PERSON ITEMS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2028, 13 March 1907, Page 1

PERSON ITEMS

M. Clemenccau has a horror of tho number 13. The Sarrien Cabinet was formed on March l- last year, and tho official announcement should have appeared in tho Government Gazette of tho next day. But Clcinencoau, under whoso department as Minister of Home Affairs, such official notifications came, deferred its publication to the 14th. Again, with the creation of a new portfolio of Labor, tlio Clemencoau C abinet would number 13. The Premier, however, has arranged for tho attendance of the Under-Secre-tary of State at future meetings of tho Cabinet. The Queen of Roumania, better known as “Carmen Sylva,” has reached her sixty-third year. She is tho junior of her husband, whom 1 she married in 1869, by four years. Few Royal marriages have been happier than theirs, in spite of tho fact that its only issue, a beautiful daughter, died in her infancy. In addition to being a sweet singer and teller of charming tales, Queen Elizabeth has always been a lielp-meet, in the highest sense of the term, to her husband.

Mr W. Stead’s presence in Paris has inspired a French journal to a fine effort of imagination, which takes the form of a biography of tho editor of the “Review of Reviews.” He is said to have flung away for the sake of bis political opinions, £20,000, which would have come to him under Rhodes’ will, if he kept silent during the South African war. But he wrote on behalf of the Boers, and so, the journal declares, Rhodes, in a passion, tore up his will, and Stead lost the £20,000.

‘ if it would make the little ones happy, I would allow myself to be hung head downwards from the top of the tree,” said the Lord Mayor of London, bofore distributing the presents from the Christmas tree to tho children of the Boyal National Orthopaedic Plospital. “Oh, do, dot” cried the children unanimously, but, starled by their eagerness to see a Lord Mayor in ajl his panoply upside down, his lordship had politely but firmly to refuse to carry out his offer.

Tho Emperor of Austria’ finds liis greatest relation in work. Ho rarely permits himself a real holiday , for no matter where lie may bo ho insists on keeping in tho closest touch with affairs of State. • n exceedingly early riser, his break ast, consisting of tea and a slice of cold moat, is always placed on his writing table, and he partakes of it as he scrutinises document after document,

Mixed metaphors are frequently vory ludicrous. Quoth the temperance lecturer: “Comrades, let us be up and doing. Let us take our axes on our shoulders, and plough the waste places till the good ship Temperance sails gaily over the land.” One more: “Gentlemen, the applo of discord . has, been thrown into our midst; and if it be not nipped in the bud it will burst into a conflagration which will deluge the world,” A stock dealer in a large way of business estimates that upwards of 300,000 store sheep will be placed on the market during the next two months (says the Palmerston South Times). This number represents the surplus sheep from various stations, and does not include farmers’ lots. The longest service man in the New Zealand police force is Constable John Jeffries, stationed at the Port. Nelson. He joined the force in 1866, and on Ist April will have served 41 years in the force. Constable Jeffries lias applied for leave, and is now claiming his police pension,

Tlio crusade against gambling in Australia took an extraordinary ' iturn tlio other day at Quirindi, New South Wales. At tlio Now Year sports, reports a correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the polico stopped the throwing at the wicket contest on the ground that it was a game of chance I After this, remarks tlio Telegraph, the suburban resident who runs for liis morning train with no certainty of catching it can hardly complain if lie is stopped by the police. Somo of Iho most amusing blunders are to bo found in advertisements, chiefly arising through carelessness in the use of tlio English language. As, in" instance, “Just received a fine lot of live Osteinl rabbits. Persons purchasing same will be skinned and cleaned while they wait.” The directions given with a patent feeding bottle are to the following effect : “When the baby is done drinking it must bo unscrewed and laid in a cool place under a tap. If baby does not thrive on fresh milk it should bo boiled.” Here are two more: “Wanted, a furnished room for a single gentleman, looking both ways and well ventilated;” “wanted, an organist and a boy to blow the same.” ■Alany amusing blunders are made in the army and navy, and hero is a splendid ono by an Irish officer: “India,” said ho to a friend on his arrival at Calcutta, “is the finest climate under the sun; but a lot of young follows come out hero and they drink, and they eat, and they drink, and they die, and then write homo to their parents a pack of lies, and say it’s the climate that has killed them.” Fur pure bulls Parliament is said to be the best manufactory. Here are two that are worth preserving : A member alluding to a vote ■jf two millions for a small war described it as a “flea bite in the ocean ;” and another, advocating an increase in the number of British troops in India, observed: “You may depend upon it, sir, the pule face of the British soldier is the backbone of the Indian army.” The brave and sedate medical profession sometimes adds to the gaiety of nations with such as the following: “There is but one fact that we know about death,” said the doctor, “it is always fatal;” and another one soothes his patient in this way: “And now, as to the swelling on the back of your head, there is nothing serious about it at piesent, but you must keep your eye on it.” There is a cynical humor in the situation (writes the N.Z. Herald). While Germany is still thrusting her way Eastward through Asia Minor, with her eyes fixed on our great Indian dependency, and her statesmen calculating the value of the close market they would make if it were theirs; while Russia is prowling round the guarded mountain walls and buffer States, lured on by the same vision of a rich prise; while our own Empire is holding its own with all the resource that has been so highly developed in the Indian service; the spirit of the West is rousing to new life these peoples, who are as the seashore for numbers, In the Furthest East, the domination of the European is at an end, and none speak to Japan with the voice of the master. China is freer ing itself politically, as well as industrially, from European authority. India is adopting European industrial methods, and Afghanistan is following her, Persia is finding, a voice, ~ The enemy "comes, thccnangc - can bo seen. It is true that there is no racial unity among tlio 800,000,000 people of what we call Asia, but a common bond has been forced upon them by European domination. Wc may tako it for granted that they are all against “us,” and that if the opportunity over comes to disown and denounce the European— British, German, Russian, French, or American —they will seine upon it, whether t]ioy ;\re our allies the Japanoso, our “fellow-subjects”, the Hindoos, or ony good friend tho Ameer of Afghanistan. If his Northern tour did nothing else (writes :‘The General”), it must have taught the Hon. 11. McNab that in the North of Auckland, at any rate, there is sentiment, and very strong sentiment,' in regard to the holding of land. At many of the places touched, on route, feeling ran high, and one weather-beaten pioneer after another came up to members of the party and asked what the Minister thought the early settlors battled with forest jungles, endured hardships day after day without complaint, and fought the Maoris, for, if not for the sentiment of the freehold. “Why,” said o,ne grand old man, qve? whom 80 winters had passed, “of course there is sentiment. How could it be absent, for it is in all our daily life; it is sentiment that makes us give the respect we do to womanhood, it is sentimont that makes the individual character of the national life, and without that love of homo, that passionate desire to have a home all one’s own, how can there be love fif country, or pride of race?” And there was an old lady, at one place, a dear Old Country mother, and she told how, when a young woman, she had come to this country in the early days, with her husband, to escape the leasehold bondage of the Old Land, and had gone up into the wilds of the bush, and lived in % whare for years, and she had taken an axe and helped her husband carve out their home,’ and often and often they scarcely had food enough, and. their clothes were rags, bt.it they held on for tjie lave of tho land they could call their own. “Think yo,” sho said, “we’d do that for your trumpery leasehold. No, we’re not built that way.”