PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 42

PERSONAL NOTES.

John Oliver Hobbes, who has lately jumped into a literary reputation in London, is to her friends Mrs Craigie, a young lady who began her professional career three or four years ago as an art oritio. M. Pasteur, the famous French scientist, has been suffering for some time from organic weakness of the heart. Many of the savant's friends fear that he will never again entirely recover his strength. The death in Naples or Christian Joachim Mohn deprives the world of its greatest linguist since the days of Mezzofanti. Mohn ! had an acquaintance with more than 60 languages, most of them Oriental. He was of Norwegian birth, and was 85 years old. Mrs Arthur Stannard ("John Strange Winter ") has just been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This distinction has only been conferred on one other woman since the society was founded in 1823. Theodore Wachtel, the celeb: ated German tenor of 30 or 40 years ago, who began his career as a cab driver, emerged from retirement recently to give a concert in Berlin two days before his 70th birthday. He astonished everybody who heard him by his physical strength and elasticity, as well as by the remarkable freshness and preservation of his voice. • Partly through the omission of the^ initials there is a pretty general impression' abroad that the "Captain Younghusband," who contributed to the May number of The Nineteenth Century an article entitled " The Invasion of India by Russia," is the I young efficer bo well known in connection with the Pamirs. Such, howerer, is not the case. The writer is the distinguished traveller's brother, Captain G. J. Younghusband, of the Guides, a celebrated mixed corps of cavalry and infantry, forming part of the Punjab Frontier force. Mrs Huagerford, the author of "Molly JBawn" and OV6r 30 other novels, is of Scotch descent, her father's family having migrated from Scotland to Ireland in the reign of James I. Her grandfather was John Hamilton, of Vesington, Dunboyne, and her father was the late Canon Hamilton, rector and vicar-choral cf St. Faughnan's Cathedral in Ross Carberry, County Cork. She has been twice married, and is the mother of six children, three (girls) being by her first husband, who died six years after marriage. She became Mrs Hungerford in 1883. Mrs Deland, best known still as the authoress of "John Ward, Preacher," her first book, is a daughter of Mrs Julia Ward Howe, known to many as the writer of that spirited "Battle Hymn of the Republic," which finds a place at the end of Mr Kipling's " Light< that Failed." Mrs Howe wrote it. during the American civil war, and— set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," — it soon passed into a popularity equal to that of the "Marseillaise " itself. Mrs Deland, it is said, has quite a fondness for snakes. Once when staying in a country hotel the landlord - had to tell her to give up keeping her pets in her room, as it caused uneasy apprehensions in the minds of the other boarders. One of Mrs Deland's sisters is also well known as an authoress in America. Sahei Ohashi, the proprietor of the largest publishing house in Japan, paid a visit recently to New York to investigate the methods of its large publishing houses. Mr Obashi's firm in Tokyo is called " Hakubunkwan," and, although it has only been in existence six years, now issues the following periodicals: The Japanese Commercial Magazine, The Tokyo Monthly Trade Review, The Japanese Agricultural Magazine, Japanese Law, Japanese Youth, The Children's Magazine, and The Women's Magazine. Some of these publications have a very large sale, the issue of The Children's Magazine being 80,000 copies monthly — the largest circulation in the country. The actual number of copies of books and maga? sines issued by the firm in a year is 10,000,000. MrF. 0. Salons, whose book on the South African Company's empire will soon be out, * knows how to tell a story. When he was lecturing before the Royal Geographical Booiety he told how one night, when his followers had all been &lain or dispersed by the hostile natives, and he was making his way home single-handed, he came to a hostile kraal. He knew it was hostile, but he was so cold and dead beat that be went in and sat down by the fire. Two chiefs came in and sat opposite him dressed in heavy cloak 3. Presently, by a rns3, another savage stole his rifle, thea the two 0h1.f3 stood up and let a quantity of dry grass fall in the fire, which blazed up. By its light he saw a man, only a few yards off, in the act of shooting him. He made a wil i bound . Then he looked at his waf o.h, and said* he had exceeded the time, and nothing would induce him to add another wor^. Mr Aug. S'rindberg, the celebrated Swedish novelist and dramatist, is at present stayiDg at Gravesend. Mr Strindberg', who may be &aid to be the founder of the Swedish realistic rcbool, the firsb exampls of which was his forcible novel, " Tbe Red Chamber" (Rollaßamnet), published about 15 jeara ago, has of late years principally written for the st»g^. With the exception of few and short intervals, he. has during the last eight or^ten years lived abroad in Switzerland, Auitlria, France, and la'.ely in Germany. He i« said to be the only Swede, who knows Chinese.- One of his" most characteristic traits is his opposition to women's emancipation, to which he has given strong and constant vent in his writings, both novelistic and dramatic He has recm'ly married a second time; his wife is a Vienna lady, daughter of a newspaper editor of that oity. Being an exceptionally clever linguist, he has contiibuted both to the French aDd German press, and published novels find plays written by himself in the respective languages of these countries. It is wise to provide against emergencies, which are liable to arise in every family. In sudden a1 tacks of cold, croup, asthma, &c, a bottle of Ayer's Cherry Pectoral will prove a never-failing remedy,

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