PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2355, 13 April 1899, Page 59

PERSONAL NOTES.

— The German Emperor finds time to personally write on an average 100 letters a week, and to dictate at least twice that number.

—Mr Blackmore's health is in an indifferent state. The author of " Lorna Doone " is now in his sovonty-fifth yeai, and it is 37 years since his first novel, " Clara Vaughan," was published.

— The Countess of Dunmore. who is on a visit to America, enjoys the distinction of being the mother of a Victoria Cross herb and the wife of a celebrated explorer, in addition to which she is a daughter of the Earl of Leicester and one of the eldest of his family of 18 childion.

— Earl Clanwilliam, Admiral of the Fleet, is socially thr most exaltec' officer, apart from royalties, in the British navy. He entered the navy 53 years ago, and in 1857 nearly lost his life at Canton. His eldest pon and heir, Lord Gillford, who narrowly escaped death when tho Victoria was run down, is one of the smartest of our naval lieutenants.

— President Paul Kruger, of the Transvaal Republic, was born in Cape Colony, and trekked to Natal. Orange Free State, and the Transvunl. At the conclusion of the war in 1881 ho wa's given charge oi the provisional government. A year later he was elected President, and has served uninterruptedly in that capacity ever since.

—In a recent letter to a correspondent, General Sir Arthur Cotton attributed his extreme age to the habit of eating very little food of any kind. The idea was suggested to him by noticing the small quantity of food eaten by the people of the East, where he lived so long. Sir Anthur has been'a teetotaler for the past 30 or 40 years, and he believes that alcohol and tobacco are " absolute poison."

— Many people have already forgotten the last romance of the peerage. Tho present Earl of Egmont is an ex-fireman, and is known even now among his old friends as " Gus." He was educated ar a cadet on tho Worcester, but at a later date he joined the Metropolitan Fire Brigade undei Captain Shaw At the time he succeeded to the peerage he was the caretaker of the Chelsea Town Hall. He is now living at his country seat neai Midhurst.

— Lord Chelmsford, iike so many retired army officers, finds hie chief recreation in different forms of church work, from the more or less ornamental duties of churchwarden to the somewhat exacting work foi the Church Lads' Brigade, of which ho is chairman and "Field-marshal." The general, who ib son of a great Lord Chancellor, has taken an active .part in five wars.

— The Duke of Rutland is so full of vigour at 80 that iv spite of his silver hair it is difficult to realise that he was a. promising politician nearly 60 years ago. His Grace was actually a Cabinet Minister as long ago as 1852, the ye*r in which his son and heir, Lord Granny, waa born. The Duke owns n«».rly 100 square milwi of land, in addition to valuable nii:;e3, and one of '.he flnest picture galleries in Enginisd. — Dr 0. A. Berry, when he wa* a !ad, suf (3er«dv4fom ft sliff'at impediment in his aneech.

Following an illustrious ancient example he paced the s6a-shore, for hours at a time, and for weeks in succession, am 7 shouted ta the waves with a cork placed between hia teeth. In this way he obtained complete mastery over the muscles of the throat and of the vocal chords, and was able afterward* to make himself heard in the largest buildings. ■■- Sir Arthur Ellis, Sergeant-at-arms of th« House of Lords, is like his predecessor, Sir Patrick Talbot, a soldier to the baokbone, and of the sami striking military bearing. He was born in the year of the Queen's accession, exactly 20 yoars after Sir Patrick;, and from the ago of 30 has been undet. the wing of the Prince of Wales, who has quit« an affectionate regard for him. Sir Arthur did doughty deeds in the Crimea as a young mivn of 18.

— Count Witte, Russia's Minister of Finance, who is said to have inspired the Czar'f peace message, was 21 years ago a_stationmaster on the railway line between jtvier and Odessa. He disobeyed orders ooncerniug tha transportation of a large body of troops, and by his disobedience averted endless confusion. That won him a place in St. Petersburg, and by his ability he has risen to the top of th« ladder.

— Mr George Bernard Shaw, the brilliant " G. B. 5.," whose contributions to the Saturday Review are now much missed, has been addressing a meeting on the subject of tha Czar's rescript.' Mr" Shaw hopes for nothing from disarmament. He " cannot too strongly insist that it is not armaments oi ironclads that fight, but men. and if they did away with, all the weapons of war, and- reduced men to the aboriginal weapons of their fists, teeth, and claws, they would fight jupt as horribly.'

— Mr Whiteomb lliley, the Americau poet, evidently ii a warm admirer of Rudyard Kipling, of whom he spoke thus to an interviewer recently : " A "ot of fellows, who know nothing of Kipling's early history, think thah ho just did it — ths»l he just happened. Bufc that fellow wa- hustling round newspaper offices from the time he was 13 years old. Born and brought up among a strange people, with queer customs, he was for yoars gathering material for his work. He has the greatest curiosity of >.ny man I ever knew : everything interests him. In fact, he is a regular literary blotting pad, soaking up everything on the face of the earth."

