PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9022, 7 April 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

M Pasteur still suffers from paralysis of the left arm. Mr. Balfour has been the gueat of the Queen at Osborne. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe is in better health than for several years. Mr. Gladstone has just entered on hie fifty-sixth parliamentary session. Mrs. Langtry has been ordered to remove the high fence in front of her New York residence. Sir Edwin Arnold may be the next poet laureate, as Queen Victoria is said warmly to favour him for the position. Mad King Otto of Bavaria hae become suspicious of hi* attendants, refuses to eat or drink, and is reported to be dying fast. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in spite of her advanced age, ie fond of outdoor exercise, and walks from five to seven miles daily. . Twenty-three members of the presentU. S. Congress claim to have been newspapermen at some stage of their development into statesmen. The Duke of Argyle is in very feeble health. His death will make Princess Louise of Lorno an English peeress ais Duchess of Argyle. President Carnot is credited with saying that any Frenchman who would declare war against Germany while Moltke and Bismarck are alive ought to be shot. Canon Knox Little has begun an attack against moustaches on clergymen of the Cnuroh of England, and the gentlemen assailed reply with no evidence at all of an intention to shave. The Queen has sent a gold and diamond locket, containing her portrait, to the infant daughter of the parish minister at Crathie, near Balmoral. The child has been named Alexandrina Victoria. Princess Beatrice recently appeared in some tableaux at a Court entertainment arranged by her mother, Queen Victoria. She posed as "Carmen," and smoked a cigarette while the curtain was up. P. T. Barnum lately said that he has provided that if any of his legatees makes a | contest of his will he shall by that act forfeit his bequest, and he has left £20,000 as a fund for the executors to fight any contestant. It is stated that Adelina Patti never consented to sing gratuitously in London but once, and that was for a concert which had to be abandoned, at no little expense, as she sent word in the morning that she was too hoarse to sing. The King of Servia is anxious to get his life insured in England for £100,000. Owing to the dangers attending the life of such a monarch no one office was willing to run tire risk. Several companies have, however, decided to assume the responsibility jointly. George W. Resure, known as the "cowboy evangelist," is said to be worth 700,000 dols. Hie fortune was made in cattle and by luckly investments in real estate. He ie just forty years old, and in his youth was reputed to be one of the most lawless of the desperadoes of the plains. The London correspondent of the Dublin Evening Mail says : —lt is whispered that the son of a well-known aristocrat has eloped with a circus damsel, whose bright eyes and well-proportioned figure captivated him. The matter is being kept very dark, the idea being that the silly pair may be induced to return to their former spheres. The two greatest living pianists are not on the best terms. The musical paper Leipzig Signale reports that at a rehearsal of the fourth subscription concert at Berlin Hans von Biilow angrily shut the score of Rubinstein's " Ocean" symphony, energetically declaring that he would not conduct such incoherent stuff, and crossing it out of the programme. Her Majesty, having been so often applied to of late by the mothers of triplets, ordered her secretary to inform a Leigh applicant that "there is no such thing as a Queen's Bounty. It is merely a charitable donation granted to those who are in poor and indigent circumstances, to assist them to meet the unforeseen demands caused by the unexpected additson to the family." The death is announced, at his residence in Wostboume Park, London, of Mr. William West, who, at the time of his death, was undoubtedly the oldest surviving actor and theatrical lessee in the kingdom. West, who who was in the 94th year of his age, made his first appearance on the stage when a mere child, nearly 86 years ago, and nearly 68 years ago (in 1820) he became lessee of Drury Lane Theatre.