PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1897, 12 June 1890, Page 36

PERSONAL NOTES.

The London National Gallery has many failings. It is small and incomplete. Considering that England is singularly rich in examples of Holbein's art, it is nothing short of a disgrace that the great German should be unrepresented. The cock-eyed Primitive has received far more attention than he deserves. But, on the other hand, if we leave one or two rooms out of view, the gallery is marvellously free from rubbish. — Scots Observer. Lord Albert Edward Godolphin-Osborne, third son of the Duke of Leeds, and younger brother of the Marquis of Carmarthen, M.P., has gone out to Ceylon. After remaining a few weeks iv the capital the young gentleman — he is only 23 — proceeds to Nuwara Eliya, where arrangements have been made for him to study the mysteries and art of tea-plant-ing. When he becomes master of this he intends to purchase a tea estate, or otherwise to have one fresh hewn out of the forest primeval, and settle down for good in the colony. Prince Bismarck possesses no fewer than 103 decorations, of which 14 are set in diamonds of great value. He does not belong to any English order, nor is he a Knight of the St. Stephen of Hungary, which is the Emperor of Austria's great order ; but the late Czar gave him the St. Andrew, which is the first order in Russia, and his diamond star belonging to this order is worth £10,000. Professor Blackie's social and political views are candid, good-humoured, and not unlike those expressed by Colonel Newcome. His theory of society is that you should not give a cabman a shilling when you have any excuse for giving him eighteenpence —at least, that is pretty much what it all comes to. He is not a Socialist, but he would like to tax absentee landlords, and seems to have a liking for a graduated income tax. — Saturday Review. The Hon. Dinshaw Manockjee Petit, who has been made a baronet of the United Kingdom, is one of the best-known men in India. The cotton industry of Bombay has risen and thrives largely by his energy and enterprise, and the same qualties have been exercised with effect in other departments of Indian affairs. Sir Dinshaw is a very wealthy man, and a benevolent one, too, for it is estimated that he has distributed in charity from time to time a fortune of not less than £200,000. An Italian contemporary gives some curious particulars about dead and living cardinals. Sixty-five cardinals have died during the 12 years of Leo Xlll.Tapacy. The Sacred College is almost all composed of new cardinals. Only 16 were there under Pio Nono, and one of these, Cardinal Howard, is seriously ill, and several others are past 80 years of age. The youngest of the cardinals of Pio Nono are Parochi and Zigliari, who are each 57 years of age; the oldest is Mertel, who is 84, and has worn the scarlet for 32 years. It was said a couple of years ago — and we entirely agree with the retired French statesman who made the remark — that for once Prince Bismarck had misread a character that was close under his observation. What he missed in it, apparently (it will be seen that we are speaking of the character of the Emperor William), was the prodigious pride of race, the resolve to figure as a great Hohenzollern, the inordinate self-confidence, the theatrical ambition, and therewith the womanish vanity and obstinacy, which would break out as soon as the young man stepped upon the throne. — Scots Observer. The life of Joaquin Miller, the adventurous poet of the Sierras, who is writing a " Life of Christ," has itself been ever a romance. Captured as a boy by the Indians, he imbibed a love for roving in solitary places, and has never lost that love. One of his earliest adventures was a dreadful fight with wolves for his life. He was but a lad of 15 or sc when he found himself surrounded by a small pack of wolves, with nothing to defend himself save a revolver and a hunting knife. He bears a life-long evidence of that fight in a strangely mutilated middle finger, a portion of which a wolf took as his share of the fray By the death of the Hon. and Rev. F. R. Grey, Rector of Morpeth, a living stated to be worth £1286 and a house falls to the gift of the Earl of Carlisle, who is not a member of the Church, but is generally supposed to be in sympathy with Unitarians, and is associated with several leading Unitarians as one of the committee for starting the new religious society initiated by the authoress of " Robert Elsmere." If the noble earl is a Unitarian, he of course comes under the anathemas of the Athanasian Creed, but his right of presentation is not impugned ; whereas a Roman Catholic, who is bound to accept the creed, is disqualified from exercising his right of presentation. Evidently religious disabilities have their anomalous side.— Daily Chronicle. The historical attempt of Orsini to assassinate Napoleon in 1858 has just been again brought into prominence by the death of a man named Rossi, who, 30 years ago, was on the detective force of the Paris police. When Orsini's bomb exploded, Rossi rushed to the door of the Emperor's carriage to assist him in getting out ; but the Emperor, taking him for one of the conspirators, dealt the detective " one " straight from the shoulder, which caught him fairly between the eyes, and bowled him over like a ninepin. Of course the man was afterwards recompensed for the mistake, but to the day of his death, which occurred recently, he was proud of the distinction (!) of having been knocked down by Napoleon 111. It is said that the only mar to his happiness was that he could not exhibit the original black eye. There has been no waste of time in Mr Gladstone's life. He does not, we believe, profess to be a fast reader, but he reads methodically and writes methodically. His day is regularly mapped out, each hour having its own allotted task. He rises early, goes to church before breakfast, takes some two hours' exercise in the afternoon, reads after dinner when he is at home without guests, and goes to bed about 11 when he has his evenings to himself. In his article in the current number of Good Words he says that he has always acted on the rule "that change of labour is to a great extent the healthiest form of recreation." But he has made it a rule to vary not merely his labour, but his recreation also. It is his habit, we believe, ' to devote regular portions of each day to the

continuous reading or two or three books on widely different subjects. This habit conduces probably to that wonderful freshness and elasticity of mind which is such a conspicuous trait in Mr Gladstone's character. He does not give his mind time to get bored with any one subject, and he thus enters upon each new subject with undiminished interest and unflagging zest.— Speaker. In Captain Bond Skelton, the quiet, unassuming, elderly gentleman who assisted the other day at the marriage of his nephew, Lord Louth, few people recognised the hero of one of the most heroic deeds of this century. In 1852, Captain Bond Skelton, at that time a cornet of dragoons, was with his regiment on board the ill-fated Birkenhead when it struck on a rock. Boy as he was, he never lost his composure for a moment. There were only three or four boats, not a tenth of those need^H to save all on board ; therefore, taking it at once for granted that the women and children at least must be saved, he began with infinite tenderness to help them into the boat, smiling gently the while, as if he were doing the most natural thing in life. By the time the women and children were safe in the boats the Birkenhead was sinking rapidly. Captain Bond Skelton marshalled his men on deck, formed them into a line, fired a royal salute— in a moment they were all in the water together. The men all perished, but the young cornet, being a good swimmer, was picked up by a stray boat, after long immersion in the water. When the old Emperor William, then King of Prussia, heard of this deed, he ordered a parade of 100,000 men in Berlin, and had the account of it read publicly as a record of military heroism.