Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/97

 ii8.xn.ji-LY3i,i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

89

I should like to know the scientific name of this plant, together with the reason whj- no plant will grow under it.

Li J. A. S. Collin de Plancy's ' Diction naire critique des Reliques et des Images miraculeuses,' 1821, torn. i. p. 102, we reac as following about St. Bruno of Chartreux :

" On raconte encore aujourd'hui qu'en son monas tre de Calabre, a la place on il reposait ses membres fatigues par la contemplation, il ne croit point d herbe, dans tout 1'espace qu'occupait son corps quoiqu'il y ait tout k 1'entour une belle verdure. Here, doubtless, the weeds keep from growing on the hallowed spot not from " antipathy," but from " sympathy " which they entertain towards the saint.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

DISRAELI'S LIFE : EMANUEL (US. xi. 301 390, 477; xii. 18). I think the social adroit- ness of Mr. Harry Emanuel worthy of a few more details. He made a large fortune as a jeweller in Bond Street, and his first step towards getting out of his business was taken in 1858 when he invited Mr. E. H. Streeter to become a partner. The firm of Emanuel & Streeter made so much money by the purchase of the first output of gems from the new Kimberley diamond fields that in 1872 Mr. Harry Emanuel sold out to Mr. Streeter, and devoted himself entirely to the social ambitions of himself and his wife. His only son had died in 1870, and he spent a few years in travel. In 1874 he purchased a Portuguese title, that of Baron de Almeda (or D' Almeda), and in 1878 he settled down in Paris. He sold his London house at 11, Hyde Park Gardens, leased a big house in the Rue Balzac, and started life anew. His next coup was to get himself appointed in 1880 as Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of San Domingo in Paris. There was no salary. The Baron's big house was the Dominican Legation, and the Baron maintained the whole staff out of his own pocket. When the Paris Exhibition of 1889 was being organized, the French authorities were anxious that San Domingo should be represented. Tha mulatto re- public had no money to waste on these things, and so the Baron de Almeda paid the entire cost of the pavilion and the stocking of it with the products of San Domingo. As he had never been in the Republic of the Caribbean in his life, his conduct was the more public- spirited.

But the Baron had his reward. As a member of the diplomatic corps he received invitations to all the great functions of State, and he obtained the entree to the most

exclusive Paris clubs and houses. As a Minister for San Domingo his social position was as unquestionable as that of any other Minister, and as he was rich enough to entertain largely, he moved in the best circles. The Baron professed to be a free- thinker, which probably enabled him, al- though an English Jew, to accept and to wear the Spanish Order of St. Isabella the Catholic and the Portuguese Order of Christ, In 1893 diplomatic relations were suspended between the French Republic and San Domingo, owing to some alleged ill-treatment of a French citizen. The Baron de Almeda was inconsolable. He was no longer a diplomat, and the official invitations ceased. He thought of moving to Brussels, and tried to get the Dominican Government to accredit him to Belgium. But something interfered to prevent this idea. The Baron did not take his passports and leave Paris. He stayed on, and when, three years later, the differences between the two republics were composed, ho resumed his post as Dominican Minister. Ho died in 1898, and there was some litigation in the English courts as to his property in this country. The question was whether he was a British subject, a French subject, or a subject of San Domingo, since his house was, by the fiction of extra-territoriality, a por- tion of that country. The English courts de- cided that he had never lost his British nationality. His widow died at their house in the Rue Balzac, Paris, on 28 March, 1904. Her death notice in The Times describes her as " Rosalie de Almeda, widow of the late Baron de Almeda, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Dominican Republic in France."

R. S. PENGEULY. 12, Poynder's Road, Claphara Park, S.W.

THE STATUES OF LONDON (US. xii. 27). In compiling the nucleus of this list of statues I, wisely or unwisely, set out with the intention of confining myself to those which were placed in the open air. Hence my omission of the statue of Wm. Huskisson and many others. I am grateful to SIB WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK for his note of its removal, which furnishes me with an item of information I lacked.

JOHN T. PAGE.

SELINA BUNBURY (US. xi. 417). Selina 3unbury was the daughter of the Rev. H. 3unbury by Henrietta Eleanor Shirley, daughter of the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, ancestor of Earl Ferrers.

HENRY A. JOHNSTON. Kilmore, Richhill, co Armagh.