PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 77

PERSONAL NOTES.

— The Earl of Rosebery owns the ' costliest collection of snuff-boxes in the world. Many of them arc solid gold, and some are set with brilliants. A curiouslyinlaid enamel snuff-box was at one time the property of Napoleon Bonaparte. A 6 mall black box studded with three diamonds belonged to the eminent statesman Pitt ; while another, plainly inlaid with fine gold, was used by Fox. Although the collection only comprises 22 boxes i altogether, its estimated value is £35,000.

— The £1000 per wedk for a 30 weeks' concert tour, recently offered to the Earl of Shaftesbury by an enterprising agent, is by far the largest sum ever offered to » debutante, for Lord Slhaftesbury, although he has frequently sung at "At homes" and charity concerts, has never yet appeared on the concert platform ac, a professional vocalist. Gifted with a. tenor voice of beautiful mellow quality, Lord Shaftesbury has had most careful tuition, and has delighted ; his select audiences by the quality of his voice. — Madame Melba admits that she has her full Rhare of superstitions. "For one thing^" she says, "1 cannot bear peacock feathers, and if any visitor comes to ccc me wearing one of these monstrosities it makes me positively shudder. Brrr \ Then I have an instinctive dread of being photographed in the costume of a paTt in which I have not previously appeared ; I think this is always unlucky." — Theodore Roosevelt, the eldest son of the President, who began his business career as an accountant in a carpet mills at a salary of £4 a week, has now entered the wool room, and will work up his way thiough all the departments until he has mastered the business. So eager is young Theodore for work that he is found waiting at the factory door in the morning before the steam siren sounds at 7 o'clock. Before lunch-time arrives he is so 3ompletely covered with mutton fat that he is, like other wcol-sorters, unable to enter a restaurant, but must sit down in the wool room and eat his meal from a tin dinner-bucket.

— Tha-t Mr Rudyard Kilping is a capital speaker has once again been illustrated by his presence as prize-gh'er at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. On one occas : on he proved himself a capital proaeher. He was crossing the Pacific on an Empress liner when a seaman died, leaving a widow and a large family. On the ship's notice-board next day there appeared the announcement f "9 p.m. — Sermon by a Layman." At the appointed time a curious irowd discovered Kipling standing on an improvised platform, from, which he preached a 15-m : nutes? sermon. How eloquent it was may be gathered from the result — a collection of over £70 from » congregation of fewer than 200. — Sir Douglas Straight, who is xetiring from the editorship of the Pajl Mall Gazette, has the distinction of being probably the first English judge to become an editor. Sir Douglas 'has had a remarkably interesting career, and has been equally successful as lawyer-journalist and member of Pailiamonr. In "the days of his youth" Sir Douglas used to write for a p<iper callixl the Glowworm, and the famous barrister Montagu Williams tells an amusing anecdote in his '■Reminiscenceb": "As I was crossing Waterloo Bri-dge one day, I saw a young man go up to two newsboys aJid soundly cuff their ears, their offence being that they had failed to call out the Glowworm in sufficiently stentorion tones. It was Douglas Straight."

— Any man may have an army of workmen or an army of servants if he con afford to pay their wages; but there is only one private individual in Great Britain who has the right to maintain an arim of soldiers — real soUlicrs, that is ; not tin ones. That man is the Duke of Atholl, who is one of the richest p-eers, owning 200,000 acres of land and deer forests. He k2eps up almost re-gal state at Blair Castle, in Perthshire, and he has an army of 300 men — kilted, armod, regularly drilled, and ready for war at any moment ! The late Queen Victoria presented the army with its colours. At one time the ancestors of the Duke — who, by the way, celebrated his 68th birthday recently- -wore Sovereigns of the Isle of Man, but gave up their Kingly rights to the British Government for a '•consideration" of £70,000. — Perhaps the most versatile scientist in the House of Lords is Lord Avebury, no lost, celebrated as a geologist and archaeologist than as a botanist. Physics is worthily represented by the Earl of Berkley and Lord Rayleigh (the only 6cnior

