PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 33

PERSONAL NOTES.

Oddly enough, Lord Fife is an Irish and an English peer, but not a Scotph peer. John Jacob Astor is called the richest man in New York to-day, his fortune, which, is mainly in real estate, being estimated at 100,000,000d01. He is about 70 years of age and a widower.

It is generally believed in Spain that the Regent took vows in the convent where she was brought up as a girl, and that she, has only been " lent to the world " for the good of the nation.

General Booth was to be invited to a banquet at the Congress Hall on the 10th of last month, when he attained his 60th year, and by this means it was hoped to raise a gift to the war-chest of £5000 as a thanksoffering. Mr Tom Matthews, the famous glown and pantomimist, died a few weeks ago at Brighton, aged 83. A pupil of the celebrated "Joey " Grrimaldi, he made his first appearance on Boxing Night 1829. His last appearance was at Drury Lane, in 1865. Dr Beaney, of Melbourne, has intimated, to the Mayor of Canterbury (his native city) his desire to found a free library and workingman's institute there, and a committee has been formed for the purpose of carrying the proposal into effect. The new heir of the Austrian. Emperor, besides being a descendant of the Caesars, will be king of nine countries, wear 18 titles as duke, one as archduke, two as grandduke, four as margrave, and so on to the total number of 54.

Senator Coke, of Texas, is a firm believer in spiritualism. He is a large, fine-looking man, in vigorous health, and not in appearance a person given to tampering with the other world ; but he attends a great many seances, and is fully convinced that the dead and the living .can communicate with each other.

According to the Reicbanzeiger, of Berlin, the late Crown Prince Rudolph was " the dearly loved friend " of the present German Emperor. A few months ago these dear friends were in converse with each other. Eudolph talked of literature and science. William yawned, .and then said, insolently, "Oh I I don't understand any of that. Such dry stuff is unworthy of ■ a prince." " There is," replied Rudolph, "only one thing unworthy of a prince, and tha,t is, to aspire to the throne while his father, js yet alive."

Ouida is not the picturesque figure in literature she once was. When she roamed about the grounds of her Florentine villa, with her golden hair flying in the wind and an atmosphere of mystery enveloping her, she was a flashing, dazzling comet whose like we have not had since. To-day, Ouida does her grizzled gold into a decorous knot, her hard, severe profile is more suggestive of philosophical research than of poetry and passion, and her works grow eclder and more analytical with each relentless year. The fire of her youth 3he regards • with indifference or contempt, and not a snggestion of it creeps into the mathematical works of her later years. There is no doubt that no living man in Europe occupies so enviable a position to-day as the Prince of Wales, and he himself is fully aware of this very agreeable fact. He is not an inexperienced youth, or a mere Heir Apparent like the late Archduke Eudolph o Austria, but a man of years, brains, experience, and personal power, and he is fattening on the very cream of the jug of the Victorian age. Should he survive his mother (which is doubtful, and he himself lays odds that he will not), he will then at all events have had such a swing as will but rarely have been granted to mortals to enjoy, and can afford very easily to devote the remaining years of his life to bearing with decorum the splendid though heavy burthen of being Sovereign of the greatest empire the world has ever known.

To Cuke Skin Diseases. — Sulpholine Lotion drives away all Eruptions, Pimples, Blotches Redness, and Disfigurements leaving a clear, spotless skin. — Bottles. Sold everywhere.

— "I hope you appreciate the fact, sir, that in marrying my daughter you marry a large-hearted, generous girl." — "I do, sir," with emotion, " and I hope that she inherits those qualities from her father.*

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