Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 448, 17 November 1904, Page 2

Personalities.

SIR HALLIDAY MACARTNEY. ONE of the few Englishmen who can speak Mandarian Chinese, Sir Halliday Macartney has been counsellor and English secretary to tho Chinese Legation in London for eight-and-tweuty years. Sir Halliday began life as a doctor, graduating M.D. at Edinburgh University a year after the Indian Mutiny. Then ho entered the Army Medical Department, and served in the Chinese War, as well as in the Taiping rebellion. A little later he was made director of tho Chinese Imperial Arsenal at Nankin. It was during his time in China that the late Sir Henry Parkes and the late Lord Loch were captured and confined in prison at Peking, and lay in duress there until the allied troops entered the capital. When he returned to England in 1876 Sir Halliday went- straight to the Chinese Legation, and with so much favour has his work been regarded there that he had conferred upon him two years ago the almost unique decoration of K.G.C.I O.D.D.C.—Knight Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of the Double Dragon of China. SIR CHARLES M. PALMER. Sir Charles Mark Palmer, tho octogenarian Liberal Member for the Jarrow Division of Durham, has never been a very ' restful' man since he entered the House of Commons thirty years ago. His long life has been one of strenuous activity. He solved the problem of carrying his coal to London from the Tyne by building his own ships ; and having made the business profitable, he decided to build the nation's. It occurred to him, during the Crimean War, that the forts of Cronstadt might be blown to atoms by an armour-plated battleship, and ho offered to provide one for tho British Government. His offer was accepted, and ever since the great firm at Jarrow have been busily employed trying to eclipse their first Terror. Tho pioneer of iron shipbuilding has never been seriously threatened in Jarrow, which he has represented continuously since 1835. LORD AND LADY WANTAGE. Lady Wantage is one of the most earnest workers the Red Cross movement has seen. During the Franco-German war she was exceedingly active, and when in 1883 Queen Victoria instituted the Order of the Red Cross, Lady Wantage was one of the very first to receive the honour. Her ladyship was a Miss Lloyd, only daughter of Barou Ovcrstone, whoso title became extinct on his death, though his vast fortune descended to her. She married Lord Wantage in ISSS, when he added the surname of Lloyd to his own. She is a woman of artistic tastes, and possesses a collection of interesting sketches which she made during her travels. Lord Wantage, who is an old soldier and, as most people are aware, a V.C. to boot, takes a great interest in engineering, and some years ago purchased the Vale of White Horse Engineering Works, which as the Wantage Engineering Company now turns out a large quantity of agricultural machinery and implements. His Lordship has also a fine farm at Lockinge, and is one of the most earnest and able of our noble agriculturists. Lockinge House itself is a noble residence, beautifully situated amid extensive grounds, which his Lordship has dor.e much to improve. HUXLEY'S LIFELONG FRIEND. Tho venerable Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Huxley's life-long friend, and tho most famous botanist of the age, has just celebrated his 87th birthday. His name is ore which should be held in very special sancity by the thousands who enjoy the glories of Kew Gardens in these delightful summer days, for he was director there for thirty years, and his "a her was asfociitcd with Kew for a generation before him. In pursuit of the normally gentle art which brought him fame even in early life, Sir Joseph Hooker, then a young naval surgeon, entered upon a career of adventure which was full of perils. It is just on seventy years ago that he went to the Antarctic with Sir James Ross and the Erebus and Terror, and told the botanical storv of that memorable voyage in six volumes, each as interesting as a novel. A little later he undertook a botanical mission to unfamilinr regions in India, penetrated the Himilayan fastnesses, was detected botanising on f ,he Tibet border and was seized, imprisoned, and beaten by an outraged Sikkim Rajah, and came very near to losing his life. Ho anticipated Darwin's ' Origin of Species ' in two fascinating papers, in which ho embodied the results of much minute study of the geographical distribution of plant life and its history and origin : and he made some deductions from his work in Colorado and Utah, the Rockies, and tho California!! coast, Syria, Palestine, and Morocco, which threw new and strange light on Darwin's great hypotheses.