PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 91

PERSONAL NOTES.

Lord Courtney was once addressing a -political meeting, and spoke in favour of t'-.,3 much-debated Deceased Wife's Sister jJi'l On the conclusion of Lord Courtney's ;omarka a. man asked: "If your wife were to die, would vou marry her sister? " " To answer that I'must put another replied tho speaker. "Are you married? The man answered in the affirmative. Is your wife present?" She was not. 'Well, mine is!" came the telling retort. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who made perhaps the finest speech of his career in ihe Budget debate in the House of Lords, is ninth baron of a creation which is over 300 years old. Tho first Lord Balfour of Burleigh was created in 1607, but the title fell into abeyance in 1715, when Robert, Lord Balfour, was attainted for taking part in the rebellion of that year. This Robert had a curious history, for in 1709 he was tried for the murder %t a schoolmaster and sentenced to be beheaded, but managed to escape from prison dressed in his sister's dotbes. The attainder was removed in 1869 in favour of the present peer. Mr Bonar Law, M.P., is one of the finest chess-players in tho House of Commons. He has also earned the reputation of being the best noteless debater in Parliament. At the end of a week's debate he will face his opponents and, without a single note before him, piok up one by

on© all their arguments and reply to them in an effective manner. Mr Law is the son of a Presbyterian minister, and' it is on account of his remarkable abilities as a speaker that he has risen so rapidly at St. Stephen's. He only entered Parliament in 1900.

The Law Journal, in noticing the appointment of Syed Ameer Ali to be a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, says he is one of the most distinguished jurists India has produced. He was called to the English Bar in 1873, is the first Indian gentleman to be appointed a member of the Judicial Committee, and bis great experience of the administration of the law in India, both as an advocate and as a judge, cannot fail to be of the greatest assistance to the committee when appeals from our great dependency are being hoard. The services of an acknowledged expert in Indian law have been needed by the committee for some considerable time. Without a doubt (writes a correspondent) Mr 8. D. Gordon, the popular American author, wbo is occupying the pulpit of Christ Church, Westminster, for two months, is the quietest preacher in London. All the journalists who have described his preaching,.have referred to his low yet clear voice and his constant appeals of " Husb your hearts, and bear this" and " Let us listen very quietly to this." Mr Gordon's books nearly all have the word "quiet" in the title—" Quiet Talks on Prayer," " Quiet Talks on Power," etc. In the pulpit made famous by Dr Newman Hall and the Rev. F. B. Meyer, Mr Gordon is already exercising a remarkable influence. The Mayor of New York, whose salary is £3OOO, has the following offices within his absolute gift:—First, there is the corporation counsel, at £3OOO a year, with tour assistants at £2OOO each. Next in importance, estimated by salary, is the city chamberlain, who is practically the cashier of the municipality. In the old days, when the holder of this office was paid by fees, it was so lucrative that it was worth a man's while to pay £12,000 for the appointment. Another appointee of the Mayor is the president of the department of taxes and assessments at £I6OO a year. Tn ' follow several commissionerships at £ISOO each. . There has just passed away in Edinburgh Mr David Gordon, who was reputed to be the oldest Guardsman in Scotland, while be was also probably the oldest Freemason in Edinburgh. Deceased, wbo was 76 years of age, was the eon of a wellknown cattle-dealer in the North of Scotland. When little more than a youth Gordon joined the 2nd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and was present on duty at the Exhibition of 1851. He was also at the Duke- of Wellington's funeral in 1852. After the battle- of Inkerman he was sent out to the Crimea as a corporal, and was, some time after landing, appointed to the command of a brigade hospital near Balaclava. He had the honour of working alongside Miss Florence Nightingale. Lord Joicey, whose letter on the Budget has surprised the leaden® of the Liberal party, is a m-an who has 'both inherited and" made enormous wealth. The riches of the Joiceys spring from the coalfields of Durham. Lord Joicey can, in fact, truly claim that be- is the greatest coalowner in the world, thousands of men working every day in his pits. Some years ago Lord Joicey's firm took a tease of Lord Durham's pits. The price- paid, as announced at the time, was £1,100,000, but the coal boom came, and the 'profits in little more than two years paid off the capital expenditure. There are many men on the quayside at Newcastle wbo still remember Lord Joicey as a young clerk in his uncie*s office.

