GREAT PEOPLE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 360, 12 March 1880, Page 19

GREAT PEOPLE.

The following sketches of some of tho leading personages of the day are by T. Wornys-s lleid :—: — Queen Victoria, I think, may be described, without any resort to the language of ilatleiy, as the most interesting person in the British Isles, if not in the whole world. She is interesting because of her wonderful lineage, which go:s back thiough some ot the greatest as well as some of the mcones 1 ; characters in history to our English Alfred. This simple, unpretending lady, whom one meets occasionally on a summer-day in Hyde Park, surrounded by little of the pomp and disnity of great rank, is the living head of a family, beside which almost all the other great houses, both royal and noble of Europe, must count as of merely mushroom growth. ior a thousand years her ancestors have been kings and queens ; and during all that time, with but a few brief intervals, they have held their own on the stormy swi of hUtoiy, whilst countless other illustrious families have risen and fallen beside them. I own I can never look at the Queen

without thinking of how many wonderful traditions, of how many mingled characteristics and qualities, she i.°, in virtue of this lineage of hers, the heir and representative. Bismarck :— The errors of the great man's career seem to grow in number as that career draws nearer to its close ; and though the nerve and resolution which have so long distinguiscd him are still to be discovered in all he says and does, it is impossible that he should continue to impose his iron will for any length of time upon a great and growing people. He has served his end ; he has accomplished his work, and the day of his final rctiremement from the stage on which he Las played so great a part cannot be long deferred. Yet ere he goes, he is worth study and observation, as one of the last of that great race of Protestant Tory despots who have been from tare to time so conspicuous in the world's affairs, but who will soon, happily, be numbered among the extinct races of mankind. M. Gambetta:— Never have I heard a speech like that of M. Gambctta — never have I heard a voice of such compass, emphasir, flexibility, and power." Mr. Gladstone ;— The mere politicians of the day shrivel into pigmies when set beside him. Even Lord Beaconsfield, with all Irs brilliant talents aod his glittering successes, shows poorly when contrasted with the stronger, if homelier, stuff of which the man whom the irony of history has made his rival is compescd.

la an action for damages sustained in a collision on an English railway in December, 1877, the plaintiff, a physician in large practice, got a verdict for £16,000. A turtle was recently taken from the St. John's River, Florida, with the Spanish coat-of-arms and the date 1700 engraved upon his back. The turtle was put back into the river, with the added inscription— " Eastern Herald Palitka, Florida, 1879. '