LATE NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9949, 9 March 1894, Page 2

LATE NEWS BY THE MAIL.

The Ardlamont mystery has not been solved by the late trial, for the jury only brought in a verdict of "not proven. The more one hears of Lieutenant Hambrough the more pitiful seems his fate, by whatever misadventure or malice it was compassed. - He was a tall, strong, well-built youth, over six feet high, with straight, firm features, blue eyes and golden hair. Full of life and spirits, he was popular everywhere. A splendid athlete, he was fond, as most men of that calibre are, of horses and dogs. He was a lieutenant in the Militia, and his name was down for the Grenadier Guards. In a crack corps like that an officer needs other resources than his pay, and Hambrough had, in addition to the other gifts of fortune, the prospect of considerable wealth. He was heir apparent to Steephill Castle and estates in the Isle of Wight, with a rent roll of £7,000 a year and heir presumptive to Pipewell Hall, Northamptonshire, and a property worth £2000 a year. Monson, his tutor, who is accused of his murder, is, like him, an aristocrat by birth, being closely related to Viscount Oxenbridge, the Master of the Horse to Her Majesty and Lord Houghton, Lord -Lieutenant of Ireland. He is a cultured man of five and thirty, who was liked wherever he went. Mrs Monson is young, handsome, and attractive, and together they were a popular couple. Sir Samuel White Baker, who has recently died, was born in London in 1821. In 1847 he first attracted attention by founding a .mountain colony in Ceylon, at Newera Ellia. In 18G1 he organised, at his own cost, an expedition for the discovery of the sources of the Nile, and explored the basin of the Blue Nile. Accompanied by his wife, a daughter of M. Tinman von Sass, he reached the junction of the Asbara with the Nile. In December, 1862, ho set out to explore the course of the White Nile, and in the following February arrived at Goudokoro, where he met Captains Speke and Grant, i; %?h\d>had started from Zanzibar and reported to have reached Victoria Nyanza, which they believed the source of the great river. Baker resolved to follow up their discoveries, and after many difficulties and dangers he, in 1864, sighted the Albert Nyanza. In 1869 he undertook a successful expedition into Central Africa on behalf of the Khedive, and in 1879 was sent by tho British Government to investigate the resources of Cyprus. The health of the Prince of Wales leaves much to be desired, as he is suffering again so greatly from his old complaint that he is unable now to take any considerable exercise, and he is compelled even to abandon riding. Not to disappoint the neighbourhood, the Prince consented to be present at the meet during his visit to Belvoir, but otherwise he seldom or ever rides now. He hits also discontinued waltzing, to which he was so partial, and contents himself with the less fatiguing quadrille, which in former days ho did so much to suppress. Madame Tussaud's Exhibition hsis been open in London over ninety years, and it is stated that never before has there been anything of the character of Mr Monson's resistance to the exhibition of his wax counterfeit. A request" was made to have the model of>Mrs Maybrick withdrawn ; but the objection to its exhibition was dropped when it was explained that it appeared in the Napoleon Room, and not in the Chamber of Horrors. There are few people but have read one of the most phenomenally successful books of modern times, " Helen's Babies," yot probably hardly anyone in this country knows the author's name. It is Mi John Habberton, the literary editor of a well-known New York paper, a very quiet, slight, modest-looking man, who goes on writing clever books wbich have tin immense sale, but, owing to his objectiou to personal paragraphs, have not rendered his name familiar to the general public.