OTHER LANDS.

Northland Age, Volume V, Issue 7, 5 October 1908, Page 7

OTHER LANDS.

The Swedish Royal Family has not been without its love .romances. Gustaf X., who succeeds King Oscar, is a cultured man. like his father, with a n extremely well-balanced mind. He has practically held the reins of Government for the last seven years, and has proved himself a ruler in whom the people can place every reliance. And yet in his youth he fell in love with the daughter of a country clergyman, and offered to renounce all his Royal rights if his' father would allow him, .to marry her. King Oscar, however, refused, and the Crown Prince, as he then was, was obliged to give up his love dream and marry Princess Victoria of Baden, in . order that the succession might be properly secured. Curiously enough, however King Oscar gave way when his second son, Prince Oscar, created a sensation, nearly twenty years ago, by announcing his intention of marrying Miss Ebba Munck, his mother’s favourite maid of honour. The marriage took place in 1888, and in consequence Prince Oscar renounced all rights of succession to the throne. The youngest of the late King’s sons in Prince Eugene, who is a l aintcr by profession, and spends most of the year in Paris, where he has a studio. It is said that he clears quite £2,000 a year from his art.

Fortune, we a ro told, only knocks at a man’s door once in a lifetime, and if refused admittance passes by, never to return again. The saying is belied, however, by the career of Mr. George McCulloch, a Glasgow boy,, who arrived in Australia just under sixty years ago with less th a n £5 in his pocket, and who died the other day a millionaire. This is how Mr. McCulloch threw away his first chance of acquiring a fortune. One night sitting in a tiny shanty at the foot' of the Broken Hill mine, soon after its discovery, he played a game of euchre with a companion, his stake being a fourteenth share of the mine itself. He lost, and the share which thus passed out of his hands was, six years later, worth no l'.'sa than £1,250,000. Then Dame Fortune gave him another chance. In September, 1883, Mr. McCulloch was the manager of a small boundary sheep station not many miles from Broken Hill. One morning a boundary rider rode into the station and excitedly informed Mr. McCulloch of another discovery of silver upon the hill. Straightway a small synciicato was formed, and a claim "pegged out.” * All the station hands, including Mr. McCulloch, risked £7O apiece in the venture, and work was begun in earnest. In a few months the shares of the Broken Hill Proprietary had a market value of £16,000,000. * * # *

So Mr. Marshall Hall, who achieI ved so great a triumph in the Camden Town murder case, lias been described. The famous K.C. has also been called the Maitre Labori of the English Bar, and certainly in fearlessness and persistence in fighting uf hill cases he may justly be compared to the brilliant defender of Dreyfus. Like so iraity 'brother barristers Mr. Marshall Hall is a keen golfer and well known unon the Deal links, where he is a constant pla.vor. He is also a noted shot, while athletics absorb much of his sr a re time. Ho is a member of the M.C.C., and was noted for his forward play, a characteristic which has 1e n commented upon in his profess'onal life also ; for Mr. Marshall Hall believes that attack is always tho best form of defence. When King Edward desires to pay a call on a personal friend a message to this effect is sent earlier in the day. This rule is almost invariable, but on one occasion His Majesty neglected the precaution, and on arriving at the house of his friends found the hosts out of town and the Charwoman in charge. , The King desired to go in and write a message, but was asked by the cautious caretaker for his card, and as that was not forthcoming she declined to let him in. "He was a very pleasant, civil-spoken gentleman," she told her employers on their return, "but as he hadn't a card I left him outside." It was only some time, afterwards that the master of the house discovered to his horror t'he identity of the visitor. The first prize awarded to the King at the Agricultural Hall Cattle Show' for his exhibit of Highland cattle is the latest demonstration of His Majesty’s success as a farmer, of which he is so deservedly proud. When the King began breeding, bearly forty years ago, the Sandringham farm lands were in an hopeless condition, barren, and barely capable of cultivation. To-day, according to Mr. Rider Haggard, "it is a wonderful farm, for nowhere is so much high-bred stock to be seen on the same area."

But probably nowhere will you find such an array of plates and cups won at shows as that which Sandringham boasts. At a single exhibition His Majesty once won no fewer than fourteen first prizes. In 1903 he captured five first prizes and cups, in addition to numerous seconds and thirds ; in 1904 his prizes numbered twenty ; in 1905 he won a champion plate, a challenge cup, and eighteen other prizes, including four firsts ; while last year he took, at the Smithfield show, ten firsts, nine "breed" cups and plates, six other prizes, a nd several “highly commendeds” ; and every prize winner he has bred himself. A comedy 6f errors describes the first appearance on the stage of that popular actor, Mr. Huntley Wright. He was supposed to impersonate t'he warder of a madhouse, and the scene opened with the brutal ill-treatment of the hero, who weighed fourteen stone (Huntley Wright was under nine ), and it ended with a gunpowder explosion. In his nervousness the wa tier dropped his cap, and, being agitated and short-sighted, ha pic] ed up the pan of gunpowder instead. It instantly blew up, nearly frightening him out of his wits. He rushed from the. stage and collapsed, as he thought, on a stool in the wings—which turned out to be a firebucket full .of water !