PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2250, 15 April 1897, Page 46

PERSONAL NOTES.

• . • Bad health is tho chief trouble of Mr Clark Russell's life. He suffers from rheumatism, and is obliged to fix his residence in health resorts. Ramsgate, Dsal, Droitwich, Bath, are all places which he has tried one after the other. * . ■ The poet and novelist, Thomas Bailey Aldricb, is the fortunate beneficiare of a legacy of 200,000d0l and a summer home from the late Henry L. Pierce, the Boston millionaire. Each of the twin sons of Mr and Mrs Aldrich is favoured with an additional bequest of lOO.OOOdoI. I • . •An old privilege is that possessed by Lord Inchiquin, the only non-roya} person in ! the United Kingdom who holds the hereditary right of making use of royal liverieß for his servants. It was granted to the ancestors of Lord Inchiquin, who is the head of the Irish bouse of O'Brien, by Kinp: Henry VIII, "as compensation " for the O'Brien of the day (l piviDg up his sovereignty over the South of Ireland." •.• Though the late Mr Agostino Gatfc was not by any means an oid man, he had become rich almost beyond the dreams of avarice. The value of the estate, reßl and personal, of ths two brothers mufic, at least, be five millions sterling, and, as they carried on their business on the principle of share and share alike, Mr Agostino must have been worth between two and three millions. Of course, the greater portion of that sum is locked up in the undertakings I associated with their names. i • . • Madame Adam was driven into journalism by the unhappine«s of her first married life. Her parents married her while she was a girl of 15 f,o a notary in a provincial rown. She left her husband, and, aided by G^or.^e Sand, wrote herself into fame in Paris. Sno married a senator, M.Adam, and was left a rich widow at his death. This enabled her to found La Nouvelle Revue and to establish the salon in the Rae Juliette Lamber, to which all the celebritien in Paris crowd on her reception nights. There it ft private theatre attached to the bonne, where new plays are occasionally acted by clever amatenrs on Sunday nights. • . • Dr Pentecobt, whose decision to return to America has baen received with regret, is perhaps the most successful London Presbyterian minister since the days of Edward Irving. In a few years he has gathered together a great congregation in Marylebone, and has taken a large part in all kinds of work in the West End. When a young man he bad some experience of fighting, serving through tho great civil war. Afterwards he came to the front as an evangelist, working largely with Mr Moody. Strange to say, his j brother, a leading New York lawyer, is I almost a» prominent an advocate of freei thought as is Dr Pentecost of Christianity. • . • Nansen is not yet 36. His first voyage was at the age of 21, when he sailed to Spitzbergen and Icelandic seas to study animal life. He returned to Christiania to resume his studies in philosophy *nd comparative anatomy. Six yea« • later he made bis famous journey across Greenland. The next year he waa appointed curator in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in the University of Christiaoia, and about the sama period married Mdlle Eva Sara, the Norwegian singer. The polar voyage and the preparations therefor are the chief items in bi3 public history sine** then. • . • Lord Ribblesdale, who has succeeded the late Lord Kensington as Liberal Whip in the Lords, is a great favourite with the Prince of Wales, who has bestowed on him one of the most appropriate nicknames which even his Royal Highness has ever evolved. " The Ancestor " is the sobriquet by which his Lordship of Ribblesdale is known in the ' Prince's set, and all who are familiar with bis clear-cut, aquiline profile, clean-shaven, old-fashioned face, the high stock he wears, and clothes which, in spite of their modernity, have the " hang " of another century, will admit that a better name could not have been found for him. Lord Ribblesdale is married to a daughter of Sir Charles Tennant, of The Glen, and therefore to the sister of Mrs Asauith. • . • Tne great life-work of Sir Henry Halford, whose death occurred recently, was as a rifle shot and expert. He threw himself heart and soul into the volunteer movement in 18G0, and for many years he commanded the Leicestershire battalion. At Wistow Hall he had his workshop, and acquired the practical art of gun making, and he had a rifle range on his estate. Sir Henry captained the Eoßlish Eight which went to America in 1877, and again in 1882. Among his many achievements was winning- the Albert Cap at Wimbledon in 1863, and again at Bisley in 1893, after a lapse of 31 years. On his sixty-fif eh birthday he scored a dozen bull's eyes in succession on his own range. He spent many hours every day in his work* shop.

— There is only one sudden death »mon/l women to eight among men*

«• You are the most worthless man that • ever made a woman's life intolerable, John." j And a week afterwards she &ued a railway company for £5000 damages for killing John. The perversity of some women is past comjpreaension.

— " Never say die," said the young graduate. "Certainly not," remarked the ; Girton girl approvingly " say expire." — Tourist (at Niagara) : " Are we near the falls 1 " Guide: "Yes, sir. As soon as the ladies atop talking you can hear the roar,"