The Portland daily press., 1897-02-18
PERSONAL AND PECULIAR,

Mr. and Mrs, Bayard recently paid a
Saturday till Monday farewell visit to
the Prince and Princess of Wales Mt Sand
bingham, and will be the guests of the
Queen after tho Court returns to Osborne.
Ittis- predicted that Mrs. George Curzon
(nee Miss Mary Leiter) will become one
of the great political hostesses of her day.
At the Duchess OF Dsvonshire g reception
last week Mrs. Curzon wore a muoha adj
mired gown of white, with rose-velvet on
the bodice and beautiful tiara of dia-
monds.
James Whitc0nb Riley announces that
he has left the lecture platform for good
and that heIwill henceforth devote him
self wholly to the writing of verse.
Vice President-elect Hobart gave $4,000
to Rutgers College to commemorate his
election. He was graduated from Rut-
gers in 1868.
St. Peter Claver, the Spanish Jesuit
missionary who died in 1854, has been
declared by Pope Leo XIII. to be the
special patron of all missions to the ne
groes in both hemispheres
Masses said. foc a dead mans soul are a
charity, and therefore no legacy duty need
be paid on money left for that purpose,
according to a recent decision of the Irish
Court of Appeal. 1t is the first time that
the question has come up in a superior
court in ireland or England.
British DR.. Rainsford recently pre- :
ented himself at ia county ball at Chelms-
ford and delivered an address to the dan
GERS on the wickedeness of their ways.
He said he could not understand people
enjoying themselves when there was a
judgmen to come After be had with
drawn the dancing went on.
Fishing in the lakes of Killarney seems
to have been destroyed by the recent bog
slide. Only eeven salmon have been kill
ed since it happened.
Frau Bohme, alias Mother Sedan, the
German camp follower who distinguished
herself by giving birth to SOD on the
battlefield while the fight was going on,
has died at GnIlitz. Her boy was chris
tened in the trenches around Paris,
Crown Prince Frederick standing god
father.
Fifty thousand marks have been appro-
priated in the Prussian budget to the de-
velopment of the practical uses of the
Rontgen rays. Prof. friedrich, of Wen
ma announces that he is able by the use
of the rays to find out whether q person
is dead or not.
Lord Dufferin is President of the COM
mittee in charge of the celebration of the
4O0th annivel sary of Cabot's discovery of
North America, which will be held this
year at Bristol, Cabot's homo port.
The walls of Babylon were made of sun
dried brick. They are said to have been
300 feet high and wide enough at the top
for from three to five chariots to drive
abreast The material, however, was SO
friable that of these Gigantic structures
not trace now remains.
The walls of the castles built in Eng
land by William the Conqueror were of
remarkable thickness. The Castle of
Hastings and the keep or round tower of
Windsor have walls upwards of 30 feet in
thickness. Such q fertilization was i'm
pregnable against all forms Of attack
then in use.
Miss Kellar is the most phenomenal IL
lustration of what education can accom-
plish. Being blind, deaf and dumb, it
would seem impossible to convey to her
intelligence any information of the out
side world, but means were contrived
and through the sense of touch alone her
mind was amused aud informed. She has
passed the examinations Of Harvard and
with great credit to herself She has as
full knowledge offGreek, Latin, mathe-
mates and the sciences as is common
with young women of her age.