wrangler among the peers), and astronomy 1 by the Earl of Craw lord, who is also an , ardent naturalist. The Duke of Northum- j berland, president of the Royal Institu- j tion, has a strong scientific bent ; and ! entomology owes muca to Lord Walsing- j ham. who presented his collection of micro- ! lepidoptera — the largest in the world — to j the British Museum in 1901. Lord Lister, | the famous discoverer of antiseptic surgery, i who is in his eighty-second year, is the honoured doyen of the scientific peers. — Ever since Prince Alexander of Battenberg retired from the navy, there. has been considerable speculation in society not only as to his reason for retirement from , tne service, but what "his future , movements would be. Latterly it' has transpired t.iat an answer to botb of these surmises was a very simple matter. It comes on good authority that Prince Alexander has been oifered by his brother-in-law, King Alfonso, a prominent and -lucrative post at the < Spanish Court, and has accepted "the "berth. ' It goes without saying that his sister, the Queen, is, -perhaps, more ,pleased than anybody at the prospect of having her brother a part of the court retinue. A thorough knowledge of Spanish being one- pf the desiderata of the holder of the post, 'Prince Alexander has been studying the language with his well-known assiduity. — The many avocations and adventures of Lord Lyveden, who distinguished himself by being the last to leave the illfated Argonaut, have caused him to be called '-'the rolling stons .of die peera-ge." Before succeeding his uncle in 1900 as third baron, his lordship had been a private soldier in tjie Royal Artillery, utility actor at the Haymarketj and waiter in a Bowery eating-house. He had been 6teward on an American coasting vessel, had toured the States with a fit-up company, ami had run a company of his own in England. Later, he owned nurseries of his own planning at Stanwick/ Higham Ferrers, and introduced a new tomato known by his initials — "P.V." — to Jhe gastronomic world. But there was no gold in tomatoes, and, snaking Stanwick dust off his feet, Mi Vernon went to 6ea again, i-erved as steward on several lines of steamj bhips, incidentally contracting yellow fever at Jiucncs Aires, and wound up the romance of his untitlcd days by three months' caterj ing for the General Steam Navigation Com--pany. — Rolf Boldrewood, the famous Australian noveli-st., who is Mr T. A. Browne in real life, recently celebrated his eightysecond birthday, and ie now the oldeet Bettler in Melbourne. \t 17 Mr Browne j started "squatting" or sheep-farming, but I successive droughts swept away his tiocke, and he went into the Government servicein the threefold capacity of stipendiary magistrate, coroner, and goldfield6 warden, and the experience he thus gained led him to write his first book, "Robbery Under Arms," which won such world-wide fame. Rolf Boldrewood was 35 years of age when he married the daughter of William Edward Riley, of Raby, N.S.W. The story goes that he met his wife under rather romantic circumstances. She had heard that a 6mall gang of sheep-stealers had made up their minds to "do for Browne" op account of the stern manner in which 1 he had dealt with one of their "pals." I The news was conveyed to the police magisj trate by Miss Riley, and it is probable' I that the warning saved his life ; for he ! was able io a^oid a trap set by the gang, 1 and turn the tables by capturing them in their ambuscade. j -- "Whatever you do, don't make the lad 1 a chemist. There are too many blanks and ! too few prizes in the profession." Thus Professor Anderson, then professor of ! chemistry at Glasgow University, advised Mr Ramsay, the father of Sir William Ramsay, who startled the world the other day by suggesting the possibility of turning silver into gold, when they were taik- ! ing over the- boy's future one, day. But Sir Wi'liam has proved himself O|Uite capable of drawing some of the prizes, and good ones into the bargain. He it ! was who, together with Lord Rayleigh, i disoovered the new clement, "argon," the j two scientists sharing the prize of 10,006d0l J awarded oy the Smithsonian Institute for j the discovery. It was really through readi ing some works on chemistry in the ' library of his uncle while a youngster that I Sir WMliam became a chemist. They so : stirred him that he made up his mind there and then to enter the profession, and the advice of Professor Anderson in no ■ way damped his ardour. J — Among the many royal persons of i wh.om tales are told of clairvoyant and 1 other prophecies coming true ia^ King I Haakon of Norway, who recently ?e!ebrated his thirty-sixth birthday. In IS9O, when he was Prince Charles of Denmark , and a senior naval cadet, he was on a cruise in* the Mediterranean. At Malaga, where they stopped, the cadets heard of a fortune-teller whose prophecies often came true. 8o a party of them visited her. WKat she told the Prince he would not I tell companions, but he wrote it down and* handed it to; a personal friend to keep until he (Prince Charles) asked for it.- Ten years later, in 1900, the Prince i redeemed the envelope, and let his friend read ite contents. "You will have a throne," it ran. "You will change your name without changing your language." " This upiset me." remarked the Prince, "as only my brother's death could have brought thih about. But now that he is in good health himself and has a eon, I ■cj.n laugh at the prophecy." But, for all that, fivf years la-ter he became Haakon VII of Norway, changing- his name without changing his language. — The recenr death of Mr Cuthbert Shields, the threat Oriental scholar, has deprived the world of a remarkable man. He was a linguist of vast learning, ond when he travelled in the Eaet is understood to have been worshipped as a god by the Druses. But he had some most peculiar beliefs. He was originally known as Robert Lainpr. but while travelling in the East he claimed to have discovered his second ego. - and his first life came to a close. He ma do * will leaving his property to hie second self, arranged for his biography to be written, and, returning to England, look the name of Cuthbert Shields. This was chosen because he was born at Shields upon St. Cuthbert's Day, and also because the former contained the letters I.H.S. backwards. In his second existence Mr Shields devoted himself to the study of Oriental withcraft. It was his habit to give excellent dinners to a select party of friends, and afterwards take the floor and talk of black mapio until each hearer's flesh betjan to croop. — Sir Alfred Jones, head of the famous ah inping firm o£ Elder, Dempster, and Co..

