PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6936, 9 February 1884, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

Lobb Comjbipge says ho owes everything to the kindness of Mr Gladstone. On his last appearance in Boston Edwin Booth was called before the curtain ten timee. Charlet. Kingaley was very fond of cats; his stable was never without a white cat, or his houso without a black or tabby. M. de Lesseps has accepted an invitation from M. Bartholdi to visit America at the dedication of the statue of Liberty. One of the waiters at the Brunswick, in New York, can talk six languages, and two Italian counts serve at Delmonico's. The day after Mr. Longfellow's death Mr. Whittier received two hundred applications for autographs from those who feared he would go next, as he expressed it. Jn a letter written more than fifty years ago, Goethe predicted the cutting of the Suez Canal; and in his novel of Capilaine Pamphile Alexandre foreold that of Panama.

Mrs, George Bancroft, the wife of the historian, although eighty years old, still preserves much of her beauty and all of her intellect, and has manners of patrioian elegance, Henry Thurston, who owns a cattle ranch in Texas, is said to be the tallest man in America, being seven feet seven and a half inches tall, and increasing his apparent stature by a stove-pipe hat. Mr. Henry F. Oillig, .the head of the American Exohango in Europe, says that a hundred and thirty thousand Americans are travelling abroad this year. New York having tho largest representation.' American hotels have lately been much commended, Lord Coleridge eaying they had attained perfection, Matthew Arnold being pleased with them, and Irving calling the Brevoort House a haven of rest.

Jules Verne is fifty, getting fat, and growing grey. Hβ was originally destined for the bar. He was thirty when ' Round the World in Eighty Days' was published. He always passes his summers on the sea. The Emperor of China eats with goldtipped ivory chopsticks, and sleeps on a Ningpo bedstead, carved and decorated with ivory aud gold, tho same which the Emperors Khang Hsi and Chien Ling used in the last two centuries.

Among the relics in the possession of the late Fred. Villiers of London, were the pens used by Yakoob Khan and Major Cavagnari in affixing their signatures to the Treaty of Yundamuk. Mr Villiers was on the staff of the London Graphic.

Edmond About'a style of speaking is said to show to what perfection elocution can be brought. He has an easy, natural, personal style, a ringing voice, a distinct enunoiation, and conveys nice shades of expression in his tones. Ho is often accompanied by his children, of whom he has about as many as M. De Lesseps.

When the Queen, then Princess Victoria was staying at Ramsgate with her mother, in 1834, they were much annoyed in their walks, and tried to hire a private garden for their strolls, when Sir Moses Montefiore offered his grounds at East Cilff Lodge, and sent the Princess a golden pass-key. . It was the beginning of her Majesty's kindly feeling to all Hebrews.

The Emperor William chooeeß his dinner from five dishes, and although the cellars of the imperial palace at Berlin contain the finest wines in the world, inoludiog the vintages of the famous years 1620 and 1680, " of ■which the bouquet alone is a poem," he rarely tastes them. He is one of the most vigorous men of his time, although he was a feeble child.

The Duchess of Edinburgh is said to be the best talker in the English' royal family; she is very strong-willed, is the ouly person who dares to oppose Victoria, or who ever sai<s "'I won't" to her; cares nothing for popularity, is a superb linguist, is very, plain, io at the root of her husband's quarrel with the Duke of Suxe-Coburg and Gotha, whose usir he is, and does herself and makes her husband do, pretty muoh as she pleases.

Daring the Qeeen's recent residence at Windsor, Heir Majesty resumed her ordinary summer routine, and drove down to JEYogmore every morning to breakfast, after which she went through her letters and boxes in a tent on the lawn, returning to the castle for luncheon. Her Majesty has neither negleoted her business correspondence (which is more considerable than most people have any idea of), nor relaxed her attention to public affairs during any part of her recent indisposition.