PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3277, 3 January 1917, Page 55

PERSONAL NOTES.

Sir Berkeley Moynihan, the distill guished surgeon, said that as an Irishman he bitterly deplored the fact that Ireianci had rot seen her way to accept compulsion. It might be an unusual way of putting it, but there was nothing an Irishman loved so much in the world as being compelled, apparently against hie wishes, to do that which was really his heart's desire. Sir Berkeley is himself the son of an Irish soldier who won the V.C. Following the announcement that Lord Roberts's son-in-law, Major H. F. E. Lcwin, was wounded comes the news that he has been promoted to Lieutenant-colonel. Colonel Lewin's baby son, who was born last year, will inherit " Bobs's " earldom if the present holder of the title, Countess Roberts, remains unmarried. The young hopeful's warlike names arc Frederick Roberts Alexander. The newcolonel is a good-looking, popular Irishman of 44, and is the son of a naval officer. Ho was a great friend of Lord Roberts's only son, who won the V.C, and died while trying to save the guns at Colenso. Pepys Junior, in "Diary of the War" in Truth, tells a good trench story. His son, who was wounded at Thiepval, recc.Hits how our soldiers write "all manner of jests ; ' on boards which they exhibit to the Germans, and adds:—"So one day they wrote up at one trench: 'Don't shoot to-morrow afternoon; Asquith and Floyd George coming'; and, come the time named, having got two men's hats, they pass them along on poles, as it were two civil men that walk along our lines. Whereat, the Germans fire the fiercest volleys possible; and, this done, a board put up on our trench where on is writ, " You lools. you have shot Cinuell and Ramsay Macdonald." The honour of gaining the first oar to be attached to the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order has been won by Lieutenant Albert Bali, of the Notts an<' Derby Regiment and the Royal Flying Corps. Just three months ago a Royal Warrant was issued ordaining that if a recipient of the D.S.O. subsequently performs a deed < f gallantry for which the honour would have been given if he had not already received it, no may be given a bar. In a recent list of heroic acts appear the services for which Lieutenant Ball received both the D.S.O. and the bar, so that (here could have been but a brief interval between his two momentous flights. This gallant officer has already won the Military Cross for work in the air.

Fivc-and-twenty years ago Charles Stewart Parnell died at Brighton. Probably he thought the end was near, for he had a strange fancy that the month of October was for him a period of disaster. He told a friend once, in answer to Ihe conventional question: "I am pretty well, but I am suffering from October, my unlucky month." His history seemed to bear that." out. In October, 1881, at Leeds. Mr Gladstone made his famous speech, warning Parnell that " the resources of civilisation are not yet exhausted," and describing the Land League as "marching through rapine to the disintegration and dismemberment of the Empire." In that same October, a few days later, he was arrested as a political suspect and lodged in Kilmainham. He had a serious illness m October, 1836. And in October he died— October 6. 1891,-10 years (within two days; after leceivin.g Mr Gladstone's warning. As far as the crowned heads of Europe are concerned, this war may virtually be called a civil war. The Royal Houses of Europe are inextricably inter-related, and many an anguished and tortured heart must be beating now in the palaces of this Continent. As Queen Victoria was the grandmother of Europe, and as King Edward was its uncle, so is King George the cousin of Europe. He has cousins in Prussia. Denmark. Greece. Russia, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Holland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Wurtemberg, Saxe-Meiningcn, Schaumburg-Lippe, Hi sso, and Brunswick—in fact, it has been estimated that his first and second cousins, all told, number close on 300. His most famous cousin is. of course, the Kaiser, whose mother was King Edward's sister. It is not generally known that the Kaiser stands twentieth in the order of succession to the British throne. Fortunatelv, however. King George has five sons, so that even the' Crown Prince is not likely to get a look in. King George s cousins also include the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, and, incidentally. King Constantino of Greece. King Alfonso is a cousin of King George by marriage. Another cousin is King Christian of Denmark; but he married Princess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg. The sympathies of King Haakon of Norway, however, should be strongly pro-British, inasmuch as he is a nephew of Queen Alexandra, and married one of King George's sisters.