PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10902, 5 November 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

The writing of Mr, R. D. Blackmore, tho novelist, is like that of Sardou, the French playwright. It is so fine and small, and the letters are so detached, that a magnifying glass sometimes is brought into use, otherwise it would be almost unreadable to the naked eye.

Miss Helen Gould takes great interest in collecting things which belonged to her father, the late Mr. Jay Gould, when he was a young man. A late acquisition is an old wheelbarrow used by Mr. Gould over 40 years ago when taking measurements of roads in various parts of New York State for the purpose of map-making.

Lord Wharncliffe enjoys the unique distinction of possessing more names than anybody else in the peerage. His complete cognominal catalogue is Edward Montagu Stuart Granville Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Macken-zie, Earl of Wharncliffe and Viscount Caltton. No one else amongst our aristocracy boasts of eight names. The Duke of Portland has seven, and Lord Clinton a like number.

Mr. Astor, the American millionaire, has an annual income of over £300,000, and owns enough business property in New York city alone to afford office room for 62,000 people. In fact, he has often visited buildings in certain portions of New York, and upon inquiry first learned that they belonged to him. Much of his property he has never seen, and only knows of it through the agents who collect his rents.

Lord Belgrave, who will be one day Duke of Westminster, is now 17 years of age, He is extremely tall, and has somewhat outgrown llis strength. The low-lying country at Eton was not sufficiently bracing to suit him; and it is hoped he will gain strength and breadth in the new temporary home at Tour, where he is to study French, under the care of the Count de Mauny Talvande, the husband of Lady Mary Byng. The Loy is extremely fair and good looking.

Most boys are fond, at some time or other in their eariv career, of marbles; and Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., was no exception to this rule. But the marbles he studied were the Elgin marbles, a famous collection of statues and bas-reliefs in the British Museum; and bd said that it was from these he got his first ideas of art He started to draw and paint at a very early age, and exhibited his first picture when he was only 17 years old. In same year he painted a portrait of himself.

Probably the busiest man in the United States is the President. Mr. McKinley works about 15 hours a day. From nine in the morning until midnight liis various duties monopolise his attention. He is absolutely democratic and simple, and despises the vanity of some so-called great men. Not long ago a very conceited character of this kind had an interview with him at the White House. After he had left, President McKinley remarked to a friend, in a rather disgusted way, " Oh, the littleness of great men!''

Curious creeds can be found anlong the upper classes. Lord Pollington, eldest son of Lord Mexborough, is a self-confessed Buddhist. The Duke of Northumberland and his family, including Lord and Lady Percy, are Irvingites, as are Sir .Herbert Maxwell and Lady Frances Balfour, a daughter of the Duke of Argyll. Lord and Lady Radnor are credited with being ardent spiritualists. The late Lady Charlemont was a Jewess, not by birth, but by conviction; and Lord Stanley of Alderlev is said to favour the principles of Mohammed.

Mrs. Pennell has been cycling for many years. In 1884 she was the first woman to ride to Rome on a tricycle, and frequently toured the United Kingdom on this form of cycle. In 1891 she was among the earliest of women to take to the bicycle, in which year she rode from London to Vienna, and afterwards all over the Carpathians, Galicia, Transylvania, and in Hungary. Last year (•lie made an even more remarkable tourshe crossed on hor bicycle ten or a dozen of the highest Swiss passes, making a record by doing so, a record unapproached bv any other woman, so fan as is known, and equalled by few men.

Yvette liuilbert has fallen a vicctim to the reporters. .she has undertaken the rebuildI ing of the belfry and steeple of the ancient j church in her native village, and has enlisted the aid of the leading artists of Paris for a benefit in aid of the funds. Now, the French word for steeple is " clocher," but " coclier," which unpleasantly resembles it, means a cabman, and by the simple device of dropping the " 1" it has been bruited abroad to the fair land of France that a bright particular Jehu enjoys tho patronage of their own Yvette. The great chansoniste has had to make a public protest that there is no cabby in the case at all, but only an old church tower.