PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2013, 22 September 1892, Page 39

PERSONAL NOTES.

The husband of Charlotte Bronte is still living in a remote district of Ireland. The Comte de Paris, says an eminent French genealogist, is a direct descendant of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia.

Rouget de Lisle, the writer of the "Marseillaise," seems to have been an amiable sort of person, with no judgment and little talent, who stumbled upon a melody absolutely suited, not to the absurd words he mismarried to it, but , to the sentiment those words so lamely and imperfectly try to express. — Saturday Review.

Mr Charles Dickens makes it a standing rule never to purchase any mementoes cf, cr patronise any movements in connection with, his late father. If he took notice of half the offers made, him to patronise Dickensian relics he would' simply have no peace. Therefore he invariably thanks a correspondent and declines.

The Rev. S. Baring Gould, the well-known novelist, is 58 years of age. He belongs to an old Devonshire family, and is rector of Lew-Trenchard. Strangely enough he wrote something like 30 or 40 books on religious subjects and folklore before he won celebrity as a novelist.

When Walt Whitman was a poor clerk on small wages in Washington, during the Civil war, he exercised the severest economy in order to use bis money lor the sick and wounded soldiers in camp and hospital, to whom he used to make a daily pilgrimage. He would frequently sit by a dying man's cot through the whole night, administering medicines and preparing cordials.

The Rev. Newman Hall says that he once saw a cart with Mr Spurgeon's name painted on it — "Charles Haddon Spurgeon, cowkeeper." He told Mr Hall that he sold tho best milk to his neighbours at a fair and good price, devoting the profits ""to tho support of two elderly ladies, who had no idea whenoe the monthly cheque came. He quite chuckled at the thought of their ignorance of the method in which their wants were supplied. Lord Dufferin was held in greater respect, esteem, admiration, and affeotion by all classes and casts than any former Viceroy of India. He is a thorough master of diplomacy ; any petitioner always feels that he is getting what he wants, but he doesn't ; no not one inch more than Lord Dufferin intonds. He studies every question in solitude, and from every point of view; but •when be arrives at a decision ho sticks to it ; no wavering, no going back then. Perhaps this is the secret of his success.

Prince Bismarck hae been very handsomely rewarded for his public services. After the Austrian war he received L 60,000 — the equivalent of per cent, on the total war indemnity — with which he purchased his Varzin estate ; and after the French war he received Friedrichsrub, valued at L 150.000, or one-fifteenth per cent, on the whole five milliards indemnity. To the gratitude of his country he is indebted for almost every penny of his present income, which exceeds L.20,000 a year.

One of the most remarkable business men in London is Mr Alfred W. Ranger, the solicitor to the Salvation Army. He is totally blind, having lost his sight at the age of 14. Until he was 21 he did nothing in particular. At that age he went to a school at Worcester, and afterwards matriculated at Oxford, when he took his M.A. and D.O.L. degrees. He was then articled to a solicitor in the Old Jewry, was admitted in 1879, took an office and started business with one clerk. He has now a very large business, and is recognised as one of the. ablest solicitors in practice.

Mr Gladstone's financial genius has never been questioned. In foreign policy, it was his hand that first shook the evil despotism at Naples, that more than any other restored, independence to Italy, that gained a great step for the Kingdom, of Greece and that has transformed our policy towards the Turkish Empire. It was he who first resisted and finally extinguished the childish Ecclesiastical Titles Act, and who overthrew the unjust Establishment in Ireland. It was he who abolished purchase in the army, who gave household suffrage to the people of the United Kingdom, and. who raised education to the level of a national obligation. It was he who first among our statesmen discovered that the question of land tenure was at the root of our Irish "troubles. — Spectator. Mr Spurgeon had passed through a week of exhaustive toil, and had vainly tried till a late hour on Saturday night to open the text upon which his heart was set. Thus unsuccessful he retired to rest. During the night, and while fast asleep, he announced a text, and went through a sermon in a most methodical way. J'ising betimee, he mentioned to Mrs Spnrgeon how utterly he had failed to make anything of the text which he felt he must take. ',' What text was it, Charles ?"- she asked, and when told, replied,' !' Qh, I heard you preach a sermon on that text during the night, and I think I could tell you the substance of it." She did so, Mr Spurgeon acting as amanuensis, and the sermon was delivered that morning in the Tabernacle with special effect. To breathe the names of Mr Edmund. Yatesand Mr Henry Labouchere'in friendly conjunction would be almost as electrifying to the public as the spectacle oE Mr_ Gladstone and Lord Salisbury amicably seated on the same si3e of the House. Yet scarcely a lustrum has passed since the high priest of Truth contributed weekly a financial essay entitled " The Usurer's Article " to tho columns of the World for the modest sum of two guineas. But " times is changed," and a few advance sheets of Truth sent to a great American journal fetch nearly 10 times' that sum. ; The' first number of Mr Labouchere',B weekly appeared on 4th January 1877, and unlike most journalistic debutantes, paid its expenses from the start, and theW has never been a penny loss upon it since, a fact which its proprietor ascribes largely to the judgment and acumen of its editor, Mr Horace Voules.

— Rubber-tyred omnibuses are" shortly to be tried in London. " It is ignorance that wastes effort." Trained servants expect to be supplied with ' • SAPOLIO. It is a solid cake of Scouring Soap. Q i. ■ . .