PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2010, 1 September 1892, Page 43

PERSONAL NOTES.

The Prince of Wales studied law in his youth, and became qualified to practice. Prince Alfred of Edinburgh is following in his footsteps, and is now studying law at the University of Munich.

An inventory of the effects oE the poefc Racine, which has just been discovered, reveals the singular fact that, at his death, he did not possess a single oopy of his own works.

Yet again the rumour is afloat — or is it the old one dished up 7 — that Mr Kipling, intends to forsake the land of his greatest; prosperity for a home in the land that would have none' of him- till he made a name for himself. The story goes that he means to take up his permanent abode in Vermont, U.S.A., where his wife was born. Mr Hall Oaine enjoys the distinction of being the first Christian who has been made an honorary member of the "TheMacoabeans," a new Jewish community, which ia destined to do great things for the Hebrew race, as it will attvaot to itself all that is most intellectual in. Judaism, and shows an unusual desire to obtain the sympathy of the Gentile world.

It has been stated that the Prince of Wales cannot bear the Duke of York " out of his sight," lest something should happen. One can quite understand this sorb of feeling, but the Prince does not- wear .his heart on bis sleeve ; and, 1 as a matter of fact, the Duke has been out of his sight lately. The father and son are, however, together very often, which is both natural and desirable.

The monster Ivan Vassilivitch the Terrible arranged a diabolioal kind of clock which marked the time by deaths. He invented poisons which killed within a fixed time, and these were administered to a long-Bucoession of human beings, who appeared one after the other in a prominent place as the minutes sqeceeded eaoh other, and when the minute Had expired fell' down dead into an open sepulchre which was kept yawning for them. It is said .that this horrible machine was arranged and worked with such nicety that it was possible to tell the time by it exactly to the minute. .

Mr Thomas |Hardy, the author of " Tesa of the D'Urbevilles," was born (says the Bookbuyer)in 1810, and at the age of 16 was articled to an ecclesiastical architect, In 1863 he received the prize medal of the Royal Institute of Architects for an essay on architecture, but his first printed article appeared In 1865, in Chambers' Journal, and was entitled " How I Built Myself a House." In 1871 was published "Desperate Remedies," but it was not till 1872 that Mr Hardy scored his first real success with "Under the Greenwood Tree." He. then definitely abandoned architecture for literature, and his works have been appearing at somewhat wid9 intervals ever since. " Far from the Madding Crowd," a story widely known, appeared as long ago as 1874 in Cornhill Magaxine. Father Febastian Bowden, Superior of the Oratory of Sfc. Philip Neri, at Brompton, is to follow Archbishop Vaoghan as Roman Catholic Diocesan of Salford, Lancashire. Although not of so aristocratic a family as the Vaughans, he is of great use to the Roman Catholics io winning middle-class perverts, as he was himself once a lieutenant in the Scots Fusiliers and a Protestant. He was the originator of throwing open the great edifice at Brompton "free" on Sunday nights, when he exerted (in company with the late Father Godolphin Osbome) all his power of rhetoric in winning souls to the Scarlet Lady. Father Bowden was a personal favourite with the late Cardinal Manning, and bis translation to the See of Salford will be a great loss to the Roman Catholic priesthood in London.