PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2454, 27 March 1901, Page 64

PERSONAL NOTES.

— Sir Thomas Barlow, one of tho late Queen'h physicians, is one of the weplthie&t medical men in England, fo*, in addition to an onormou-ly lucratho pmctice, he has a large private fortune. A lew years ago he wa» a comparatively obscure practitioner in Bloomsbury, London, but on removing to Wimpole street— the heart of the medical world — his s-uccess was such as to place him at the head of his profession. Sir Thomas is regarded as the first children's doctor in London. — There are few,' if any, authors of our time moie-jiiolific than the Rev. S. Baring Gould, who was 67 on January 28. He has been writing since his teens, and his first book wa< published when he was 20, while for about 30 years he has added regularly to his works, until now altogether some 70 publications have been issued by him, and tome of them lam to several volumes, like his well-known "Lives of the Saints.'* — Even if he were not on all hands acknowledged the greatest actor of our generation, Sir Henry Irving, who celebrated his sixty-third birthday on February 6, will always live in the history •Of the stage as the first actor who has received a knighthood for his services to the theatre. It is univei sally said, and as universally accepted, that he is the best-known man in London : and while most public men might walk through the streets unrecognised, everybody would "spot" Sir Henry. — Ni> m;\n has done more to advance the I cause of mu-ic m Eng'aud than has Earl de Grey, who celebrated his foity-niiith birthday on Januaiy 29. Through his offices and tho^e of Lady dc Grey grand op^ra. was assured to the first city in the world at a time when it most lieedct l assistance, and the singers, no less than tlic mu-ic-loving public, will always owe a deep debt of gratitude to his lordship, who, as one of the directors of th<> enterprise, hns helped to conduct it with dignity and with liberality. — Possibly thp shortest cntiy in that rpcord of contemporary celebrities, "WlioV Who," is that of Mr Louis B.'ennan, C.8., who celebrated his biithday on January 28. "Inventor of the celebrated torpedo" is the only information other than the namr of hi* club which follows hid name, and the distinction of Companion of the Bath which the Government awarded him. His is undoubtedly one of the romances of our generation, for beginning as a boy in a grocer's s>hop he was employed a» a watchnTaker. and then began to develop lus inventive faculty, until after many years he produced the torpedo with which his name will always be associated. — The man who lias^lone most to prevent a large number of his fellows from lagging superfluous on the stage of life and dying of old age is undoubtedly Sir Hiram Maxim, who, in the laet batch of honours, received the well-merited title which gives a "handle" to hi* name. The famous Maxim gun, however, is by no means the only evidence of the genius of this great engineer, for he is particularly interested in the question of aerial navigation,- and it is by no means improbable that he will contribute to the solution of the pioblem which is one of the chief questions of our generation. Sir Hiram was born in the United States on February 5. 1840. — Lord Salisbuiy ha-3 decided to retain Lord Pauncefotc at Washington, notwithstanding that he has reached the superannuation age, and that the term of office lias already been extended once. It is now a race between Lord Salisbury and Lord Pauncefote as to which will remain in the public service the longer, and it is generally believed that the latter will win. Lord Pauncefote has been especially successful as British Ambassador at Washington. For many years oui popular Ambassador wps a hard-working barrister with no dream of diplomacy. It is nearly half-a-cenlury since the name of "Julian Pauncefote" was "ecreonrd" in the Inner Temple Hall, and 'since he donned his wig and gown. Twenty-two years plater Sir Julian had won his way to a Colonial ChiefJusticeship and a Knighthood. —Mr Joseph Owen, 8.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, who was elected to a Modern History Fellowship at Pembroke College, has had a remarkable career. H> is the ton of a Lancashire artisan, and himself worked in an Oldham mill. He left school at the age of 13, and his chief means of education were free libraries and University Extension lectures. In 1895 Mr A. L. Smith, Fellow of Balliol, was struck by thoquality of hi» work in English History, and recommended that he should go to Oxford. He entered Balliol in 1895, and siv week.-, later won in open competition a mush-prized scholarship, the Brackenbury, for history, of the value of £80 a yoar, and tenable for four year.?. He added to his previous turnouts in 1899 by gaining a first-class in the Honour School of Modern History, only six others obtaining a similar distinction, and the same year proceeded to : bis Bachelor of Arts degree. • — Mr Cecil Rhodes loom- *o large! v in the public eye that lie quite obbcure 5 hib brothers and sisters, all of whom are woithy of indjvidual notice. His elder brother, Colonel Frank Rhodes, is a man of considerably more than average part*. Ab a soldier he is both skilful andfearles-. and won the Distinguished Service Order in the Soudan: as the Governor of Mashonaland nnd Matabcleland ho showed administrative gifts* of a high ordeiyf while his ! personal couraqc amount? to leckle.^snes.', as , ho proved in the Jameson Raid. For a man who has been sentenced to death by the Boers, and who has survhed the clangers of Ladysmith, he is -ingulaily full of life and tpiiit; a good companion, with a fund of humour and anecdote, and a tiu-ty friend. He :r small, keen-eyed, and ps active as a globule ol mercury. — Count Lamsdoift". who has at last been appointed head of the Russian Foreign Ofiice, is one of the most hard-working men, in Russia. Nobody remembers his last holiday. For 30 j-oar& he ha? bf»en behind the scenes of foreign affairs in Russia. He knew tho minds of the two Alexandeis, and he was the first man to ipcogni^c the humane chaiactcr of the Czar Nicholas. His grandfather was the force behind the great Czar Paul, as Lam&1 dorff is likelj to be a force behind the piesent Emperor. The Count is an able man, who knows how to face a crisis, and has the saving quality of knowing how to hold his tongue. Like Lord Salisbury, whom he met at the Berlin Congiess, he has no love of | society, and he generally leaves his cards early in the morning, before his friends arc out of bed. Count Lamsdorft has just turned 50, but he is as young as most men at 40. — There are few of Ireland's many brilliant sons for whom she has such a warm place in her affections as Dr Mahaffy, the witty, genial, scholarly man who is the best-known of all the Dublin University professors and fellov. i. Bom 61 years ago, Dr Mahaffy has always been the embodiment of what is best in Irish buoyancy, humour, and cleverness. Decrees have poured almost unsought into his lap, dejsi'e&s i& suta, music, law,, cud

