PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 70

PERSONAL NOTES.

Lord Newton, who has been appointed new Assistant Secretary to Viscount Grey, lia'i a great reputation as a humourist. For 13 years he sat in the House of Commons as Conservative member for \e\vtoa, only vacating the seat on succeeding Ids father, the first Baron, whose wit and power of repartee were for many years the delight of his friends. He is a member oft a very old Cheshire family, as may be judged from the fact that one of his ancestors carried the Black Prince's flag in the battle of Crecy.

—Mr Benjamin Gregory, until four years ago senior partner in a leading firm of Cheltenham auctioneers and estate agents, died recently, aged 76. On retiring from business he devoted himself with such zeal to the study of astronomy that he passed three examinations in dynamical, sidereal, and mathematical astronomy, /'obtaining maximum marks in all three, and three years ago he was unanimously elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was also a Methodist preacher. _ —Every newspaper man in America enjoys the job of interviewing Mr Lansing, and just now the enjoyment is widespread. Mr Lansing's behaviour during an interview bears little resemblance to that of any British Cabinet Minister, for the Secretary oi State is a painter and a black-and-white dilettante who uses the precious minutes of the interview to pursue his studies. Smoking a flat bowled briar pipe, he listens sympathetically, and answers all questions clearly and with sufficient fullness to give the interviewer a "straight steer." But at the same time he will be sketching on his pad a human head, which, when finished, he tears up, puts in the wastepaper basket, and starts a new study. _ The first farmer settler in Canada who lived on the produce of the soil was Louis Herbert, an apothecary from Paris, who landed in Quebec in 1617 with his ivife and children, ard at once started to clear and cultivate the soil on what is now the site oi the Cathedral of Quebec, the Seminary, and part of the Upper Town. With a spade as his only tool he worked and reworked the soil until it was ready to receive weed. He threw in seed from .France, planted apple and rose trees, and at last saw waving in the breeze the golden gram, the flowers, and fruits from his motherland. The third centenary of the landing of Louis. Herbert will be commemorated in Quebec in 1917, and a Citizens' Committee has been formed to erect a monument to the first farmer of the Dominion.

Major-general Sir Frederick William Benson, bead of the British Remount Commission in North America, died after two months' illness (says a Reuter Montreal telegram) General Benson, 4vho was a Canadian, was 67 years old. He had seen service in his own country —he helped to ripol the Fenian raid of 1866 in the Niagara Peninsula—lndia, Egypt, and South Africa. In the Boer w;r he was chief staff officer to the Sixth Division and was the only officer who won the almost enthusiastic praise of the German General Staff in their official history of the war. This fact was noted by critics of the War Office when, in 1909, he retired after being passed over for promot'on. He subsequently reorganised ihe Remount Department and put it on a businesslike footing, and his special knowledge has proved of the greatest value during the last two years. The story told at length for the first time in Professor C. A. Smith's biography of O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), a master of the short story, is one involving much that is tragic, much that is not without its pathos—a story that is, perhaps, more deeply scored with the dark, dramatio ways of humanity than one will find even in the best of this author's tales. Eighteen years ago* it appears, Mr Porter was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the State Penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio," for embezzlement. After serving his sentence, which was reduced from five to three years' and three months, he commenced a new career under a new name, in which ho speedily achieved a success that has come to few of the world's tellers of short stones His biographer places before the reader tha complete details of the dark chapters in 0 Henry's life. In doing- so he writes- as a believer in O. Henry's innocence. He considers that O. Henry became the victim of a mistake, and was really punished as a result of the criminal negligence with which the bank emplo3'ing him as a clerk was conducted. His plea along this lino in defence of O. Henry will be read, naturally, with eager interest by the latter's countless friends and admirers. By some, undoubtedly, the question will be raised as to the propriety of giving publicity at this late day to so fateful an occurrence in O. Henry's career.

Fortune has always smiled kindly upon Viscount LasceUes. He ie the wealthiest, and most-sought-after bachelor in the United Kingdom. The story of how he inherited his enormous wealth recalls one of the romances of the last century. The Marquess of Clanricarde, who died early this year, bequeathed the greater portion of his vast fortune, estimated at between two and three millions sterling, to his great-grand-nephew, Lord Lascelles. The noble Marquess was, without doubt, the most eccentric and miserly peer whose name ever appeared in "Debrett," and he was certainly the most unpopular. It is said that he never gave a penny away in his life. His vast property was in Ireland, but he made himself so disagreeable to his tenants that Parliament had to force this eccentric peer to sell a large portion of his estate. He dressed very shabbily, and few of those who passed by a little old man with a rusty top hat, sitting on one of the free seats in Regent's Park watching the pigeons eating the crusts thrown to them, knew thai; that old gentleman was one of the wealthiest peers of the realm. The only amusement he found was at the Zoo, which ho frequently visited, for he was an expert zoologist." and what he did not know about animals was not worth knowing. There were very few persons who knew the pathetic story of this unhappy lord until his death, was recorded. It is interesting to note that, considering the amount of money he left, the Marquees of Clanricarde's will was one of the shortest on record. It worked out roughly at £12,500 a word.