NOTABLE MEN OF THE TIME.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 958, 24 December 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOTABLE MEN OF THE TIME.

SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS, (8. J ENEIUL SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS, who displayed so much If' ability in the Afghan war, is an officer of curiously varied expertyn ence, having served twenty yc.irs in the Quartermaster General's 66 Department. He has also the advantage of having served through many campaigns, in all and each of which he has earned distinction. At the siege of Delhi he earned the Victoria Cross, for sabring a standard bearer and capturing his (lag. The various operations connected with the relief of Lucltnow, and its subsequent siege and capture, saw him acting as Assistant Adjutant-General, For this i campaign he received the brevet of I Major, besides a medal and three I clasps. AttheUmballah Expedition, ' | in 1863, he was >lso present. In the \ Abyssinian War lie ssrved throughout as Quartermaster-General of the j Bengal Brigade, and was given a j lieutenant-colonelcy for his services. ! As 'senior ftaff officer he accom- I panied the Looshai Ex, edition of 1872, for which he received the Companion hip of the Bath, and he has since attained to the higher .dignity of knighthood. In 1879 ne grea ly distinguished himself by his machmCahulafter the massacre early in September of the British Envoy ana s-iitc. w«n the incilents' or lus march to the relief of the city of Candahar, following the disastrous defeat of General Burrows, in 1880, all our readers are familiar. PROFESSOR NORDENSKJOLD. m j 0 Se , l ! ils ban,cd explorers for over three centuries, (&& del^V n f C r- ant J h ' : - a ' raalsofdiscove| T.waslornatHel.ingfors, the capital of Finland, in 183 a. He was educated at the Gymnasium at Botgo, and on entering the Helsmgfors University in 1849 devoted himself almcst entirely lo scientific studie--. He toon became eminent in this parlicidar branch of science, and was nominated to several appointments, he unfortunately incurred the suspicion ol the Russian autuwiiies by pa.iicipation in vari otis students meetings, and time after time Ist his appointments, mid was at last obliged to leave the country. He settled in Sweden, and in 1851 first entered on his Arctic travels by accompanying Torell to Spitsbergen. From this lincheisa prominent figure in the history of Polar exploration. On his return to. Stockholm from his first Spitebergen voyage,Nordenskjiildw.isnoriiinated Director 0 theßiks Museum, but in 1861 he went again to Spitzbc gen with Torell, to obtain th? measurement of an arc of meridian. He made several subsequent visits to, Spitzbergen, and in 186J attained the' high latitude of 81.42, These Arctic ,u„,« msp,™ nun witn a reasonable hope of accomplishing the North-East passage, and in July, 1878, the professor started in the Vega on the journey which was to prove so fruitful,

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, who, early. in'-iMoj was \M appointed United' States Minister to the Br.tish Court) was born IJIJ at Cambridge, Massachusetts) In 1819. He graduated at Harvard Qfi University in 1838, and studied law. but never practised -He ind displayed the interest whidi : felt in the various political and lilanthropic questions 0 the da-.-a volume entitled " Con'vrrsalldns 1 Some of the Old Pools"-: The iblicatlon in 1848 of" The Biglbw apers," a co lection of humourous rems on political subjects' written the Yan'ce dialect, established s reputation, The crusade -gainst wery was at this time beginning, id the book eriib>died an earnest oltst against'the s'nve-holding irty for embroiling the nation in a ir with Mexico, theirol'ject being, the opinion of Mr. Lowell and hers, the aggrandisement of t-.c tve power by the increise iof 1 ritory in which slavery, was perissible. There can be no doubt at Mr, Lowell's writings stim'ii* ted the Abolitionist enthusiast second series of "The Big6w ipers" was published' during the '. uvil War, Mr. Lowell has a'so issued two volumes of essays, "Among My Books" and "My Study Windows." He has also beeVcditor successively of the Atlantic-Monthly atid the North Amman Men, In 1877'h0 was appointed Minister to Spain, GENERAL LORIS MELIKOFF. ; f&'ENERAL LORIS MELIKOFF, in whose hands, in March, 1880, the ((1 late Czar placed for some months the supreme power of the State; is \Vj( an Armenian, and is about fifiyrsevcn years of age.: ■ During the Wj Russo Turkish War he distinguished himself in the campaign in Asia against Mukhtar Pasha; and when, in 1879, ihcplague biokeiout in the Volga provinces, he was appointed "" virtual dictator at KarkolT, with full powers to act as he pleased in order to stamp out the epidemic. This he soon sue ceded in doing by a scries of arbitrary sanitary precautions' a strict cordon being maintained round the infected district, an 1 the most stringent measures being at once taken with any familyatlacke I by the disease As, therefore, General Melikoff had shown no signs of undue hesita'ion or leniency in this matter, the Czar not unnatural y thougnt that he would be the man to combat the yet more deadly disease of Nihilism; and according y after the afempts on his ife in the beginning of-1880, appointed hjm Dictator of the Empire. Thougn, as we have said, an Armenian by birth. General Melikoff wis educated attheLazarcffColege in Moscow, and is a fair linguist. SDenltintr Ar-

ntcnian, Turkish, Tartar, Persian, Russian, and French. He served in the Crimean War, and after the fall of Kars wjs appointed governor of the town, with the rank of general, and siibscq ucntly was made Governor of the yladtCaucasus,