PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 61

PERSONAL NOTES.

_ —lt is understood that on peaco being signed Sir Douglas liaig and certain of his generals will each receive the sum of £200,000, while tho Field-marshal will in addition bo created an Earl. Sir David Beatty is also to receive a similar amount, together with a Peerage. Sir Maurico Hankey, who is but 42 years of ago, has been described as "The power behind the political throne —an English Colonel House." Anyway, ho is one of the half dozen most influential men in England. The Prime Minister is said to trust in his judgment absolutely. He accompanied the Premier to the Paris Conference, and was speedily appointed cne of its Secretaries.

There were serving in France recently two young American officers (brothers) who are directly descended from George Washington, first President of tho United States. One of them, being on this side when tho war broke out, joined tho British army, became a lieutenant in the Artillery, and won the Military Cross for distinguished conduct in the field. Tho other came over with the American army as an officer of one of the Field" Artillery batteries. He, too, Las distinguished himself, having beei. awarded the Croix de Guerre, with palm. —-The announcement of the death of Colonel Halstead, a member of General Sherman's staff in Ihe Civil war, reminds one that he has been declared to be the inventor of the first typewriting machine. As a matter of fact, the; first genuine typewriter, as we think of them to-day, was invented by C. L. Sholes, a printer, of Wisoonsia, U.S.A., who took out a patent in 1b75. His ordinal maohine was the size oi a small dining table. In course of time its size was reduced, and an improved artielo was placed in the hands of Messrs E. Remington and Sons, gunmakers, of llion —not of Ulysses fame, but of New York. Hence "the Remington typewriter." Sir Donald Maclean, who is mentioned as Liberal leader in the British Commons, comes of a remarkable family. His father was a native of Tiree, an island in tho Inner Hebrides, and the two sons and a daughter have all distinguished themselves. Sir Donald's brother is a leading physician, who, after a brilliant career at Edinburgh, settled in South Wales. Sir Donald himself first won public recognition in Cardiff about 20 years ago for his temperance work and his efforts on behalf of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He is a first rate platform speaker, and his popularity in South Wales as a social worker has been hardly won. Labour's new leader of the Opposition in the English Commons, Mr William Adamson, is curiously akin to tho first shepherd of the party. Mr Keir Hardie. Both had the same early struggles in a mining village, were self-taught in the same hard fashion in the meagre intervals of toil and sleep, and emerged from the ordeal with a daring- but kindly outlook on life. Mr Adamson, when a boy, experienced the full force of long hours in the pit, sometimes stretching to 14; and his early familiarity with bad ventilation no doubt supplied tho stimulus which made Fife tlie pioneer country in forcing reform through Parliament.

That very able man, Guzman Blanco, late President of Venezuela, whose daughter married the Due de Morny, and who died a few years ago in Paris, not only had his portrait painted about 200 times, but erected about a dozen statues to himself, equestrian and otherwise, during his lifetime, writing with his own hand their fulsome inscriptions and invariably calling himself in gigantic capitals '"The Illustrious American, Pacificator and Regenerator of the United States of Venezuela."

"Everyone in the violin world knows 'Tubbs, of Soho,' the veteran violin bow-string-maker, whose portrait in water colours is on show at the Grosvenor Galleries," says the Weekly Dispatch. " I have been making bowstrings all my life, and though I am now 84 I at work,' said Mr Tubbs. Professor August Wilhelmy wrote me once, and described me as the incomparable master bowmaker. Other eminent players who have come to me are: Fritz Kreisler, Paganini, Bottesini, Sivoni, Piatti, Gompertz, Strauss. Yesterday a bow was brought in to me, and I discovered by the name stamped on it that it was made by my grandfather 100 years ago. iS'ot long ago I was asked to repair a bow, and recognised it as one that I had helped my father to make 64- years back. It was in excellent condition, and is now good for another half-century at least.' "