Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 410, 17 March 1904, Page 3

Personalities.

TBE AMERICAN CARDINAL, Gibbons, who occupied a peculiar position at the Conclave which .elected Pius X., through being the sole representative of a continent and spokesman for the hierarchy of the.two Americas, is a great figure in the States. The Cardinal was born in Baltimore, but he passed his boyhood and was educated in Ireland. Rsturning to the United States,„he took his degree at the College of St. Charles, in Maryland, and was ordained a priest in 1861, la 1889, at the age of 52, he was made a Cardinal by Pope Leo. Like the late Pontiff, he is a man of slight and frail appearance, but endowed with remarkable vitality and powers of work. He stood upon a footing of aome intimacy with Pope Leo, and never tired of describing in America the great interest in that country which the Pope, had declared himself to-feel. Like some other leading Americans, Cardinal Gibbous has established a reputation for the cleverness with which he can evade the searching inquiries of the modern inquisitor—-the newspaper man with his notebook, It ia related that on his last visit to Europe a i French interviewer, at the end of half-an-hour's brisk interchange of question and answer, had only elicited from him the information that he considered France to be a beautiful country. PBINCE AND HIS NEW HOME. The Prince of Wales is a man of many puts, and his aotivity in the public life is a popular feature. The Prince and Princess are now* to have a magnificent Scotch residence in Abergeldie Castle. Abergeldie is well situated on the south bank of the Dae, two miles below Balmoral, and consists of a picturesque old keep, with * variety of additions. It is a. comfortable, unpretending house, the great feature of the place being the delightful old garden, in which is a magnificent copper beech, with other stately trees, and grass walks, and sweet old-fashioned shrubs and flowers. There is a pleasant green terrace running along the bank of the Dae, from which are beautiful views. In the fifties the only communication aorosa the Dee between Crathie and Ballater was a cradle at Abergeldie, which was superseded many years ago by a chain footbridge erected by the late Queen. There are some fine trees on the front lawn of the Castle, including a splendid larcb. Queen Victoria was most anxious to pnrchase the Abergeldie property, and a fancy price was offered, but the Gordons positively refused to see, and the estate is now held by the King on a nineteen years' lease, at the handsome rent of £4.500 a year. The small but excellent deer forest of • Whifemouth, which 'marches' with Balmoral Forest, is on this estate, and the extensive Abergeldie woods are full of roedeer. The castle was occupied from 1850 until 1859 by the Duchess of Kent, and from 1863 until 1888 by the present King and Queen, then Prince and Princess' of Wales. Between 1889 and 1900 Abergeldie was ' lent' every autumn by Queen Victoria, SIE KENELM DIGBT. Sir Kenelm Edward Digby, who has figured prominently in the labours and reports of the Boyal Commission on Alien Immigration, quitted a county oourt judgeship to become Permanent Under Secretary for the Home Department, a position from which he is now retiring. He had a'distinguished career at the Bar, to whioh he warn called eight and thirty years ago; and was Vinerian Law Beader at Oxford for some years. The duties of the office are numerous and important. They embrace the forwarding of all Addresses to the Crown, the receipt of petitions for the lives of condemned criminals, and the advising of the Crown thereon. One of the notable reprieve! granted during the closing year of Six Kenelm's regime was that of ' Colonel' Arthur Lynch, which Sir Kenelm himself indited. That little difficulty with the Channel Islands, where they will not have a Government audit, concerns this department, as do the appointment of ail the chief officers ia the isles, including that of Man.