Lady Holmesdale’s property was tied up by her old father (whose whole thoughts were given to this end, and who was in the habit of carrying his will on his person) to such a degree that in the event of her death her husband can only derive a very slight benefit from his wife’s property beyond the insurances which may have been effected on her life.  She is childless, and has very precarious health.  Her principal seat is Linton Park, near Maidstone, Kent, in which county she is the largest landowner.  In the event of her dying without issue, her estates pass to the son of Major Fiennes Cornwallis, who was second son of the late Mr. Wykeham-Martin by Lady Holmesdale’s elder half-sister.

A cousin of Lady Holmesdale, Miss Cornwallis, the last representative of a third branch, died some years ago.  This lady, who possessed rare literary and social acquirements, bequeathed her property to Major Wykeham-Martin, who thereupon changed his name to Cornwallis.  The major, a gallant officer, one of those of whom Tennyson says,

  Into the jaws of death
  Rode the six hundred,

only survived the Balaklava charge to die a few years later through an accident in the hunting-field.  “A fine, modest young officer,” was Thackeray’s verdict about him, when, after dinner at “Tom Phinn’s,” a noted bachelor barrister of eminence whose little dinners were not the least agreeable in London, the story of that famous ride had been coaxed out of the young militaire, who, if left to himself, would never have let you have a notion that he had seen such splendid service.  The only Cornwallis now left is Lady Elizabeth, granddaughter of the first marquis.

NOVELTIES IN ETHNOLOGY.

Two savants of high reputation have lately undertaken to seek out the origin of that German race which has just put itself at the head of military Europe.  One is Wilhelm Obermueller, a German ethnologist, member of the Vienna Geographical Society, whose startling theory nevertheless is that the Germans are the direct descendants of Cain!  The other scholar, M. Quatrefages, a man of still greater reputation, devotes himself to a proposition almost as extraordinary—­namely, that the Prussian pedigree is Finn and Slav, with only a small pinch of Teuton, and hence, in an ethnographical view, is anti-German!

That M. Quatrefages should maintain such a postulate, his patriotism if not his scientific reputation might lead us to expect; but that Obermueller should be so eager to trace German origin back to the first murderer is rather more suprising.  Obermueller’s work embraces in its general scope the origin of all European nations, but the most striking part is that relating to Germany.  He holds that, from the remotest era, the Celto-Aryan race, starting from the plain of Tartary, the probable cradle of mankind, split into two great branches—­one the Oriental Aryans, and the other the Western Aryans, or Celts.