PERSONAL MOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2369, 27 July 1899, Page 56

PERSONAL MOTES.

— Lord Granville Gordon, who has taken to fiction, is a very well-known figure in racing circles, and is known among his friends as " Granny Gordon."

— Mrs Rudyard Kipling has so- perfect a knowledge of her husband's writings that she can recite many of the short stories almost word for word, and remembers better than he does himself the particulars as to their publication, and so on. /—/ — Mr Robert Gillespie Reid owns 5,000,000 acres of land in Newfoundland, and is the greatest landlord in the entire world. Pie controls nearly all the assets of the Newfoundland Government, except those belonging to municipalities. Railways, steamers, telegraphs, valuable mines, great forests, all are in his grasp. Most of his lands, however, are as yet undeveloped.

— In his habits and in his manner there are many points of resemblance betv/een Mr Balfour and Mr Gladstone. He is not accustomed to betray interest in the attack of an opponent; he listens, but as he sits or lies stretched full length on the bench, with his legs tilted up on the table in front of him, polishing up his eye-glasses with his pocket handkerchief, or busily writing a letter on his knee, he might be thinking of anything but the indictment which is being hurled at him. Yet no point escapes him. — Pall Mall Gazette.

— The latest and best golf story is told by Mr Justice Lawrance against himself. He is an ardent golfer. Ho tells how he had recently a case before him in which he felt it necessary to ask one of the witnesses, a boy, the

usual question whether ho »as acquainted with the nature of an oath. The ingenuous youth calmly replied, "Of course I am. Ain't I your caddie?" — The Duke of Norfolk up to this year drew a pension of £40 a year, which was awarded to his ancestors in 1513. When the Earl of Surrey defeated James IV of Scotland, on September 9, 1513, and left him, together with the flower of Scottish\chivalry," dead upon, Flodden Field, Henry VIII, by way of reward, gave a pension of £40 a year to the earl and his heirs for ever. The pension was recently compounded by the Duke of Norfolk, the earl's descendant, for £800. — Sir John Stainer, whose retirement from the professorship of musio at Oxford -is announced, began his musical career at the 'early • age of seven as a chorister at St. Paul's! Even.' a3 a boy he was considered a prodigy player, and at the age of 14 he took his first organist's appointment at a church. He filled similar appointments in other places until, in 1872, he went back to St. Paul's as the successor of Sir John Goss. In 1889 he went to Oxford as Professor of Music. — Sir Richard Tangye, who .has recently written a book on Cromwell, has for many years p?,st been collecting a mass of portraits, books, and other relics connected with tlio Commonwealth period. He has 400 framed engravings of that period, 200 of them being portrait of Cromwell. He has, moreover, 600 volumes relating to the Commonwealth, ' four Cromwell letters, several MSS. of the , time and various letters written by Cromwell's sens. He also owns one of the" Protect . tor's three death masks. ' — The Marquis of Graham, " eldest son of the Duke of Montrose, who has just come of age, is a manly and clever young fellow. He underwent the training of a naval cadet; aboard the Britannia, and he has- cruised abroad over the seven seas. He was attached to the scientific expedition which went to India in the summer of 1897, and on Trafalgar Day last year he lectured to his father's admiring tenantry on the power of the British navy. Lord Graham is the grandson of the late Dowager Duchess of Montrose, better known as " Mr Manton." — Princess Frederica of Hanover is one of the most musical of European royalties. Music was the great passion and solace of her father, the blind king of Hanover, and he transmitted his tastes, as well as his gifts, to both his daughters. It was tlfls mutual love of music, too, which first attracted the young Princess to her father's secretary, the handsome young Freiherr yon Pawel-Rammingen, and led to their marriage. The Princess has an excellent orchestra in her household at Biarritz, and spends much time in promoting in a double sense harmony among her domestics. — Vice-admiral Colomb is perhaps the most_ distinguished authority in England on all things naval. He invented the signalling .system, which \s in use throughout the world; he has revolutionised the lighting of war-, ships ; and is the founder of modern naval - tactics. He is the author of at least a dozen weighty treatises on naval subjects. As a .practical sailor, lie haa been wrecked with a restricted wardrobe ; he has fought pirates in China waters ; has suppressed insurrections and slave tradeis; has fought in several' wars, including- the Crimean ; and has been an arctic explorer. , „• — An. interesting personal sketch of-Dr Max Nordau, in the current Israel, draws atten'-,_ tion to one of the most "mixed" cosmopoli-' tans, as well as one of the best writers, of the time. He is the son of a Prussian father and a Russiau mother ; was born in Pesth, graduated in Paris, and married ?, Dane. Being thus a citizeu of the world, lie inhabits the French cosmopolis, and devotes his life to literature and medical practice with such assiduity that, though he enjoys perfect health and is on the right side of 50, his hair is white. Dr Nordau. who has just published his latest work, " Th« Drones Must Die," is, amongst other distinctions, a marvel in caligraphy. His writing, though wonderfully . clear, is so microscopic that a volume of 414printed pages runs to no more than 65 in, manuscript. — " Many stories." says the writer of an interesting article dealing with the naval career of H.R.'H. the Duke of York which appears in thin month's Windsor, " are told llluslraiivs of the kindness shown to the crew of the Crescent during its lecent commission by the Duke and Duchess. On one occasion they were both present at a concert given by the sailors, and while it was proceeding the Duchess noticed that the men^were not smoking. Kite mentioned the mattW to the Duke, who, having ascertained that his wife would not object. ga\e the order, 'All hands may smoke.' In an instant pipes were produced frorc pof.'keta and immediately, filled, cigars and cigarettes were lit, and before very long the room was filled with tobacco smoke, mak- ■ ing the place seem more like a smoking car- ■ riage on the underground railway than a room on board a first-class oruiser. The Duchess expressed herself as delighted with the enter- , tainmont, ' and remarked on leaving that she , <lid not know when 3he had spent a more plea- • sant evening." — One of the most remarkable careers in the annals of the English Bench has been brought to a close by the death of Lord Esher. • He resigned the office of Master of the Rolls about 18 months ago at the age of 82; and to the last day bo sat on the bench he remained, in the power of bis intellect and the gaiety of his spirits, one of the youngest men in the courts. He was a great judge without being a great lawyer. His legal learning was accumulated by means of experience rather than study, while his judgments were conspicuously wanting in literary polish and subtle reasoning. " The business of a judge," he once said, "is to find, a. good i, legal reason foi the conclusions 6fV,cpi»nion". sense " ; and in this business he excelled; ; Lady Esher, who survives him, was; before her marriage, a daughter of a very pronounced French Catholic, and the future judge's father, being a well-known Church of England clergyman, gave his son to understand that if he married her he would be disinherited. But Mr Brett, as he then was, kept faith with the lady of his choice, and it is said there never was a happier union. And regarding Lady • Esher herself, it is recalled, as evidence of her beauty — and she maintains this physical quality in spite of her 85 years — that there are still to be seen in many parts of provincial France isaveral coloured, though unauthorised, repro-' ductions of -her ladyship as she was when Paris; knew her as the lbveliest of her daughters.

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