Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 350, 22 January 1903, Page 2

Personalities.

FREDERICK 1. Frederick the First and sU7ulr!i. B°P*" a Charlotte were married, the King broke his wedding ring during the festivities, and the accident was regarded as foretelling tbe miseries of the union. COURTSHIP. The longest courtship on record was probably that of Clements Bingham a shoemaker living at Lurgan, Ireland. For nearly fifty years the course of true love ran smoothly enough between him and his inamorate, but somehow they could never bring themselves up to the sticking point, and Bingham's death occurred while the luckless lovers were yet leisurely making up their minds. SURPRISE FOB, IBSEN. Henrik Ibsen, the noted author, recently received from a village in the north of Norway, a letter, with which was inclosed an old, yellow sheet of paper. Examining the letter, he found to his surprise, that it was the certificate which he had received from the church on the day of his confirmation. The man who sent it wrote that he had left his watch in Tromso to be repaired, and that, when it was returned to him by the watchmaker, it was wrapped n an old sheet of paper, which proved to be the author's certificate of confirmation. Sow the certificate found its way to Tromso no one seems to know. BPENOER. Last week, Mr. Herbert Spencer celebrated his eighsy-ficst birthday. It may not be generally known that the philosopher has hit upon a plan of his own so necessary to his brain, Which might otherwise be interfered with by the babble of those around him. When the conversation disturbs or fails to interest him, he takes from his pocket a pair of clips which he places over his ears, thus producing artificial deafness—a device which many of us would gladly adopt when the ancient raconteur (a species which is mercifully becoming extinct) glares round a dinner-table preparatory to telling a 'good thing' which he heard in the early sixties. A peculiarity of Mr. Herbert Spencer is that he has prsistently declined „ all aoademical distinctions, and when these j have been, so to speak, thrust upon him, be has always ignored them. Mr. Spencer.as persistently declines academical discussion. A friend tells me of a conv tsation with. Mr. Herbert Spencer, which weut pleasantly enough until the two began to differ in opinion. Then Mr. Spencer rose :' • I am old,' said ha, 'my heart hurts me; I think I will. go/ But it was not his heart so much as his temper that was at fault, 1 fear.

A POWER IN PORTUGAL. There is a pretty story going the rounds in L ndon just now. At a dinner given by an English duchess to a number of distinguished foreigners, the conversation turned up:n the political. situation in some of the Litin countries. ' The man of the hour in France is of course, M. Waldeck-Bousseau,' said one of the guests; a Frenchwoman. ' And the man of the hour in Portugal,' re joined her companion, a distinguished Portuguese *is undoubtedly our bright and beautiful qusen.' j One of the L-mdon weeklies, commenting editorially upon the incident remarks. 'Nor is this the first time that Marie Amelie has found herself in the position of 'man of the hour.' Daring the last two or three decades Portugal has experienced so many'criseß, that the present political disturbances are. causing less 'comment in this country than they have informer years. But in Europe they are recognised as serious in the extreme, and have furnished- the material for discussion in more than one cabinet meeting of the major powers. The king's proposal to pay the foreign creditors of the kingdom, and thus save the country's honour abroad, has met with tremendous opposition from all classes, and has alienated him from the liberal party, upon whose loyalty he has until now been able to rely implicitly. The domestic creditors, of course, bitterly resent a proposal to pay the foreign debt at their expense, while on the other hand it is patent that Portugal will find it impossible to raise another foreign loan unless she meets her present obligations. The propasal, however, involves additional taxation upon an already over-taxed country, and a tax upon the various religious orders whose vast properties have hitherto, gone untaxed.' .King Carlos' personal popularity has never been great, while the queen has been from the time of heir marriage to the then crown prince in 1886, the beßt loved woman in Portugal. Being a woman of strong character and high intellectual power, as well as adevout Catholic, she has been for years the real leader of the conservative and clerical parties, who owe to her whatever success th°y have obtained in the lastifew years."

An Excellent Wohak. : But despite i)}.e part she"; has been cpmpeli'd; to play; in tb« of her adopted country Queen Amelie is an essen'ially feminine woman, strongly domestic in her tastes aud an excellent mothSr ' .The king, however, although an agreeable gentleman who la 3 on more than one occasion distinguished himself by acts of personal daring, has inherited from his father not only, thelatter's excessive corpulence, but also his extraordinary indolence and apathy. In other words, Dom Carlofc is too lazy to be a modern king. L ! kesomany other reigning houses of to-day, the royal family of Portugal belongs to the ducal l'ne of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the present King, Carlps 1., being the grandson of Prince-. Ferdinand of Coburgr, and a second cousin therefore of 'King El ward VII. of England. Indeed, it is said that the marriage of Don Carlos to the eldest daughter or the Comte da Paris, tho French pretender, was brought about through the influence of that most incorrigible of royal match-makera, Qaeen Victoria, who always felt a sincere interest in tho exiled French royal family, which had found so hospitable a home in her realm,