PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2375, 7 September 1899, Page 60

PERSONAL NOTES.

— The Czar is said to have a room, the wall« of which are covered with caricatures of himself. — The King of Greece delights in taking recreation in tbe fields. He can plough, cut and bind corn, milk cows, and, in short, could at a pinch keep a farm going single handed. — Admiral Schley, of the United States Navy, who figured so prominently in the late' war with Spain, is a mathematician who can do most of his work without the aid of paper. In Liverpool some years ago he triumphantly outdid a professional "lightning calculator" who was exhibiting there. — The Queen has conferred the Barony of Dorchester upon the Hon Mrs Leir-Carleton, with remainder to her heirs male. It is mentioned in connection with this announcement that no fewer than six sons of the first Lord Dorchester lost their liyes in the service of their country. Mrs Leir-Oarlton, who is a daughter of the third' Lord Dorchester, has one surviving son. The barony was created in 1786, and became extinct in 1897. — The Bishop of Stepney attributes much' of his remarkable capacity for work to the health and strength gained in the invigorating excercise of golf, to whiej pastime he has for some years made it a point to devote a certain number of tours every week. A practical man all his life, Bishop Ingram in his la*bours in London, at Oxford House and other - centres, has done much towards associating the west with the east, and the great amount of work that he has got through has excited much wonder and admiration. — Mgr. Sourrieu, Cardinal- Archbishop of Rouen, who died the other day, was a very remarkable man. He was learned, an, excellent preacher, and had an innate' horror of the pomps and vanities of this, world. In France, it is easier to get directly in communication with the President than with one of the Bishops, so great is the old-world ceremonial and etiquette still observed in ecclesiastical circles. Mgr. Sourrieu changed all this, and was always ready to see any of the clergy or laity of his diocese who called upon him. He has left a great deal of his money in his will to the poor. — The present Earl of Derby, with hia rather long, mild-looking face fringed by a slender beard and whiskers, is markedly unlike his ruddy, clean-shaven, round-faced and jovial brother and predecessor in th« title, the late Earl. The present Earl is best known to fame as Colonel Stanley, thrice Cabinet Minister; and as Baron Stanley, GovernorGeneral tof Canada. He is an immensely wealthy man, with over 69,000 rich and profitable acres, principally in Lancashire. Hib gifts as a statesman are inherited from his father, who was thrice Prime Minister. — Lady Shelley, whose death was announced recently, was the widow of Sir Percy Shelley, and had previously married the Hon Charles Si. John, youngest son of the third Viscount Bolingbroke. Sir Percy Shelley, who died many years ago, was the son of the poet ShelI ley and Mary 1 Godwin, his wife. She was Ihe.^aughter of William Godwin, the philanthropist and political reformer, and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the "Rights of Women," and the pioneer of that great movement of which the "International Congress of Women," presently sitting in London, is • one of the results. Mary Shelley was the' author of that strange novel, "Frankenstein." —Mr Charles Williams, the veteran war correspondent, contemplates retiring from. the more active duties of his profession. This information is scarcely surprising, in view of the f:ict that the advance on Khartoum was Mr Williams's tenth campaign, and that for forty years he has been a x r ery .hard-worked as well as a mo3t able journalist. It is rather a curious'coincidence that two days before he obtained his first journalistic appointment Mr Williams joined, in 1859, the volunteers, and that, therefore, his connection with both the professions with which, he has since .been so closely associated extends over jußt two-score years. Whenever he has been on active service, ho has always been well to the front, and at the Battle of Omdurman he was slightly wounded. — Archbishop Ireland, the leader of progressive Catholicism in the United States, who lias arrived in London from Amorica, was born in County Kilkeney in 1838. In hia boyhood his parents emigrated and settled m St. Paul, Minnesota, now the cathedral city of their son. He spent eight years in France as a seminarian student. Immediately after his ordination in 1861, he became chaplain o£ the fifth Minnesota regiment, and as such saw somo of the most stirring incidents of the fitiuggle between North and South. After the war he was appointed rector of the cathedral of St. Paul, and secretary of the dioces-e, appointments that led to the Archbishopric. Monsignor Ireland is a man of immense activities, a praotical coloniser, president of the Minnesota Ilistorical Society, a founder of the Catholic University in Washington, pulpit orator, temperance lecturer, journalist, author, and various other versatilities. Very few visitor? to the Booth Museum at Brighton, have the faintest comprehension of what it cost the great ornithologist in money and hardship to secure his wonderful specimens and their surroundings. On one occasion he chartered a special train from London to the north, at a cost of ninety-five pounds, in order, that lie might secure a pair of golden eagles. Ho waited co long for the birds in a blinding snowstorm lhat he became buried up to the neck before he stirred, and was only kept alive through this awful ordeal by his devoted gillie pouring neat whisky down his throat. Although a rich man, he once found himself in such straits for cash that he was obliged to pawn his Sunday trousers to buy powder and shot wherewith to Becure some rare specimen, which he had discovered near the place at which he happened to have become stranded for want of ready money. — That popular old sailor, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Keppel. celebrated hit »ineticth birthday on Wednesday, June 24. He has had a long and distinguished career, with, many ups and downs. During the past 20 years of retirement he has won the regard of thousands outside his own circle of friends, and he had lately the satisfaction of seeing 'us son, Commander Colin Keppol, promoted to the captain's list for his distinguished service while in command of the Nile gunboats during the last Soudan Expedition. Admiral Sir Henry Keppel has quite recovered from the illness which co long delayed the publication of his racy autobiography, in which, by the way, th"c folloVing interesting passage occurs: — "Three weeks after birth I was deposited in my father's foofcpan to be interred in a garden at the back of the house, not being entitled to a berth in consecrated ground.That mattered little, as, before the final screwing down, the old nurse discovered that there was life in th« ' amall thing.' " When he joined his first ship an early burial at sea wa_ prophesied; and now this delicate baby of 90 years ago i» a aonQjeuarian, and halt and he_r_l«