PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9166, 22 September 1888, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

The solitaire diamond ring- worn by Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt cost £9000.

Mr. Edison, the inventor, is very deaf. He says he would give all his fame to recover his hearing. The Hebrews now exceed in numbers any of the minor peoples of Europe, being somewhat about 6,300,000. Mr. Ruskin is in the best of all possible health and spirits. He is still tavelling in France with Mr. Arthur Severn.

William Black, the novelist, recently made a pun. He said that the only axe the story-writer had to grind was the climax. Baron Reuter, the telegraph king of Europe, keeps a secretary whose sole business it is to investigate and relieve cases of distress.

Claus Spreckels has not joined the Sugar Trust, in spite of rumour. He is still going his own sweet way, and feels able to " beet" all opponents. Dr. B. 0. Kinnear, of Boston, Mass., is of opinion that hay fever is a nervous disease, and has successfully treated several cases on that hypothesis. Mr. Robert Carruthers, of the Inverness Courier, has, we regret to hear, just died. He was son of the late Dr. Robert Car ruthers, and had been for some time in bad health.

On the 18th of June, the anniversary of Waterloo, the Earl of Albemarle, who fought at the battle, held his annual reception at the house of his daughter, Lady Augusta Noel, in Portman Square. The President of America, who has been accustomed to use a glass of wine at dinner, or occasionally at other times, is said to have yielded to a request of Mrs. Cleveland bo totally abandon the use of liquors. Mademoiselle de Heckeren and the Countess de Seebach, two ladies who blazed with effulgence in the most brilliant days of the Second Empire, have just died. The first named was oi?f» of the beauties at the Tuileries.

Sir John Stainer wa3 entertained at dinner at the Hotel M6tropole by a party of friends who desired to show their regard for him on his retirement from his post of organist at St. Paul's Cathedral. Lord Herschell presided. Prince Bismarck, in spite of his increasing years, has lost little of his old skill as a shot. Recently while practising with the rifle, he hit, every time he fired, a black spot on a target indicating a vital point in a stag, a distance of 120 yards. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) at the age of 12 years was a penniless, unschooled orphan ; at 20 an illiterate pilot on the Mississippi; and even at 30 was entirely unknown, and had written very little; while at 35 he was famous. Mr. Carnegie, the American millionaire, has accomplished his journey by coach from London to Cluny Castle, in Scotland. Four horses did the entire journey, which was accomplished in 15 days, going an average of 26i miles per day. Mrs. Cady-Stanton, America's most prominent advocate of women's rights, believes that there is a sex in mind, and that men can only be inspired to their highest achievements by women, while women are stimulated to their utmost only by men. The Duke of Sutherland has, it is said, lately been closing his country seats in order to reduce expense, and has been spending his time on his yacht Sans Peur. Now it is stated that his palatial town residence, Stafford House, is to be sold. Miss Chandler, a pretty and plucky girl, snatched from almost under the wheels of a locomotive, the other day, at Punxatawney, a three-year-old child that had wandered on the railroad track, and then promptly fainted, while the less heroic spectators were cheering her. The Master of Trinity, who is just now the subject of so much society conversation, is a splendid specimen of humanity. He stands over six feet in height, and ntill possesses much of the vigour which in youth made him one of the champion athletes of his school and university. His face, which was not altogether so pleasing in youth on account of its extreme delicacy of modelling and colour, has been mellowed by age and the addition of a good grey beard. A recent portrait of him by Herkomer pre- | sents an ideally apostolic head. The j Glasgow Herald gives this description " I Dr. Butler,