PERSONAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 320, 9 July 1912, Page 5

PERSONAL.

Mr. f!. B. Dall, Dominion Inspector of Post Officer, is in New Plymouth on official business. A Sydney cablegram reports the- death of Mr. James Mclnerney, recently appointed a Legislative Councillor. ' James Richards, aged about 00 years, died suddenly on Sunday on 'his way from his camp to Marokopa township. Deceased was one of the oldest settler? in the Ureiuii district.—Own correspondent. . ••-••^•■•^^■•slWJS Mr. W. D. Webster is back again in New Plymouth from a trip to Sydney. Mr. j. 11. Bocock, of the New Plymouth branch of the New Zealand Insurance Company, will leave on Friday under transfer to Invereargill. News of Lieut. Evans, second in command of the British Antarctic expedition, under whose command the Terra Nova was brought back to Lyttelton, was received by "cablegram yesterday by Mr. T. O. Russell, of Christchurch. According to the cablegram Lieut. Evans was recently directed to attend upon His Majesty the King at Buckingham Palace, to give an account of the expedition to the extent of his knowledge of it. Subsequently Lieut. Evans was promoted to the rank of commander in the Royal Navy. It is understood that Commander Evans is the youngest holder of that rank in the British Navy.

Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, who has just surpassed in length the reign of the late Queen Victoria, was horn on August 18, 1830, and ascended the throne of Austria on December 2,

1840, on the abdication of his uncle, Ferdinand 1., and has thus reigned 63 vears and seven months. Queen Victoria reigned from June. 20, 1837, till January 22, 1001. Louis XIV., ascended the throne in May, 1043. and reigned till 17b), a total period of 72 years; but during the first 10 years he'was under his majority, and did not rule. The average duration of a monarch's reign, based on the lives of 317 who have held sway in Europe, is just over 20 years. The reigns of English monarchs have averaged 23 ye«TS. Francis Joseph has always been a simple liver, a very temperate man. whose life was regulated by j rules that most people would consider austere. He has been described as rising at 4 a.m. or earlier, and occupying the dav with a routine of work. The intervals between his official handlings and examinations of documents were spent at his desk; and what he described as "a good day,' a sort of princely holiday in recognition of the sudden solution of a crisis, was to remain all day at his palace at Sehoenbrunn, to decline all receptions, and work all day at his writin" table. Tils .industry is sufficiently attested bv the fact that he can speak' fluently all the many languages used in his realm, as well as English and Trench.