PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 32

PERSONAL NOTES.

Mr Gladstone's title gets strangely travestied by the French papers, and a clothier in the Chauss6e d'Antin, Paris, who has named an overcoat after him, puts up in large capitals, " Old Great Man le Gladstone." It is curious that no Scotchman has ever been Prime Minister since Bute, and that no Scotchman since the Act of Union— unless, indeed, we count Mr Gladstone a Scotchman, born in Liverpool, as Steele described himself an Irishman born in London — has led the House of Commons. — Saturday Review. Sir Robert Kane, F.R.S , father of Captain Kane, who died at his residence, Wellington road, Dublin, in February last, held a distinguished place in the ranks of literary and practical scientists, and obtained the honour of knighthood in consideration of his patriotic and persevering efforts to promote industrial research and enterprise. Aged 79. Baron Kcenigswarter, the well-known Vienna philanthropist, has given his townspeople £10,000 wherewith to build shelters for the poorest among the poor. The only condition Baron Kcenigswarter made was that no difference is to be made to the applicants on account of their religion or their nationality " My knocks came early in life," says Professor Swing, of Chicago. " The first sermon I tried to preach would have discouraged most men. The President of the University came to me after the delivery of the sermon and he asked me if I had the manuscript. I handed it to him and he threw it in the stove, remarking as he did so that I had better try some other means of livelihood than preaching." Roscoe Oonklin, the American statesman, had a wonderfully tenacious memory. It is related that once when he spoke for four hours in the New York Academy of Music, John C. Reid, of the New York Times, held the printed slips in his hands and followed him closely, sentence by sentence. Mr Reid afterwards stated that Mr Conkling neither interpolated nor omitted a word in the entire speech. The death, at Havannah, of General Salamanca, the Captain-general of Cuba, is a great loss to Spain. The cause of his decease was liver complaint, a disease which is very prevalent amongst Europeans who live in the West Indies. It will be remembered that General Salamanca was the officer who at the time of the dispute about the Caroline Islands between Spain and Germany sent back his German crosses and orders to the Kaiser with a very curt and haughty covering letter. It is a curious fact that King Humbert of Italy is nearer to the throne of the United Kingdom, if the divine right of blood be recognised, than Queen Victoria. Her Majesty's title is derived from the beautiful daughter of James I, Elizabeth of Bohemia, whose daughter became the mother of George I, while the Italian's sovereign's comes from James' son, Charles I, whose daughter, Henrietta Maria, married into the house of Savoy. Thus he has one generation more of English blood in his viens than his royal cousin of England. Mr |Swinburne, the poet, is fond of taking an afternoon walk from Putney to Wimbledon, carries neither walking stick nor umbrella, and is not above lining his pockets at a confectioners with sweets and biscuits, which he dispenses freely to youngsters whom he meets on the road. The wife of the confectioner who is honoured with the poet's custom was asked the other day if she knew who the gentlemen was who had just left her shop. " Oh, yes," she replied at once, " that's Mr Swinburne, a private gentleman, but he isn't quite right in his head ; he's what they call a poet, I'm told." The King of Anam, now under the protectorate of France, is a boy nine years old, Thank- Tai by name. He lives almost alone. He studies not a little, however, and lately,

wheft 6M of his tutors, in reading to him> out of an Oriental book of philosophy, faltered and stumbled in attempting to explain a passage, the child-kingf said to him, seri6usly, but without severity r— " Had you notbetter, before undertaking to explain those books, look them over and see whether you. comprehend them yourself 2 " In order to> brighten the young king's existence, the French Government recently sent to him from Paris a number of toys of a very interesting and ingenious sort. Previons to their arrival fecg' Thank-Tai had no other way of amusing himself than by watching, hour after hour, the red goldfishes swimming about in a small pond near his chamber. The late Horatic Allen, of Montrose, N.J.,, ran the first locomotive that was ever used in America. He was sent to England in 1826 by the Delaware and Hudson Carnal Company to buy the rails and three locomotives "for a railroad of 16 miles, which they wished to build in connection with' their mines in the Lackawanna Valley. Having performed his commission and built hia road, Mr Allen could find no one to act as engineer on the locomotive he had imported, the task being considered mostdangerous ; so he took hold of the lever and! ran the engine several miles down the track and back, to prove that it was sate. Mr Allen was graduated at Columbia College and studied law, but left that profession for the more congenial pursuit of civil engineering, in which he gained prominence. Count Julius Andrassy, late Austro-Hun-garian Minister of Foreign Affairs, died in February last. He was the son of Count Charles Andrassy, and in 1845 succeeded his father as president of the Society for Regulating the Course of the River TheissReturned by the inhabitants of Zemplin to> the Diet of 1847, the young count quickly achieved celebrity by his powers of oratory and political finesse. In '48 he was an ardent revolutionist, and the following year was sent on a mission to the Porte. Subsequently he went into exile in France and England, until the general amnesty of 185T enabled him to return to Hungary, He became Hungarian Prime Minister. In 1871 he received an appointment as Count Beust'ssuccessor in the post of Minister for Foreign Affairs, and retired from his post as President of the Ministry at Pesth. The Order of the Golden Fleece was conferred on him by the Austrian Emperor in 1878, and a few months later he acted as first Austrian Plenipotentiary at the Berlin Congress. Aged 67.

Use Sunlight Soap for all dairy utensils.— Advt.J — First Lamp Chimney : " How do you* manage to keep so cool 1 " Second Lamp' Chimney : " Why, I keep under the shade 1 " — A young woman began to sing, " Ten thousand leaves are falling." She pitched it too high, screeched, and stopped. " Start her at 5000," cried an anctioneer. — Judge (to defendant in the witness-box) - "If you were to take your hands out of your pockets it would be more respectful to the Court." Defendant : " I hope the Court will forgive me, my lord, but I simply did it for a luxury 7 " Judge : " A luxury 1 " Defendant: "Yes; my solicitor has had his hands in them up tc now."