PEOPLE WE READ ABOUT

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4319, 30 March 1901, Page 6 (Supplement)

PEOPLE WE READ ABOUT

The death is announced of Professor Charles Hennite, the famous French mathematician, at the ago of seventyeight. His reputation was world-wide, and few learned foreigners went to Paris without calling on tho illustrious savant. Scientific academies of all nations were proud to rank him amongst their members. Professor .Herraito was a member of the Royal Society and the Mathematical Society of London, .of tho Academy of Sciences, Dublin, of the Royal Society, Edinburgh, and of the, Philosophical and Literary Society, Manchester. Most of tho works of this profound arithmetician treat of the theory of numbers. Like Pasteur,- tho private life of Professor Hermite was admirable in every respect, and with his death passes away one of tho glories of Franco. **•»**

Lord ' Roberts won his Y.C. on 2nd January, 1858, and he became K.G. on tho same day of the same month in this year, 43 years after. J • * * *

Rank and file have that supreme faith in Sir Rcdvers Duller as a soldier; which amounts to devotion. - “He’s a soldier’ is their summing up of General Duller. “He knows how much we can do and how to make, us do it. He looks after his men as if they were brother human beings, and in the campaign of the Tugela ho was in and about the firing line taking risks with the rest of us.”

There is much truth and not a little criticism in the observation made by a working man in the crowd which welcomed Lord Roberts to London, After gazing fixedly at the Field-Marshal, he said : “Well, he don’t- look as if you could call him Bobs to his face, and I don’t believe as how nobody ever did it!”

The belief of tho native of India in Lord Curzon’s luck has been, strengthened by tho fact that his visit to Madras has been followed by rain that- was badly needed. This ia tho second time in the past year that the same thing has happened, the famine tract inWes-tco-n India receiving rain that ended a terrible drought just at the time that Lord Curzon visited it.

* * * * - The Pope’s energy remains unabated, and *it is the common custom of his visitors and attendants to tell him of persons, hero, there and everywhere, who are older than himself —95, 9(1, 07, 98 even—and yet hale and hearty. These comforting allusions had their triumph the other day, when tho Pope, looking very radiant, said, “I am not olu—T am only ninety-two.”

It is refreshing to see the son of one distinguished man following in his father’s steps—at Oxford at all’ events. The Ireland Scholarship—tho classical blue ribbon has just been awarded to Mr Raymond Asquith, scholar of Bnliol. Ho took the Craven Scholarship the year before last, and just above his name in the Oxford register of honors appears that of Herbert H. Asquith, scholar of Baliol, who got . a Craven in 1874, and has since been not unknown to fame as tho Homo Secretary in Mr Gladstone’s last Ministry. »■ « • • *

The late Phillip D. Armour was a typical successful American. Much of his character was shown in his epigrams, such as “There is no such thing as luck.” “Most men talk too much. Much of ray success is due to keeping my mouth shut.’’ '‘The young man who wants to marry happily should pick out a- good mother and marry one of her daughters. Any one will do.” “Good men are not. cheap.” “Capital can do nothing without brains to direct it.” “No general can fight his battles alone; ho must depend upon his lieutenants, and his success depends upon his ability to select the right man for the right place.” y • .• *

The average colonial, writes someone to the “Pall Mall Garni to,’’ is a man with more or less . brains and common sense, and a big resource within himself. He does not take your young officer seriously—he'meets that “superior” person on P. and O. Company boats and elsewhere, and pities Mm. Devoid of brains, common sense, and most things that g,o to make up the man. he can’ only have sympathy for him. When his mother country calls to her sous for assistance the colonial responds gladly, and while willing to observe the discipline of the army, it is when this “sprig of a subaltern” conies- to the fore and speaks—a fitting expression would be “d -d nonsense” that the shoe pinches. • ♦ # • « •

The coming-of-age of Mr Robert Goolet recently has caused the filling in iho Surrogate’s Court of an inventory of rhe personal estate of his father, who died on board the yacht Mayflower at Cowes on 27th August. 1897. At the time it was announced that the personal estate was upwards of 400,000d015.. which created much surprise at its small amount. It is now learned that _ the sum will reach 6,000,000 dels., principally stock in New York banks and American railroads. The bulk-of Mr Goolot’s wealth was invested in real estate. An estimate of the value of this it is impossible to obtain, but it is believed to be 30,000,000 .dels.

The late Lord Leconfield was one of the eight-and-twenty noblemen Who, according to the Modern Doomsday Book, possess over a hundred thousand acres in the United Kingdom. His possesions amounted to 66,000 acres in England and some 45,000 in Ireland, and his rentroll -was returned at £BB,OOO a year. The Duke ,of Sutherland is a long way the first,in point of acreage, owning no less than 1,358,000, but the Duke of Buccleuch. who is second in acreage, is first in point of rental, which, owing to his town property and minerals, must still be quite worth the £217,000 per annum of the last return.

While Sir John Madden, the Chief Justice and Lieutanant-Govemor of Victoria. has the reputation of being the fastest• speaker in, the Southern Hemisphere, with a rate of 200 words a minute, it is by no means .improbable that Lord .George Hamilton would bo able to beat his record. It is a tradition among: those .who have “taken him” that ho will at times put on a spurt and conexceed the fast allowance of 200 words a minute. The great <lifficulty he presents f,s that one never knows when he is going to sprint.