—Mr John D. Rockefeller's servant once unconsciously played a good trick -upon him. The great man had acquired soma oil country, and his agent had sent him a sample of the produce, of the first forcing in a bottle. Rockefeller was in a, hurry to go out when it arrived, and gave it to one of his men, to deliver to the analyst with a note he scrawled. Now the servant was also in a hurry. He set out to visit his wife, and took letter and bottle with him. Later in the evening he saw what he thought was the bottle on the sideboard, and, with a guilty conscience, hurriedly took it out to deliver it. of Rockefeller's amazement when, in the morning, he received the following telegram: - Yours is the first find, of the century! You've struck paregoric ! " There is nothing annoys Prince Edward of Wales more than to have the threat of the production of a certain photograph levelled at him. It is ecm© years since the incident happened. It was in the park at Sandringham, and the Prince had been up to some boyish prank and was called by his mother, who proposed to administer a reproof. He ran off like a hare, however, wher he unfortunately came, up to the King, who had' seen the incident and who promptly took him by the ear and led him up. to the Princess of Wales _to receive his punishment. As he was being led forward the Queen "snapped" him, and the result, has been held over him "as a threat ever since. Needless to say, Prince Edward is more and more anxious, as the years pass, not to offend for fear the- compromising photograph should ever see the light of day, and he has da.rcd his younger brothers to make any reference to it. —Mr Carlyon Beilairs, who has seceded from the Liberal party, told an amusing story a short time ago in justification of his late arrival at a meeting at which he was announced to speak. The express by which he left London began to travel at the rata of six miles an hour. Many of the passengers, says Mr Bellairs, did not notice the difference; "but, being anxious to arrive at my destination,, I put my head out of the window, to find that the cause was a cow on the lino. Presently the train started again, then another stop. Exasperated at the delay I happened to catch sight of the guard passing the window of my compartment." "What's wrongnow?" asked Mr Bellairs. "A cow on the line, sir," was the reply. " But I thought you drove it away." "So wo did, sir; but it's caught us up again."

—lt is on account of her bewitching dancing that Saharet, "whose wonderful performance at the London Coliseum has created such a stir. Saharet is of Australian birth and English parentage, and is generally conceded to be the finest acrobatic and Spanish dancer on the stage. Ctrriously enough, 'no one taught her how to dance, and all she knows of the art is the result of her own efforts. Sho trained by creating wonderful

spirited movements, with the aid of a barrel- ' organ as an accompaniment, and when that was wanting she sang to herself a suitable time. She lias travelled all over the -world-, and considers that the greatest compliment ever paid to her was that of a Frenchman, who said she was exactly like the Empress Josephine in th© iatter's younger days. "Ah, but if I had been Josephine," said Saharet laughingly, "Napoleon would n<»vex have left me for Marie Louise, and then —who knows? —he might not have had to go to St. Helena after all." Sir Jesi«e Boot, the founder of some 400 chemists' shops scattered all over England, is a self-made man. He was only 10 when his father died, and young Boot had to leave school and help his mother to keep the shop, a small herbalist business. " I was about 27 when I began to launch out as a chemist," said Sir Jesse to an interviewer, " and for years I was hampered by lack of capital and inability to get credit. London houses to which I wrote for goods thanked! me for my custom, but said they would like cash with the orders. However, I 'persevered, feeling that a cheap cash chemist's would succeed, and in 1880 I had opened branches in Sheffield and Lincoln. In 1883 I floated ' Boots ' as a limited company, with 11 shops. And now? Well, now we have 400 shops, and her© in : Nottingham are six factories and over 5000 workpeople." Asked whether be could give some rules foi success, Sir Jesse replied: "Well, I suppose the real secret has beer perseverance—just keeping on. But you can make no hard and fast rules. One man's successful methods might land another into bankruptcy. Nor must you be afraid to alter your rules and methods. I think, too, that th© people of this country are too .much ashamed of being in trade' — too ready to give it up wher they have made a little money." Sir Jesse practises what he preaches. Though confined to his house and practically crippled by a painful malady, be keeps in the closest touch with every branch of his vast business.