Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 428, 28 July 1904, Page 8

Personalities.

JUDGE MARTIN AND THE SPORTING PEOPHETS.

JHjjNp. SERJEANT BQBINSON, in bis wOir ' toeneh. and B tr' tells an judges. Thers was Baron Martin, for example, whose hardness of hearing sometimes led him into comical mistaken, and one of whose pet aversions was the sporting p'ophet In * racing case one of the counsel was a solemn person who was rather given to quoting Scripture. Addressing the jury, he hud got as far as ' the prophet says,' when the Baron intervened. 'Don't trouble the jury about the prophets, Mr Stammer e,' he said. ' There is not one of them who would hedtate to sill his father for sixptin'orth of halfpence.' ' But, my lord,' protested counsel, in a grieved undertone, ' I was about to quote from the prophet Jeremiah.' * Don't tell me,' was the rejoinder j ' 1 have, no doubt jour i fiend Mr Myers is just as bad as the rest of them!'

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. In his diet the Dnke v was template and very careless. He was fond of telling of the uniform good health which he enjoyed in India, where for three years he lived under canvas, eating little bat rice and

I drinking little or ho wine, His Indist) habits as to rice continued through life. He ate it with meat, and almost every, thing, and those who kaew his habits had it in readiness where he dined out. Of late years, an ordinary observer would have considered him a very indiscriminate feeder. In the flow of conversation at dnner he often, without thinking or oaring about it, accepted everything that was earned round, and I have seen his plate filled with the most lacoagrpus articles, which, howevsr, he scarcely tasted, but seat away almost untouched. I have often seen him do the honours of a large tea-table on returning from a ehootißg party at Strath fieldeaye. I believe him to have been the inventor of the commixture of ale with soda-wate, which i,.first, at least, tasted under his auspices. He scarcely knew one wine from another, and was quite unconscious of such minor gastronomic evils as bad butter at breakfast ' Personal Reminiscences of the Duke of Wellington,' by Francis Earl of I Ellesmero.

ME GLADSTONE AND THE TICKET ■"> ' COLLECTOR Here is a story told me by the man who Baw the incident. The late Right Honourable W. E Gladstone, in bia sprightly days, sprang from a first-class carriage at a country station, and attempted to rush the wicket. The ticket-taker, who did not recognise the statesmen, saw ia this tempestuous haste an attempt to evade the legal and just fare—such evasion being always rightly censured by the magistrate when the case comes before him grasped the flying tail of the Premier's coat, brought him up, as tbe the vulgar say, with a round turn, crying! sternly—'Come, now, none of that! I want your ticket, if yoa please.' Gladstone, turned upon him a fierce and indignant face, that would have* quelled any one uadar the rank of a ticket-taker, but he said so words—* merely dangled a little gold medal that hung at his watch-chain, whereupon the abashed ticket-taker apologised abjectly, and let go the august coat-tail, and tbe celebrity roamed his headlong career. 'And what," said I to the storyteller, •was the potency of the little gold medtl P, If I dangled my watch-chain at a tickettaker, would he let ma go through ?' ' Not so/ replied my friend. ' lhat medal was a railway director's badge, and entitled the wearer to travel flretclass ca any railway line in the kingdom.' '

A HOUSE WITHOUT CiBFETS. HBH, Princess Henry of Batteaberg has tiken immense interest in tH'a renovating and refurniihing of the suite of rooms in Kensington Palace, which Bhe chose as her abode soon after the late Qaeen Victoria's death. Her Royal Highness is extremely practical in matters regarding the famishing of a bouse, and in this case has superintended all details herself. She has become entirely converted to the foreign fashion of discarding carpets and heavy curtains in receptionrooms, and at Kensington Palace bas gone in for floors, with rags here and there,- and even in the winter her Boy&l Highness prefers having it so, as she considers (particularly in a big smoky town like London) that it is an infinitely cleaner and in consequence isfinitely healthier fashion. Her Royal Highness carries this idea throughout, even in the bedrooms of her wing of the quaint oldfashioned palace.