PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 82

PERSONAL NOTES.

— The great wealth of Mr George Westinghouse, wno is building the machinery and was responsible for i£e power-house of the electrified Metropolitan railway, London, is due even more to the fact that he is a thorough business man than to the fact that he is an ingenious inventor. Manymen who have the inventive faculty are unable to put their work successfully on the market, so that "the inventor stays poor; his promoter grows rich." Mr Westinghouse, on the other hand, by a combination of business and creative talent, i 6 now at the head of 50,000 employees, and possessor of a. private fortune of many millions. He is best know, perhaps, as the inventor of the air-brake. — The story of how the late Lord Salisbury came to be chairman of the Great Eastern railway is told in the Magazine of Commerce. He wae "run" as a compromise to Sir Edward W«atkin's claims to the chair, and the offer, contained in a letter, was despatched by special messenger. This reached Lord Oranbourne (as the future marquis and Premier then was) about midnight. He was found in his laboratory, where he received the messenger, a well-known Parliamentary agent, and hia welcome letter in the midst of a chemical experiment, his hands, like his face, being as black as a, tinker's. He wae offered the chairmanship, with a salary of £5000 a year, for a term of years. Tins was renewed for a second term. At the time his lordship'e income consisted of £1500 per annum, derived mainly from press work. — The Most Rev. Daniel Murphy, D.D., Archbishop of Hobart, and the oldest living prelate of the Catholic Church (says the Monitor), on Tuesday, Tune 18, attained his ninety-third birthday, and received felicitations by telegrams and letters from his Excellency the Governor and Lady Strickland, the Chief Justice of Tasmania, and many othere. In the afternoon a large deputation of representative Catholics attended at the palace, and presented their congratulations. The archbishop looked remarkably well for one who has reached euch a great age. His health is at present much better than it was a couple of years ago; there is a healthy colour in. his cheeks. He is evidently in good spirite, for he conversed freely with all ; is said to eat and eleep well, and can actually read small print without the aid of spectacles — in fact, he still reads a great deal, and interests himself with all that is going on. — The Earl of Ronaldshay, who hae been elected to the House of Commons for the Hornsey division in the Unionist interest, has travelled in some queer places, although he is only 30. The East is an open book to him. He recently made- an adventurous journey through Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Transcaspia, Turkestan, Siberia, and Manchuria by all manner of conveyances, and often in circumstances of hardship and difficulty. One of Lord Ronaldshay's w<>ird«6t experiences was a hunting expedition in the" Himalayas, where he remained throe weeks in altitudes never less than 13,000 it. He and hi 3 men, at these peri-

