A FAMOUS ACTRESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2332, 10 November 1898, Page 16

A FAMOUS ACTRESS.

LONDON, October 31. Obituary : Lady Martin, nee Helen Faucifc, at one time a famous actress.

[Helen Faucit was born in 1816, the daughter of Mrs Faucit, an actress of high repute. Making her debut in London on the sth January, 183G, a3 Julia in " The Hunchback," she was at once recognised as a player of high rank, and sho became an important member of Macready's companies during his Shakeaperean ccTiTals at CoTent Garden and Diury Lane. Juliet, Beatrice, Constance, Imogens, Herruione, Portia, Rosalind, and Lady Macbeth! weie parts in which she gained high commendation, and she was also the original representative of the heroines in " The Lacly of Lyons,"'

" Money," " Richelieu," and other standard dramas that live to our day. Her greatest success, perhaps, vras in her representation o£ Antigone, and another distinguished success vras as lolanthe in "King Rene's Daugh-. ter," an adaptation from the Danish by Mr Theodore Martin. Miss Faucit was married

in 1851 to Mr Theodore Martin. Thoreaft'er she was seen on the stag© only at raro intervals, her last appearance being in 1879 as Beatrice at Stratford-on-Avon.]

— Three British seamen, it is estimated, Jose their lives every day by drowning, and 300 British vessels are lost yearly at sea. — Electro-natignets capable of picking up a load not exceeding five tons are used by one of the great steel companies to transfer steel beams or plates from one part of a ship to another.

f —The city of Damascus, in Syria, is so 1 ancient that no record of its origin can be discovered in any written histories. —An early Anglo-Saxon custom, strictly followed by newly-married couples, was that of drinking diluted honey for 30 days after marriage. From this custom comes the word honeymoon, or honavnionth.

— Our rich American cousins are establishing game preserves, and trying to rivaJ us in such field sports ns hunting, fishing, and shooting. One American lady, Mrs M'Cready by name, is so enthusiastic a sportsman that she has now a. joint pack of 100 boarhounds. She lives in New York, hunts in Brittany, and wears a hunting dress of red a.nd eraen.

—In tracing the origin of the custom of widows wearing caps reference is made to the Egyptian and Grecian practice of shaving off the hair in periods of mourning. As without hair there was a danger of catching cold, the ancients wore wigs upon their bald crowns, .while the women covered their heads with cans.

The Moana on her last trip to San Francisco took away over h«]f a million of sorereigns. The Union Bank of Australia sent £200,000, Ike Bank of Australasia £100,000, the Bank of New South Wales £150,000, the National Bank of Australasia and English and Scottish Bank eaoh £50.000.