—It is interesting to note that many of our leading poets have had very mingled strains in their blood. Tennyson's extraction was Danish, Frenoh, and English. Robert Browning had " brown " blood in his veins, for his grandmother was a Creole lady Roaselti was Italian, with an admixture of English blood: Algernon Charles Swinburne has both Scandinavian and French blood in hia veins. Mr Austin Dobson is French as well as English; and the late Mr Coventry Patmore was " fractionally German." — Sir Henry Blake, Governor of Hongkong, has had a remarkably lucky career. The sou of an inspector of Irish Constabulary, he began life in a business house in Dublin. He was. however, as ambition? aa he was clover ; and by an adroit exeroiso of his great powers of social entertainment, he won his way into tho exclusive circle of the Castle. Promotion I quickly came to tho handsome young constable, for by this time he had followed Lib fathei into tho Irish Constabulary; aud ha became in turn magistrate, and' then, by a leap, Governor of tho Bahamas. — The late General Annenkoff wa», saya one who knew him, one of the most interesting personalities in Russiap society, although for the last few years he lived under a cloud. He believed in the illimitable future of Russia, and was responsible in no small t'oaree for lousing in the young Czar his present passionate interest in the development of railway communication and of Russian interests in the Fai East. The general was an enthusiast, and burnt the candle at both ends, as well as in the middle. On geography, horseflesh, railways, cookery, ths production of wine, travel, and engineering ho was au expert. • He crammed into the space of r* hours tho work of three men. If he had b»S» more of a diplomatist and had succeeded »» smoothing away the opposition he oucoubtored at Court, he might have risen very b/xh indeed. — The Lord Chancellor, writes a Homo >*.- per, seems to be trying to imitate Mr Glftd-' stone as a man of many nationalities. Everyone regards him as an Irishman, yet speaking the other evening he declared himself " a Devonian pure and simple." As a matter of fact, he was born, as was Mr •Jham'jerlftin, in Camberwell. His grandfather wa= Mr .Tol.n Giffard, proprietor of the Dublin .lour nal, and, a century ago, a noted Dublin politician who threw himself with ardour into th«» loyalist cause, and wad preferred to »laces of emolument. His paper was the first to announce that the measure of tho Union had been adopted as a cardinal principle of policy. One of his sons, uncle of the^ present Lord Chancellor, was an Irish barrister, and was wounded in a duel with Bagnall Harvey, a brother barrister, subsequently hanged as a United Irish leader. As Sir Hardinije Gif. fard, he became Chief Justice of CVylon. When Sir Hardinge waa still in Dublin- he lodged with Benjamin Disraeli, a jeweller, who was an uncle of the Earl of Beauonpfold, and who left his property to Mi Dick-Hume, of County Wicklow. This Mr Hume afterwards entered Parliament as a Oonsorvatiyo, and was on intimate terms of friendship vith Lord Beaconsfield. The Tory I'ramlo una lo humorously ask Mr Hume when lie nciifl restore to him his "little family i-ow-eif *» Dublin. How Lord Halsbury .nakoa <-ut >4m claim to be a Devonian pure and pi)r.j.»» I don't know. But genealogy presents some curious problems. Take the case of Madame Patti, who has been married thip week. Sho was born at Madrid ; her father wat a nal|v» of Catania, in Sicily; and her mother a iu»H\o of Rome. She herself waa brought up by an American ptep-fathei in the United R',ateu; sho married two French husbands, and settled clown in Wales. Here was a complex stnta of affairs which would have given the courts some trouble in connection witt her property, had she not last year taken out letters of naturalisation as » British subject. Now she has married a Swedish nobleman.

— Protestant missionaries have translated the Bible, c -portions of it, into about 70 African languages and dialects. HOW TO.PBEVBNT OROTJP. We have two children who are subjeot to attacks of croup. Whenever an attack is coming on my wife gives thero Chamberlain's Cough Remedy, and it always prevents tha attack. It ie- a household necessity in thia county and no matter what else wo run out of, it would not do to bo without Chamberlain* Cough Remedy. More of it is sold here than of all other cough medicines combined. — J M| Nicklk, of Nicklo Bros., merchants, Nickl^> villo, Pa. For sale by all leading chomisU.. TUT THIS IF TROUBLED WITH BHSI liATISJfiK

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— On the- Siamese stage, if a horse is re- j quired, an actress appears wearing headgear shaped like a. horse's head. A voyage at sea is undertaken without ships. One of the players crosses the. stage, having a p'olc in imitation of a mast fastened to his chest. The passengers embark by ranging themselves in two long lines behind the >»an with the Sol*

—At Swedish weddings, among the middle 1 and lower classes, the bridegroom carriet, a whip. This is an emblem of his authority in the domestic circle.

— A photographic filn? nine and a hah miles in length is somewhat of a novelty, even in this age of big things. Three of them are now being made for use in a cinematograph. The cost is about £200 » mils*