PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2201, 7 May 1896, Page 51

PERSONAL NOTES.

'■'Mr John Habberfcon, author of "Helen's Babies," has become one of the editors of tha Illustrated American. - • . • The new BrifcJsh Minister to Japan, Sir Ernest Mason Satow, is one of the best Japaresß scholars among all the English* speaking people of the world. ' . ' Sandow, the strong man, has a braiq as WBll as a big body. He is quite an in. genions fellow, and among his invention* are an improvement on the bicycle and a combination trunk and bath-tub for travellers.

• . • Mr Donglaa Sladen is now at Palermo, in Sicily, where he proposes to make a stay of sonxe weeka before continuing his toul to Girgenti, Syracuse, Taormina, and pro. bably Segesta, Marsala, and Salinunte. Hit object is to collect materials for a new work of fiction upon which he is engaged. • . • Admiral Keppel, the grat,d old man in Eugland's naval affairs, is six months older than Gladstone. Keppel was but a stripling when Napoleon was overthrown ; bnfc afc fcha outbreak of the Crimean war he bad become an officer of experience, and waa pufc in command of a naval brigade before Sebastopol. Admiral Keppel has been on the retired list for 16 years.

• . • Paderewski was a musioian from hia earliest infancy. Left motherless at the aga of three, he was already able to play, and before quite seven years old was immersed in study. He received his first lesson from a fiddler, and at 16 made a tour through Russia, playing chiefly his own oompoiitions. He married when 19, and bia wife dying a year later, he threw his whole soul into mu3ic.

•.•Mr Robert Wallace, the member for East Edinbuigh, has tho reputation of being the wittiest Scotsman in tbe House of Commons. He hss had a most remarkable career, and is a man of brilliant parts. Mr Wallaci has been a minister of religion and a news* paper editor, and is now a barrister. He waf called to the bar after he had passed the age of 50, and in a very short time succeeded in establishing a practice.

• • Tbe youßger Dumas often declared that his school days were the unbappiest of his life. He hated the routine of the claesrooru, and was subjected to continued insult on account of his parentage. He once went to his father and told him he had run into debt to the extent of £2000. " Work as I do," said the elder Dumas ; "I have just cleared off £10,000." Alexander Dumas pera left fly« francs. Alexandre Dctmas/fo left three millions of francs.

•.•Mr, Beatty-Kingston has been Inter* viewed by Oassell's Saturday Journal. The writer says : — " Mr Beatty Kingston's brow darkened when I suggested that he knew tha Shah like a brother. ' I know the Shah well/ he said. I was attached to his personal staff, and brought him from Moscow ta London, and although as a recognition of my services he presented me with a big turquoise hammered ring wbich ha took from hit fiDger, I condemn him as the vilest of barbarians'.' ''

• . • Mr Rhodes seems to have a partiality for doctors. It is well known that he has a strong affection for the unfortunate Dr Jameson, and probably Dr Rutherford Harris stands next in his esteem. This gentleman, who was once, like Jameson, a practitioner in Ktmberley,' accompanied the fallen OoloaBus '• home " on tbe Union steamship Moor • and a third member of the party, Mr Alfred Beit, is also an ex-resident of the Diamond Fields. He has enriched himself- " beyond the dreams of avarice " out of Transvaal gold.

• . ' Earl Grey, who hss been appointed Administrator of the Chartered Company's territories in place of Dr Jameson, formerly Bat in the House of Commons as Mr Albert Grey, representing South Northumberland from 1880 to 1885, and, later on, the Tyne&ide Division for the space of one year. Earl Grey is 45 years of age, and ia a son of General the Hon. Charles Grey, who was for some years private secretary to tho late Prince Consort and to the Queen.

' . * The Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, fragile as she looks, is one of tha strongest women in Europe. This she owes: in a great measure to her early train* ing. Her father, Don Miguel, who\ with all his faults, was devoted to his: children, bad views of his own on th« subject of their education, and he insisted oa their (•pending the greater part of their tlma in the open air. Soon after the Archduchess was married sbe rode from Reiohnau to. Guns and back, a distance of about 150 miles, without stopping except to change horses.