PERSONAL ITEMS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVIX, Issue 2998, 9 December 1896, Page 2

PERSONAL ITEMS.

Mr Phil May takes Mr George Dn Maurier’s place on Punch.

Mr Gladstone is about to become a bicyclist, inspired thereto by the success of his granddaughter, Miss Dorothy Drew. , MrTlioe. Dwan, who has been on an extended tour through America, is a passenger for Wellington by the Talune, which arrives 'to-day.

M. Jean do Reske, the celebrated tenor, has been married to the Comtesse do MullyNealo, nee do Goulaine. The marriage was celebrated in Paris. Mr B.’.M. Smith came down to Wellington by the Takapuui yesterday. He does not seem satisfied with the minner in which the Taranaki election was carried on. Kumar Shri Ranjiteinbji, the well-known cricketer, in an interview with the representative of a Cambridge newaagenoy, states that it is not his intention at the present time to enter Parliament. Before Mr W. B. Smith loft the Carterton school to take charge of the Obariu school, he was p esontod by the scholars and teachers with volumes of “.Scott’s Poems,” “Tennyson’s Complete Works ” and “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” by Carlyle. Princess Paulin© Mctternich has just carried off the gold medal at the Bndtpest Exhibition for the splendid stock raised on her Hungarian estates. Who could have imagined thirty years ago that the sprightliest parsonage of the Second Empire would settle down as a breeder of prize cattle ? Mr Poixotto, the artist who has painted portraits of Mr Gladstone, Victor Hugo, Prince Bismarck. Cardinal Manning and other well-known men, is now engaged in America on a portrait of Major McKinley. He is delighted with the Major as a subject, and expects that the picture will be one of the best he has over made.

Sir Charles Tapper, who has justcelebrated his golden wedding at Ottawa, received presentations and addresses feem the Senate and the House of Commons, ac well as many congratulatory messages from governors, judges, archbishops and politicians of both parties. Congratulatory telegrams also arrived from the colonial officials and other prominent persons iu England. Though confined to his Brantwood retreat, Mr Knskin is still well enough to takean interest in what is going on in the outside world and to attend to his correspondence. H« sent a kind’y letter to the Buskin Society of Birmingham on the occasion of the delivery of the inaugural address by Me A. E. Fletcfier, the society’s first president. The reading- of the letter, -which expressed tho venerabjo writer’s best wishes for the success of the society, was received with much eatlm : iasm by a crowded audience.