PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12272, 16 May 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

PERSONAL ITEMS.

Monsignoe Stanley, the new coadjutor for the Roman Catholic See of Westminster, was received in private audience lately by the Pope.

Heir Kubelik the famous violinist, has just given two concerts at Trieste, his reception by the press and public being most enthusiastic. In an interview Herr Kubelik, laying aside the • reserve he usually manifests, genially acknowledged the congratulations of the public on his engagement. >

Sir Francis Laking, the celebrated Royal doctor, is a man of many hobbies, in which he finds recreation from his heavy professional work. "Medicine," he says, "is only my bread and butter. When I have done with it I ily to geology, chemistry, mathematics, and sport, in all of which I revel, and can forget for a time that there is such a thing as physic in the world.''

Alfred Dreyfus has settled down into a quiet family man, happy in the society of his wile and children, "His life is that'of the well-to-do bourgeois. He is a passionate first-nighter, and is devoted to the translations of English authors, which now flood the Paris market. Dreyfus lias no interest in the revival of his case and in his rehabilitation, as he thoroughly realises the emptiness of the whole business.

" I met Miss Roosevelt the other evening at a small party" (writes an Englishman from Washington in a recent number of the King). "She is an attractive girl, rather pretty and chic, with tremendously high spirits, and at times, I should say, a little excitable. It was a homely affair at which a lot of youngsters were present, and we all knew one another pretty well, which may account for the little ebullition we were treated to. There was a good deal of jollity and romping, and Miss Roosevelt danced around the room in the gayest abandonment, occasionally firing blank 'cartridges from a little gold trinket pistol which "her father had given her. These have been quite the fashion lately."

Describing the gathering of notable folk at Waterloo the other day to welcome the Colonial Secretary a London writer says that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, was dressed in a neat civilian suit, which somehow made him look a greater man than his most superb military uniform. He moved across the platform with the quick, springy step which all who know him have so often noted, the sharp, elastic tread of a youth rather than that of a man well stricken in years, every click of his heels on the boards speaking of boundless vitality and energy. Close behind came Mr. Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of England, who looked large and almost unwieldy in the wake of the nattiest nmii in England, m spite of the fact that he is a lover of the links. Golf may dear Mr. Baljour's brains for the political arena, but it has not taught him how to walk, or carry himself like an athlete.

_ Mr. Choate, the American Ambassador in London, has only one fault in the eyes of -his enemies across the water, and it is one which on the British side of the Atlantic at least is a virtue. He is, it is said, too friendly to England. At home he is the lawyer of lawyers. He is said to have given up the biggest income which any man has ever made at the American Bar for the sake of the public service, and Mr. Choate has certainly received a fee for one single case which would have satisfied ordinary men for life. It was he who fought the Revenue against the Income-tax, which it was sought to impose some veal's a"o in the States, and his brief cost the opposing parties ten thousand pounds. As Mv Choate succeeded in obtaining a declaration that the tax was unconstitutional, however the fee was doubled. Mr. Choate was' looking round one of the oldest churches in England, in company with its rector, a few years ago, and was greatly interested in the ancient screens and pillars and Ciors. "That screen must be centuries old'.'" he asked, " nad this panelling on the door that must be very old?" "Oh, that is quite modern," replied the rector; "it was put up only forty years before the discovery of America, you know."