PERSONAL TTEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9452, 24 August 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL TTEMS.

Ik an action brought against Mrs. Langtry by her cook it came out that the nourishment of the beauty cost £3 a day.

Mr. W. H. Smith has granted a Civil List pension of £-30 per annum to Mrs. Porter, the widow of the president of Queen's College, Belfast, and one of similar amount to Dr. James Hutchinson Stirling.

By common consent Miss Belle Green, of Savannah, Ga., was acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman at the U.S. Centennial ball. She is tall and very fair, with light hair, and eyes that are jet black and spirkle magnificently. She is only 23.

Bret Harte, tho author, will live in London. He justifies his choice of a place of residence by saying that he can enjoy there a metropolitan freedom from surveillance as to his number of drinks a day which he can find nowhere else, except in San Francisco, to which he does not desiro to return.

Prince Bismarck recently explained to an ambassador who had expressed wonder how he could manage to prevent visitors from encroaching on his time that his wife generally knew how to help him out. Ho had scarcely uttered the words when a footman knocked, entered, and delivered a inessago that the Princess desired his presence. The leave taking of the ambassador was more precipitate than formal. Mr. Ja;ne3 Payne, the indefatigable novelist, is a great believer in the old adage, "early to bed," &c. He rises at oight o'clock, and ten p.m. sees his house in Warrington Crescent buried in profound repose. For years he was connected with Chambers' Journal, and now he finds time to preside over the destinies of the Cornhill. His conversation is notable for its liveliness and abundant illustration and anecdote. His habits are very regular, and luncheon time usually finds him at the Reform in company with Mr. Robinson, the manager of tho Daily News, and Mr. William Black, the novelist.

Congregationalists will regret to hear of the death of the Rev. Joseph Muncaster, first pastor of the Broughton Congregational Church, Bury New Road, Manchester. Mr. Muncaster, who was in his Gtith'year, was a native of West Cumberland. He received his theological training at Rothorham College, and entered the Congregational ministry in 18. On the formation of the Broughton Congregational Church, in 1855, Mr. Muncaster was invited to accept the pastorate of that church. In 1873 he resigned the pastorate of the Broughton Church and accepted that of the church at Somerleyton, in the north-eastern division of Suffolk, where he settled in 1874, and where he remained pastor up to the timoof his death. In Suffolk Mr. Muncaster was as highly esteemed by his Congregational brethren as he had been in Lancashire.

The death of Archdeacon Phil pot a few days ago, in his ninety-ninth year, removes not only fclio absolutely "oldest clergyman of the Church of -England," but a man of remarkable and almost unique personality. Up to a few weeks ago, when ho sustained a severe bereavement in the death of his eldest son, ho showed no signs of physical or mental decay, and his love of fresh air and the society of a few old friends, like the late Mr. Letchworth, remained to the very end. He was an admirable raconteur. Some of his stories of his Isle of Man experiences in the early part of this century (he was archdeacon and vicar-general, and as such was magistrate and held his own court), his encounters with smugglers and other lawless folk, may, it is hoped, have been preserved. When he preached, three. years ago, at Mickleham Church, he began his sermon thus:—"The last time I preached from this pulpit was in the year before the battle of Waterloo !" He was a reader of new books, took a keen interest in all new ideas, and was a great lover of children. Early in the century he was one of a party who attempted the ascent of Mont Blanc, and was the sole survivor of it; he failed to reach as distant a point as did his companions, and saved his life thereby. He had seen ponance done in church, standing in a white sheet, in the Isle of Man. He was a simple, saintly man, who appeared to his friends to have been somehow mixed up with the beginning of all things, and will be widely missed.