who is sometimes called the "Banana King," because of the important part he has played in popularising that fruit, confesses that he has little time for recreation At a luncheon *■ he once admitted that a night or rysp. before he had found time to ~go to' tftf theatre. "I did not stay lons, bora use I could not make mu«li there,"' he added, jocularly. Referring tc Sir Alfred's, connection with bananas, he is said to have .a- pleasant habit of terminating an interview hy handing, one or two bananas from a dish on the table as a fares, well gift. A reporter aware of this little foible, <tegj&«<*^& he -even with him, and so,^het^e"sh«^JiftgfeWB^traYin£r in the diftsction of the» <£i§lT%s ja* hint that the inteirvjew was atc-an end, the journalist forestalled Sir Alfred by saying, "May I offer you_ some fruit, Sic- Alfred?" drawing two or three bananas from Kis-own pocket. —It is .easier for a camel to pass through .^hQ^aye of a needle than for an "idle mem- <= "1%; Pink 'UnT' they say in r .the . House 4 ofejCommons-'The Pink 'Un" being the nickname "which the Hoiisq has bestowed upon Sir Alexander AclanJchief Unionist Whip, who. recen'ly Celebrated his fifty-fifth,, birthday. Sir Alexander's " vigilant and ■ indefatiable "whipping", saTed.lthe " late Government from many .an apparently unavoidable defeat; and the story" goes that just as Sana Apted, the groundkecper at Ken- * nington Oval, can "smell" a worm intruding on his prepared pitches, so '"The Pink 'Un" can "smell" a member within a fivemile _ radius;, of -the House who may be shirking divisions. Sii Alexander is an old 6olider, and when the attempt was, made to destroy the Tower of London, in 1885, Captain Acland-Hood was in command of the troops who extinguished the fire and saved tbfe- White Tower from being destroyed. —In personal appearance the Chanoeller (Prince *on Buelow) is a worthy representative of that Mecklenburg aristocracy the. gallant bearing of whose mombejrs made such an impression on the groat Napgleon that he said tc his marshals, "I ran make you into kings, but not info Mecklenburg n<jfbles." Tall, with a statolv carriage of the head and shoulders which, givps him grace and distinction, he has the broad brow of intellect, and a mourn and chip (clean shaven except for th« soldierly mou^'ache) which shows courage, energy, and, deefsion. / But it is the eves which arrest attention — eyes beautiful and fearless, that meet you with a directness and «incerrty ran indeed in any class, but for a. diplomatist almost unique. It is a face steadfast, proud, and self-reliant ; yet with a sunny-tempered kindness and grace in it which" wins straight to the heart. He ha«> to a remarkable degree that indefinable charm often called "personal 4 magnetism for want ofja more accurate > description,' and few who'hav-e experienced it can form a periectly impartial opinion with regard to him ; but of this lam sure, there is no more gifted oi noble personality in present-day European politics than the Fourth Chancellor of the German Empire. — 9. G. Morris, in the Nineteenth Century.