theology. He has wiittcu ka-n^d.'y on almost every subject under the sun, from Greek and Roman histoiy to the "decay of modern preaching" ; and with all his learning he h?s picserved the high spirits and love of mischief and fun of a schoolboy. lie is still one of the finest =hots in Ireland, was for many years one of her best cricketers, E"itl has a mesmeric power over salmon. • — News leached England on Monday, January 11, of the deatli of the Grand Duke of Snxe-Weimar, tiie doyen of European Sovereigns and the Royal Maecenas of the last century. His life was probably the lea c t disturbed of all his contemporaries upon the throne, and none of them,* except perhaps our own Queen, will recehe such universal accord of praise ; for, strange to say, even the German Socialists have nothing but good to fay of the deceased monarch ! His death throws almost every European Court into mourning, as he was widely connected Himself the grandson of the Emperor Paul of Russia, one of his sisters married Kaiser Wilhelm I, the famous grandfather of the present Emperor, while the other, who married the father of the famous Red Prince, was grandmother of the Duchess of Conn;uight. His grandson, Prince William, inherits the Grand Duchy. He is also heir presumptive to the throne of Holland. In politics the late ruler of Saxc- Weimar was a strong man, and was amongst the first to realise the- necessity of Pnusian hegemony in Germany, though perhaps, it was easier for him to consent to submit to William I, as his brother-in-law, than for others of the German princelingp. On the other hand, he took up a, strong condemnatory position upon the <Mamissal of Prince Bismarck, and to the clay cf his dcatJi he was upon this point an "irreconcilable." In private life, though o grrac stickler for etiquette in Court matter.-', he was in many ways more or le3s of a Bohemian and a great patron of the art-. It was always one of his boasts that he was Goethe's la = t living friend; and it wa» under his auspices that, as a boy, he first became interested in htpiature. Weimar itself is reminiscent, of Schiller and Goethe, and full also of musical traditions. Of yore it was the homp of German classical music, but now, thiough the Giand Duke's patronage of Li.=zt and Wagiui, it is known as the pioneer of the new school. '"Lohengrin," in fact, was produced upon his private stage over 50 years ago. His lif,> was one of great probity and genero-ity. and he will be universally regretted by all his subjects and artistic followers.