WHO'S WHO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15237, 26 February 1913, Page 11

WHO'S WHO.

Mr. W. W. Willoch, a wealthy Pittsburg steel magnate, has taken a flat in Fifth Avenue, New York, for which he is paying a rental of £4000 a year. The flat has 17 rooms, and five bathrooms. There are 300 electric light bulbs, and the lighting bill will be about £240 a year. There is telephone communication between every room in the- flat, and each bedrodhi lias its own private safe for the storage of jewellery. Every room has a refrigerating box and a radiator.

Ysaye, the violinist, is a shy and quiet man except when ruffled or annoyed, and then he becomes sharp of tongue. He was playing at a private house and an elderly lady, a passionate lover of music, drew closer and closer to him as he continued to play. She was so interested in reading the score that finally her head almost touched his. Ysaye, who had been growing angrier every moment, suddenly ceased playing, and pulling out his handkerchief seized' the amateur musician by the nose. The lady was furious, and her fury was not diminished when the violinist said, "I beg your pardon, but your nose was so close to my face that I thought it. was my own."

In. the village of Lanchester, County of Durham, lives the Rev. Maurice Andrew Drummond, who has just had many felicitations showered upon him by reason of his having entered the ranks of the octogenarians. The reverend gentleman is one of the few remaining survivors of Thomas Drummond, associated in a romantic way with a claim to the Drummond peerage. Tli'e sixth Earl of Perth took up arms in the interests of the Young Pretender in 1745. After the CuHoden disaster he became a fugitive in Scotland for somo months, and afterwards by means of a small coasting vessel reached South Shields. The hunted carl walked to Sunderland, and at- Biddick, a few mile,a away, he sought the assistance of a workman named John Armstrong, who gave him protection and shelter. Armstrong had a beautiful daughter, whom the earl married in 1749 at the parish church of Houghton-le-Spring. Their son and heir, curious to relate, never prosecuted his claim to have the titles and estates restored. A grandson, however, the. late Thomas Drummond, lost no opportunity of presenting his case to the High Court of Edinburgh, and ho was successful in establishing the fact that bo was " the nearest! and lawful heir male of his deceased great granduncle Lord Edward Drummond, who took upon himself the title of the Earl of Perth, and who was the youngest and first surviving son and male' heir of the body of James, the fourth Earl of Perth." This decision needed the ratification of the House of Lords, who found that- the Act of Attainder formed an insurmountable barrier to the claim. In the end the titles and estates were bestowed upon another. This claimant's wife bore him fourteen children, and one of the very few survivors is the Rev. M. A. Drummond, who has just attained his eighty-first year. Mr. Drummond entered the" Primitive Methodist ministry, from which he retired twenty years ago. •

Mr. George R. Sims tells two amusing stories of the Bohemia of his younger days. "At one club I belonged to there was a notice, posted in the smokingroom requesting members not to order hot suppers after five o'clock in the morning. At the same club I once lose my purse with eighteenpence in it, and the waiter who afterwards returned it to me remarked that it was fortunate the purse had not been found by one of the other members.'' Mr. Sims also recalls the financial condition of these members of old-time Bohemian societv, who he said were not over particular if their weekly expenses sometimes exceeded the weekly income. J.hey had occasional acquaintance with the law but only it passing acquaintance with banks. He remembered a friend once receiving an open cheque for £50 from a publisher, arid six of them accompanied him to the bank to cash < it. When the cashier asked, -"How will you take it, sir?" the friend replied, Oh, that's all right, old chap, we have got a cab outside."