PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2651, 4 January 1905, Page 69

PERSONAL NOTES.

_____ | —Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang, the new Bishop of Southwell, England!s youngest prelate, is one of the few who are bachelors, and of the- still fewer who took to the Church after reading for the Bar. Dr Lang is an orator of rare eloquence, gifted with a fine voioe and manner which would/ in due time have led him to the Woolsack had he not after six years at the' Inner .Temple elected to take Holy Orders. It . was in Leedls that he had his first curacy, and »it .was not long after his advent there in, 1890 that he began to electrify his congregations. ' The vioarship of St. -Mary's, .Portsea, followed,' and the story was re- ! "peatedjv there^was a .bishop in the making, , and- in less than five -years, to Portsea's great regret, Stepney camie> to . him. Bishop Lang is a son of the Vice-Chancellor, and Principal- of Aberdeen- University.- X — Captain E. T.--J. Eearns, who has been . elected City Marshal by the London Court of Common Council, in the place of Mr Edmund • .Stanley, is riding master of the Army Service Corps at Woolwich. He < rose from the ranks/ having .gained his com"mision eight years ago, and waa promoted captain for special services in the field on August 29, 1902. He has been* four timesmentioned in despatches, and ior the past ! eight years has done excellent work for i the Military Tournament at Islington. Cap- | tain Kearns possesses the Queen'e medal j and clasp for the , Zulu campaign, the Queen's star for the Ashanti Expedition, the Queen's medial 'for the South African War, with six clasps for Laing's Nek, Tugela Heights, relief of Ladysmith, Transvaal, Orange Free State, and Cape Colony,and the King's medal and two clasps for the South African War. He was founder of the Royal Army Temperance Association in England. — The death is announced, at Exmouth of the Rev. Samuel George Potter, D.D., late Vicar of St. Luke's, Sheffield. Dr Potter, who was born in Dublin, entered "Txinity College, and graduating in Arts and Divinity, in due course received ordination. Afterwards he -worked 1 hard at Cushendall, Stratford-on-Slaney, and' other places, and 1 ultimately he was appointed to the Rectory of Bunoormick, County Wexford, where he remained until the Disestablishment agitation in :1868. Fired with zeal for the cause of his Church, he sallied forth lecturing throughout England to crowded audiences, and in the following year he exchanged benefices with the Vicar of St. Luke's, Sheffield, and in this poor and squalid parish he remained' up to the time of* his death. He was chaplain to the Earl of Desart, and past grand chaplain of tie Loyal Orange Institution of England, of which the Earl of Erne, K.P., is Grand Master. In the year 1870 D[r Potter was one of the delegates from the United Kingdom to the Orange Institution in Canada. His learning was profound, and, while a mission preacher of much power and earnestness, he was also an alblp lecturer. — Vice-admiral &ir G. H. U. Noel, X.0.8., X.0., M.G., the Oommander-in-Ohief of the China Station, where we have 40 warships, is a man of determination. Ho oommanded the Nile -at the foime of the> Victoria disaster, and but for his prompt aotion the Nile might liave mci with a I similar fat© to that of the Victoria. As a midtehipman he served in the White Sea during the Crimean War. and he acted under Lord Wolseley as commander of a naval detachment at Ashanfci. Admiral Noel thinks that a sailor should do every kind of work, including the washing of his own linen. On the China Station sailors like to put the laundry work in the hands' of Chinamen, as it is cheap and done well. The gallant admiral took thi3 as an act of laziness, and prohibited it. He was much amused on© day to find! the following chalked up on a prominent place: "What's the difference between Monkeybrand and a British Tar? — One -won't wash clothes, and the other has — well, got to !" —Dr Joseph Wilson Swajn, who received" the honour of knighthood in celebration of the King's birthday, and is now in his seventy-sixth year, was one of the pioneers in the science of electric lighting, and_ was, in his house in Gateshead-on-Tyne, patiently and silently perfecting the incandescent lamp which bears his name when systems which are now forgotten were being loudly exploited as the only practical methods. He was born in Sunderland. and was for many yea_is associated with a .well-known

firm of chemists in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and in that capasity perfected several valuable inventions in photography. Although Dr Joseph Wilson Swan was always deeply en gaged in scientific search, and did not care much for public meetings, he was induced to become a member of the Gateshead Town Council for some time, and in that capa- . city performed much useful work, but at the meetings he was scarcely ever known to make a speech. After the invention of the incandescent lamp he left Tyneside, and took up his residence in London, his house in Holland Park being a perfect repository of curiosities and novelties in electricity. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, as well as of other learned bodies, and is also a vice-presidenit of the Senate of London University.