Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 440, 18 August 1904, Page 2

Personalities.

BARON SUYEMATSU. THE Baron is a great favourite in Japan, and his prosonce in England calls attention to his importance. Ho was in London on what is understood to be n special diplomatic missiou from the Japanese Emperor. The high position ha holds in his native country he has in a large measure won for himself by his abilities. Ifo is amongst the comparatively small number of Japanese students who have gone through an English University, being a graduate of Cambridge. Trinity is the College, and amongst those * up ' with him was Mr Austen Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On his return to Japan, Baron (then Mr) Suycmatsu became a journalist and a man of letters. He translated several English novels into Japanese. His work attracted the attention of Marquis Ito, who thought so highly of him that he gave him his daughter in marriage, and induced him to enter the Government. *ie subsequently held the position of Communications, and, later, that of Minister of the Interior.

DUCHESS OF SOMERSET. Of Scottish origin, the Duchess of Somerset is a remarkable woman, and of no small influence in the social-political world. As Miss Susan Mackinnon, she married Mr Algernon St. Maur some seventeen years before he succeeded to the title, and her great delight in those days was to accompany her husband on his big-game shooting expeditions—on one of which, indeed, by a well-planted shot, she saved his life. When the fourteenth Duke of Somerset died ten years ago, the young Duchess infused in her new role so much charm and grace that she became an immediate favourite. Hers was no easy task, for the widowhood of the Duke of Norfolk made her England's Premier Duchess, a position which she occupied until the Duke's marriage a few weeks ago, and in which she attended the Coronation. Notwithstanding the claims upon her of politics and society, the Duchess still finds time for much practical philanthropy, and she is especially, interested in the position of the respectable poor who have no resource but the unwelcome and inhospitable walls of the work-house. The Norfolk Dukedom was created in 1483, the Somerset in 1546. The present Duke of Somerset is engaged in organising a great International Commercial Association on the lines of the Credit Lyonnais. , THE FITZWILLIAMS.

Lord Fitzwilliam, when he sells his Irish estates to his tenants, is credited with the intention of retaining Collatin and his connection with the country. It would be not less difficult to imagine Ireland without a FitzGerald as without a Fitzwilliam. The late Lord spent a good deal of his time at Collatin, where there is beautiful-scenery and fine sport to be had within easy reach. His grandson, the present earl, keeps 'up a smart pack of foxhounds—the same that he hunted when he was Lord Milton—and Lady Fitzwilliam, who is a splendid horsewoman, has often enjoyed a run with them. As a sister of that fine sportsman, Lord Ronaldshay, she naturally takes a keen interest in the chase. The Fitzwilliams have been Anglo-Irish for centuries. ' Burke ' credits them with Norman descent, but they are genuine Anglo-Saxons from Yorkshire. Lord Fitzwilliam's first authentic forefather was one William Fitzgodric, a Saxon thane who had the good sense to marry a wealthy Yorkshire widow. His Yorkshire home at Wentworth Woodhouse is the most comfortable of Lord Fitzwilliam's five country seats. COUNTESS OF AIRLE. The Countess, who has just, added another year to her roll, is the daughter of" the late Earl of Arran, and granddaughter of the famous Lady Jocelyn, one of the great beauties of the early Victorian era. Lady Airle is herself a very beautiful woman, and is still young despite her snowy hair. Tenderly attached to her husband, she has never completely recovered from the sorrow which fell upon her When he was killed by a Boer bullet at the head of his regiment, the 12th Lancers, nearly four years ago, in the engagement at Diamond Hill, in which Lord Chesham's son also lost his life. ; Her son, the present peer, will be eleven next July, and her eldest daughter, Lady Kitty Ogilvy, who is seventeen, promises to inherit all her mother's beauty. The Airlies, like the Townshends, have a family ghost. This is the drummer boy of Corfcachy Castle, the weird sound of whose spectre drum heralds sorrow or death. The Airlies can trace back their line unbroken to the days of William the Lyon of Scotland, who flourished in the twelfth century. SIR REGINALD TALBOT.

Sir Reginald Arthur Talbot, successor of Sir George Sydenham Clarke in the Governorship of Victoria, is the son of the eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, and conseauently uncle of the present Earl, and, save for a brief interval between 18G9 and 1874, when he represented Stafford in the House of Commons, he has been a soldier on active service all his life. He served in the Zulu War in 1879, in the 1882 campaign in Egypt, and in the Nile Expedition two years later. A little later he commanded the Ist Life Guards, and after a term as military attache at Paris he was given the command of the cavalry brigades at Aldershot. In 1899 he was appointed Major-General in command of the army of occupation in Egypt, and held that!post until last year. Sir Reginald, who is sixtythree, is married to a daughter of Mr. Mr James Stuart Wortley. ARCHBISHOP OP CANTERBURY.

The Archbishop, who is taking a prominent part in the House of Lords' debates, is one of the most active men in the Church. Honours early fell to him. Twice within the year preceding his appointment to the Primacy he refused the See of London. He has long been a favourite with the Royal Family. Queen Victoria declared that a sermon he preached before her on ' Life in Death ' was the most beautiful she had ever heard. He was with Her Majesty in her last moments. He preached before the King at Whippingham on tho Sunday following the Queen's death. The Archbishop is one of the vigorous men who believe in the ■' early to bed early to rise ' principle. His habits at first caused some commotion at Lambeth Palace. When he was there as private secretary to his father-in-law, Archbishop Tait, they both used to rise at five o'clock in the morning. An aged official at the Palace declared the days of the Church of England to be numbered, for he had, he said, seen three Primates, but never before one who rose at such an unconscionably early hour.