PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 73

PERSONAL NOTES.

— Sir Thomas Barlow, to whose great skill many distinguished persons owe thenlives, and who has been attending Lady Curzon, has been a physician to the Royal Household since the early nineties, ar.d was called to attend Queen Victoria in the closing days of her final illness. He began his career as a specialist, and his early reputation was made entirely as a children's doctor. Since he made his name, however, he has widened his sphere ot work, and is to-day, at 59. one of the most successful and skilful of all-round physicians. His barone+oy came with the New Year honours of 1901.

— A venerable and picturesque figure is Sir Isaac Lowlhian Bell, who has just been elected president of the Institute of Mining Engineers. He is in his eighty-ninth year, and if there is anyone on Tyneside who knows more than he "does of iron and coal mining, he has yet to be heard from. A hard worker all his life, the owner of 3000 acres of mineral land, a director of the North-eastern railway, Sir Lowthian is still a hale and hearty man, -w ith. a bright •eye, a resounding voice, and a frame as upright as that of many men not much more than half his age. Kis creation is gardening. — A curious coincidence with regard to the Bishopric of Salisbury is that the xhree immediate predecessors of the present "John Sarum" all died in the sixteenth year of their respective episcopates, and Dr Wordsworth when this time arrived indulged in some reflections -on the subject, which are not without a certain quiet humour. The fifth triennial visitation period, he said, was "a marked point in the life of a Bishop of Salisbury, if not of the diccese over which he presided." However, the rule which almost seemed established has been broken^ or else Dr Wordsworth is the exception which proves it, for ho has been Bishop for 19 years, and if the hopes of his flock are fulfilled he will be Bishop for at least "as rcAaj more. — Sir Francis William Brady, Bart., h to be added to the somewhat long list of public men who have survived their own obituaries. When Sir T. Francis Brady, who spent a generation as Inspector of Irish Fisheries, died recently quite a number of provincial newspapers fell into the error of confusing him with the other Sir Francis. The surviving Sir Francis is- that somewhat unusual combination, a K.C., a musician, and a. pcet. His was the special version of " Come back to Erin " which was written for the departure of the King and Queen fr*m Ireland. Called to the bar some eight-and-fifty years ago, he took silk in 1860. Be is County Court judge and chairman of Quarter Sessions for Tylone, and at two months over 80 still practises at tlie bar.

—Mr John G. Dunlop, managing director of the Clydebank shipyard, is the sub-je-efc of the biographical sketch in Cassier's Magazine for October. He started his apprenticeship as an engineer in 1864 in the Centre street works, in Glasgow, of Randolph, Elder, & Co. His association wfth warship machinery began when he was foreman of the building of the engines cf the Tenedos, completed in 1870. Mr Dunlop' s first connection with Atlantic greyhounds — it was the 'Arizona, the first of the Jb'airneld flyers brought out by the late Sir William Pearce to break the Atlantic record — commenced b&fore he left Fairfield in 1879 to become superintending engineer for the Orient line. In 1887 Mr Dunlop returned to the Clyde to take ehaTg© of the Clyde'bank engineering- establishment, of which he was appointed managing director when the works were taken over in 18S9 by Messrs John Brown & Co., Limited, Sheffield. While only about 3000 men were employed 1 when Mr Dunlop went to Clydebank, the number now frequently exceeds 8000.

—An Australian-born individual has recently, after considerable delay and. trouble, succeeded in establishing- his claim to a European peerage. Major Carandini, eldest son of Madame Carandini, the singer, and the Marquis of Carandini de Sarzano, is a native of Hobart. The Marquis's title and estates were confiscated by the Italian Government many years ago for his fcooprogrefesivo and advanced conduct — conduct that later made a hero of Garabaldi. Major Carandini (who is secretaz - y of the wellknown Travellers' Club in London), the son of the Marquis, has a-t length succeeded in obtaining from the Italian Government a revocation of the confiscation, and, after the arrangement of a few formalities, he will be recognised^ as the Marquis. Major Carandini has served in~ the English army (in the Bth Hussars and sth Lancers) with great credit, and is married to a daughter of a distinguished Indian general. As the son of the late Madame Carandini, he is, of course, a brother of Mrs Palmer, the well-known Melbourne vocalist ancl> teacher of singing.

— The German Emperor, in conferring an hereditary barony of the Kingdom of Prussia on Mr Bruno Schroder, of The Lodge, Englefield Green, and Kensington Court, has singled out a.nother member of a family considerably honoured, both in their own country and in this. Sir John Henry William Schroder, of The Dell, GW "Windsor, is not only a baron of Prussia, and a member of the first class of the Royal Prussian Order of the Crown, but a baronet of the United Kingdom and a Companion of tho Victorian Order. His father was a successful merchant of the city of Hamburg, and was ennobled previous to his being naturalised as a British subject half a century since. His eldest son was created a baronet, and his third son, Baron William Henry yon Schroder, is well known in Cheshire, where he has a place near the quaint old' town of Nantwich. He has the royal authority to bear in England his German honours, and is a kindly and popular land owner, much seen at hunt breakfasts and! local meetings, agricultural or philanthropic. — Sir Charles Sootier is one of our greatest railway men, if not the greatest of them all. In 1853 he began life as a junior goods clerk at Hull, and now occupies a position as chairman of a great railway company, which no railway employee, with one exception, has attained before. But then he- was the making of tho South-western, and when one remembers that the stoeik, when he became general manager, stood at 129^, and had risen to 233 when he relinquished that important

office, one cannot wonder that rhe first action of the directors was to request h|m to take his place among them. The chief reason of Sir Chailes's success mi administration was his knowledge of exactly what he oughi to do himself, and what should . be delegated to subordinates. In the choosing of those subordinates, too, he displayed rare skiill, and thus ho was able to rid himself of a huge am.ount of detail which had wasted thp energies of his predecessors, and to devote his administrative genius to the big questions which needed a big mind. Sir Charles is very popular with the etaff, from the platelayers upwards, and his consideration for their welfare has always been thoroughly appreciated.