PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11430, 21 July 1900, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

The London correspondent of an American paper —"Salisbury lives habitually with his head in the clouds. He never mixes socially, even with his Cabinet colleagues. He does not condescend to inform himself of what the people are thinking, because he regards the many-headed with unrestrained contempt."

Sir Peter O'Brien has taken, on his elevation to the peerage, the title of Lord O'Brien of Kilfenora, in the county of Clare. Kilfenora is a hamlet in the west of Clare, and the Chief Justice has some property in its neighbourhood. Kilfenora was formerly the seat of an ancient bishopric, and numbers among its ecclesiastical remains one of the most perfect and chastely-executed specimens of the Celtic crosses.

Sir Robert Bannatyne Finlay, the new Attorney-General, belongs to a well-known Edinburgh lamily. He was born in the Scottish metropolis in 1842, and was educated at the university there, where he studied medicine, and took his doctor's degree. After two years' practice, however, he gave up medicine for law, and was called to the English Bar ir 1867. His first attempt to enter Parliament was made in 1883, when he unsuccessfully contested Haddingtonshire, in the Liberal interest, against Lord Elcho. He was, however, soon after returned for the Inverness Burghs. On the introduction of the Home Rule Bill he became a Unionist. and at the g< .cral election which preceded Mr. Gladstones last term of office he was ousted from lis seat by Mr. Gilbert Beilh. It is a somew'iat curious circumstance that the appointments of Attorney-General and Solicitor! lor England should now be held by a Scotchman and an Irishman respectively.

Miss Florence Nightingale, who attained her eightieth birthday a few days ago, Avon tier fame, as everyone knows, during the Crimean War, yet it is doubtful whether her life since then has not been harder and more worthy of praise than during those two years in Scutari and Inkerman, for she returned to England to spend most of her life an invalid. Yet. though active nursing was no longer possible, she organised the Nightingale Nursing Home, to which she devoted the £50.000 subscribed by England as a recognition of her services. The War Office people often consulted her. and though she is confined to her room most of the time, she knows the sanitary conditions of nearly every little village in the Punjanb. Miss Nightingale has a pretty little house near Hyde Park, and from the bav-window of her favourite room one can see the grounds of Dorchester House. Of late, however, most of the gentle lady's time has been spent at Lord Verney's mansion in Buckinghamshire. There she has a charming octagon room, in which her correspondence is attended to, and where she reads all that is being done for the soldiers now fighting. Lord Verney is Miss Nightingale's nephew. The- Queen is just one year older than this the best and most famous woman-subject of the best and most famous ruler the world has ever had.

Sir John Tenniel is affectionately known a'j the Grand Old Man of Punch. For early 50 years lie lias been on the staff of the famous journal, and during that time he lias. raptured the hearts of all who have been associated with him by his gentle and genial ways. He is now (says the King) in his 81st year, and although not quite so active as he was half a century ago, he still does the cartoon every week, and finds time for other work besides. The outside world knows Sir John almost as well as it knots the little hunchback humourist himself, for Tenniel is Punch, and Punch is Tenniel. The two are indissolubly associated. Every week, for a number of years, with hardly an exception, he has drawn the Punch cartoon, which is 'looked for by men and women at home und abroad as the embodiment of British public opinion. Over 2000 of the famous cartoons have come from his pencil, and an exhibition of the original drawings is now being held in London. One of the greatest of the famous Punch dinners was that given in honour of the knighthood conferred upon Tenniel in 1893. The recognition, by the Crown, of Tenniel'c work, was a great day for Punch, because it was also a recognition of the great art of black-and-white. Sir John has many stories to tell of the bright spiritsLemon, Leech, Keenc, du Maurier, Thackeray, and others—who worked for Punch in "" " t'l days.,