lous heights r were,, in constant fear of deatK from avalanche or blizzard. . Plodding, through the snow drifts they came one day?! . upon traces-of 6teps and a place wnere the snow had been upturned. They began to explore, and presently they found the bodies of some Europeans and their followers who had been buried by an avalanche which had just fallen— a fate which Lord Ronaldshay, and his companions had only escaped by a few hours. — The Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of:. State, U.S.A., is a man who will never .get* himself into • trouble through talking' too much. He is as close ae* the proverbial Oystex,— and -no amount of quitting cant draw from him information which he think» the public should- not have. During the recent uncertainty regarding the successorship to Sir Mortimer Durand he was constantly besieged for news on this point. One day he" cautiously that the* British. Government ha<A asked if a certainr Englishman would, be acceptable to the American Government as successor to Sir Mortimer. "Can't jou .tell us his namef^ asked the reporters.. "No," replied- MiRoot; "the British- Foreign Office wants nothing said about it at present." "Can't you" at least tell us whether he is now in! the British diplomatio service ?" "No," said Secretary Root, gravely; "but I wili . tell you this: I will tell you, if you wish, whether he belongs to the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdom." ■ —Mr William Haviland, the well-Jenowns actor, who has recently added dianroncN digging to his many experiences, is one oft the most interesting theatrical celebrities ofi to-day. A short time ago he was presented* with some shares in a diamond company, and he and hie wife thereupon decided tot spend a holiday working^ their claims. They lived in tents at the diggings, which were22 miles from Kimberley, for three months, and found the life both enjoyable ana profitable. In one fortnight Mr Haviland found £125 worth of diamonds. His knowledge of South Africa is extensive. He has visited that colony six times, and tt»«- «* Johannesburg during the raid, being enrolled as a special constable. Mr Haviland toured America five times with, tne late Sir Henry Irving. He hae also be«n. associated with Martin Harvey, Mr end' Mrs Benson, and Mr Tree in many of their successes, and, in addition, has toured with his own companies. — The Right Rev. Dr Chadwick, the Protestant Biahop of Derry and Raphoe, in a speech at tfce Synod of the Irish Protestant Church, referred to the story of a. pickpocket having been found dead with, the watch in' hiß hand of the clergyman , who had come to attend him. This storjs. is not only well known, but true. The clergyman in whose experience this strange incident occurred - was- the. la*© Rev. W. H. White, Chaplain of the Savoy and uhaplain to the Speaker of the House of ,Com~~ mons in th© Teign of Mr Speaker Brand. Mr White was aroused in the small hours of the morning from his sleep by a sick call when, very early in his ministry, he was a curate in a Brighton parish. He was summoned to a very bad quarter of the town, and was brought to the bedside of a man who was rapidly sinking, tumid surroundings of destitution and squalor. The man passed away while Mr White was offering up prayers on his behalf, and Mr White, on rising from hia knees, discovered! to his astonishment that his watch had been removed from his pocket and was held tightly in the grasp of the dead man. —In conection with the death of the eminent engineer Sir Benjamin Baker, it is recalled that at the opening of his mout stupendous work, the Forth bridge,' King Edward gave some interesting details _of the magnitude of the structure. Including the approach viaduct, the extreme length of the bridge is a mile and a-half, while the actual cantilever portion of it is a mile and 20 yards. There are two spans of 1700ffc each, two of 675 ft each, 15 of 168ffc each, and five of 25ft each. The immense structure of eteel rises 452 ft above its foundation. It was calculated that the cantiliver portion of the work would have in an extreme caee to bear a lateral pressure of 7700 tons. The surface that had to be painted amounted to 135 acres, and tho total weight of steel employed to 51,000 tons. The entire work cost £3,177,000. It is also worth recalling that it cost in human life as much as many a small battle, 57 men being killed and 378 injured. It is recorded how, when the Forth bridge was in course of construction, Sii Benjamin would seize the opportunity of tho fierce storms which tore along the estuary to crawl forward over the wind-swept, unguarded platform to see how his canti-* levers did their work. . f\ —Mr Lewis Harcourt and Mr Herbert Gladstone are not the only eons of members of former Governments holding places in the present Cabinet. The Marquess o£ Ripon, for example, is the son of Lorn Goderich, who was Prime Minister in 1827. The Earl of Elgin also is the son of a Cabinet Minister, his father having filled the office of Postmaster-General before going out to India as Viceroy. Sir-Edwartf Grey ie the grandson of a Cabinet Minister, his grandfather, whom he succeeded, having served' in Palmerston's Cabinet. That father and son should hold Cabinet rank is nothing unusual. What is unusual, however, is that father end eon should sit in the same Cabinet. That distinction was won by Mr Chamberlain and Mr, Austen, lOhamberiain in the late Unionist AdmiD^ation. — The retirement of ColpneL Math?**, the man who led the Gordon Highlanders when, they stormed the heights of Dargai 1U years ago, recalls a curious «tory of how* he came to join that famous regiment. Th© gallant colonel is not a Scotsman, but a. Welshman, and it was owing to a dip of, the pen that he joined the renowned 75th Regiment. "I was intended, he says, to go into the old 95th Regiment; but 9 and 7 arc very much alike, and by a slip of the pen I w^ gazetted to the 75th. ■ A story is told concerning Colonel Mathiaa when he was leading '.he famous charge at Dargai. "Stiff climb, eh, Maekie?." he said, breathlessly, to the colour-sergean.t by his side. "Pm not so jroun^ as I was, you know." "Never mind, sir," the sergeant replied, "ye're going verra strong for am auld mon."

— Some men never succeed because thej are afraid of doing more than their share. Woods' Great Peppermint Cur© won't cure Your broken legs or hearts, Nor will it act, as a matter of fact, As a recipe for tarts;' It won't cure nueuraigia, temper, squint*, For working men or teffs : But Woods' Great Peppermint Cure will cure Your colds and cure your coughs.