PERSONAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 33, 7 February 1913, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Captain Hutton, aide-de-camp to Lord Liverpool, has arrived at Sydney. The Hon. James Allan attended a meeting of the Imperial Defence Committee, states a London cablegram. Bishop Grimes announces in his pastoral letter his intention to be present at the next Eucharistic Congress which is to be held towards the end of April at Malta. His Lordship pro- ' poses to leave New Zealand about the end of February. NoMr Reynolds Denniston has been offered the management of the Standard Theatre, Sydney, where Ibsen and like plays are to be staged, and, with his wife (Miss Valentine Sydney), leaves Wellington by the Manuka today. Mr G. E. Foster, Canadian Minister for Trade and Commerce, and a member of the Imperial Trade Commission, leaves for Canada and New Zealand on the 19th instant, states a Melbourne cable. The other Commissioners are aboard the Medina, which is due at Fremantle on Tuesday nextThe will of Mr Richard Matthew's, late of Wellington-parade, East Melbourne, solicitor, who died on December 18, has been filed for probate. The testator left real estate valued at £IBBB, and personal property valued at £4956, to relatives and friends,with bequests to former employees. A clause in his will states:—“To each of my bridge friends” (whom he names) “the sum of £2l, with which to purchase somd little present to remind them occassionally of our many friendly but strenuous efforts to beat the other side.” Russian Court circles have . been greatly perturbed by another Royal scandal, of which the Grand Duke Andre-Yladimirovitch is the central figure. It was suspected that the Duke was badly smitten by the charms of one of the most beautiful girls in the ballet at the Imperial Theatre, but those who knew of the infatuation never imagined that His Royal Highness would go to the extreme of eloping with his lady love. However, this is exactly what he has done. The couple have quitted Russia, and it is understood(says a Sydney Sun cable) that their intention is to marry and settle in Paris, The Tsar is furious over the whole business. However, it might easily have been some other Grand Duke with whom the pretty ballerina would have flown, as it is whispered that she had more than one ardent admirer among the male section of the Royalties before whom eh©' used to dance with such grace and charm. The other ladies of the Imperial ballet have shown the liveliest interest in what they regard, not as a scandal, but as the most beautiful of romances, and they are looking confidently forward to their own chances of capturing a Grand Duke. Prince Kropotkin, who is receiving such hearty congratulations just now fyom so many quarters on his seventieth birthday (says the Westminster Gazette of December 9th), is one of the few who have ever succeeded in escaping from that grim stronghold, the Bastile of St. Petersburg, known as the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. One day when he was recovering front an illness, he was permitted to walk in the courtyard of the fortress. As the prison gate was opened Prince Kropotkin, whose friends were in waiting outside, made a wild dash for it. His guard, taken completely by surprise, stabbed wildly at him with his bayonet, but before an alarm could be raised he had whirled away in a carriage, and by nightfall, in the guise of

a military officer, he was on liis way to Sweden. Personally, the Prince is a man of the simplest tastes and highest ideals, and by all who know him is not less loved than he is respected. In a small, unpretending house at Brighton he has lived for years the existence of a student, and no one unacquainted with the facts would ever dream that this thoughtful, gentle, courteous savant, with the thin, nervous hands and scholar’s stoop, was the dangerous firebrand and revolutionary who had been expelled, not only from his native land, but from France and Switzerland as well.