PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 56

PERSONAL NOTES.

.—. — Lord Salisbury, when he is visiting friends, never fails to show considerable interest in the children of the family. It is well known that the Premier is a devoted grandfather. — Mrs Gladstone has always been the mistress of devoted servants, and has never failed to treat dependents with great consideration. " I look upon them as near friends," she once remarked. — The Emperor of China is still in close confinement on an island, made a peninsula by day by the letting down of a drawbridge in the south-west corner of the palace. His chief amusement is the training of goats and monkeys. The former he has, by dint of much patience, taught to do many tricks. — The oldest peer living is the Earl of Perth. " Gang warily " is his motto, and he has followed it. for he has lived 92 years. He 13 hereditary Thane of Lennox, and is also Due de Melfort and Comte de Lussan in France. High, however, as are his honours, he has not a seat in the House of Lords. His peerage is Scottish. — Of the rulers of this century the great Napoleon is said to have had the most beautiful hands, tiny, white, and as delicately fashioned as those of a woman. • No queen of the century has had more beautiful hands than our own Queen. They are exquisitely beautiful in shape and colouring, and are the admiration and despair of the sculptors who have tried to model them. — Lord Delamere, during his recent expedition into East Equatorial Africa, made a very valuable collection of zoological specimens, and, in addition, succeeded in taking a series of photographs of most of the representative animals met with, including elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, gazelles, etc. As the pictures show the characters of the country as well as the natural features and positions of the animals in iheir wild state, the photographs are of great scientific interest. — The new South Australian baronet, Chief Justice Way, was a lad in North Devon in 1850. when his father, a Bible Christian minister, decided to go out to South Australia. His mother, however, was seriously concerned when tho rev. gentleman indicated his intention. Her one thought was that in a comparatively unknown colony her two sons might not have such opportunities in life as in the country of their birth. Little did she dream that under the Southern Cross one of her sons would bo Chief Justice and the other one of the leading physicians of the colony in which their lot was to be cast. — Sir Arthur Sullivan, who has just completed his fifty-seventh birthday, comes of a musical family, for his father was the principal professor at Kneller Hall, the training school for British military bands, and the young man had the advantage of studying under Sir Sterndale Bennett and Sir John Goss. Afterwards he went to Leipzig, and studied in the Conservatoire for three years, returning to London in 1861, and bringing with him his music to Shakespeare's " Tempeßt," which was performed for the first time at the Crystal Palace. But, whatever heredity may have done for him, it is, of course, to his own individuality and originality that Sir Arthur owes his success. — Musically, at leaat, Massenet is the man of the hour, by reason of his new opera, " Cendrillon." just produced in Paris. It iB of the romantic school, or. as the French prefer to call it, " a fairy tale." The composer himself is a bit of a fairy tale. He is the son of an old engineer officer of Napoleon, who would have nothing to do with a Bourbon, but set up as a blacksmith at St. Etienne, and in the wholesome atmosphere of the forge became the father of 21 children, of whom tho author of " Cindrillon " is the youngest. With Massenet music was a vocation from Infancy. At 21 he carried off the Prix de Rome, began composing out of hand, and has gone on ever since. — ■ Princo George of Greece, who is High Commissioner of the island of Crete, seems .to share the peculiar luck that attends the younger brothers of heirs apparent in the old world in becoming an independent sovereign before his elder brother, the Crown Prince of Greece. His father, King George of Greece , ascended the Hellenic throne before his own father. Christian, became King of Denmark. The Prince of Wales's younger brother, Prince Alfred, has become sovereign of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha before he himself has become King of England. King Humbert's younger brother, Arnadeus, reigned over Spain before the formci himself ascended the throne of Italy ; and Charles of Hohenzollern became ruler of Roumania before his elder brother succeeded to the family honours. — Lord Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, has just completed his sixty-sixth year. Time was when this distinguished soldier was snoken of as our only general ; but, without in any way dis^ai aging the reputation of Lord

Wolseley, we have since found out that therd are others. There have been times of necessity, and with the hour has invariably come the man. Of late years Lord Wolseley has . blossomed out into the world of literature. His "Soldiers' Pocket Book" is Tommy. Atkins's professional vade mecum ; his " Life of the Duke of Maryborough " and " Decline and Fall of Napoleon " are already reckoned among our military classics. Lord Wolseley has only one • child, a daughter, the Hon. • Frances Garnet Wolseley ; but the title will not die, as, by special remainder, it is to pass to her. She is 27 years of age. — The Marquess of Lothian is probably the only member of the British nobility who, occupying a residence that was formerly devoted to religious uses in the ante-Refprma- " tion days, possesses a papal permission )boccupy his home in peace. Newbattle Abbey, - situated near Edinburgh, is built on the site . and of the actual stone of the famous Cister- . cian abbey founded by King David six centuries ago. The mother of the present Lord , Lothian was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and so uneasy was she during her son's minority at living in a castle built in so impious a manner that she unfolded her scruples to the late Pius IX, who, in response to her entreaty, furnished her with the docu- ' ment. under his sign manual, aiithorising her and her children to occupy their Scottish home in peace. —Mr Speaker Gully, in an article on his old friend and colleague, Farrer -Herschell, . gives an interesting account of an early success of the late Lord Chancellor. It was in. the days when his briefs w.ere few, and he had yet to make his fame. A woman was charged before Baron Bramwell. at Carlisle Assizes, with throwing her illegitimate child into the Eden "River. The case was almost hopeless, but Herschell was reqitested by the judge to undertake her defence. This he did with remarkable ability and complete success. Baron Bramwell, in summing up the case to the jury, said : " Gentlemen, there is one aspeot of this trial which makes me proud of the profession to which I belong. The prisoner at the bar has apparently not a shilling or a friend in the world, bitt no wealth or posi-v tion could possibly have bought for her a" more able, more eloquent, or more zealous defence than that which has been made on her behalf." —Mr Winston Spencer Churchill, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill, is a bright and versatile man. As a soldier he has during the last two or three years seen a good deal of active service. In the Nile campaign last year he acted as a newspaper correspondent, and sent home some graphic despatches, and on his return to London published a book entitled "With the Malakand Field Force." But he has lately shown he has a strong grasp of politics and a marked capacity for public speaking. He recently paid a political visit to Birmingham, and delivered two speeches, which for originality, vigour, and critical analysis scarcely fell short of the quality which 15 years ago stirred the country to an enthusiastic confidence in the political genius of Lord Randolph Churchill. Young Mr Winston Churchill's aspirations, however, i cover an even wider field. He is making Borne reputation as a novelist, a story of his which is appearing in Macmillan's Magazine having I attracted considerable attention. His name,' moreover, has been associated with two novels already out in book form, entitled " The Celebrity and "Richard Carvel," a historical romance of Maryland. It turns out, however, from an explanation in the Academy, that there are two Winston Churchilis, and that the author of the two books just named is a young American writer who is also making a strong bid for fame. The coincidence is remarkable, considering the distinctive character of the name.

■ — Talent never makes the same mistake twice; genius never makes, it at all.

— Preaching one Sunday from the text "Love one another," the village parson told a little story of two goats that had ,met on the one-plank bridge which crossed a small stream where he lived. "But did they try and try to push each other into the water? " queried the minister. " Oh, no! One lay down and allowed the other to step over him. There was the right spirit ! My brethren," said the preacher, leaning over the pulpit, and speaking in a gentle, persuasive tone, " let us live like goats."