidered legal utterance, the calm attitude with which he meets every question. His eloquence is of the head rather <han the heart, but it is as strong and full — and, indeed, fuller than most people could desire. There is a pleasant little story of a law court case where Mr Acquith and Sir Edward Clarke were matched. Mr Asquith waxed eloquent on the subject of certain voice pastilles under diiscussion and their medicinal value. He 1 had swelled out into a volume of convincing sound, and wound up with an impressive and voluminous peroration. "Is there not, moreover," inquired the judge slyly, "such a thing as caooethus loquendi — the disease of speaking?" Mr Acquith was for once almost confused. Mr Asquith also is mechanical. He designed to built himself a bicycle, and when the Prince of Wales admired it constructed him a duplicate.

General Fred Funston, whose name appeared frequently in the San Francisco disaster accounts, is a Kansan of only forty years of ago. After working for s. short time as a newspaper reporter, in which capacity he investigated the flora of Alaska, exploration in the Klondyke gave him a taste for adventure, and he was presently heard of as soldiering in the insurgent army in Cuba. He went to the Philippines as Colonel of a regiment of Volunteers, and left the islands as a Brigadier-General in tine regultanr army. He is best known for his capture of Aguinaldo, tie head of the Filipino insurrection American opinion, however, was very sharply divided as to whether the methods he adopted in this exploit were justifiable. He was appointed last year to the command of the California district.

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