ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

Auckland Star, Volume V, Issue 1300, 24 July 1874, Page 2

ANCHOVIES AND TOAST.

(Prom our own Correspondent.) Lokdon, Jane 2. . THE ROYAL FAMILY QUATIEELS. Probably your readers are not a whit bet* ter than their neighbours in their likes and dislikes, and certainly I am not a scrap more scrupulous than any other newspaper correspondent, so the first thing to be done this month is to give you all the gossip about the Royal Family.» There has been quite a sort of free fight amongst that saintly crew. It-arose out of a question of precedence, and the emeute was first displayed at the drawing- rooms which have lately been held. First of all the Princess Louise has always been a little sore about her Marquis. She can't for the life of her see why she should not have her husband by her side, as the reßt of the family. Then the daughter of the Emperor of all the Russias thinks she ought to rank above certain others whose fathers don't own nearly as many acres ; and so it has come to pass that first one would not attend the levees and then another until people began to ask what was the matter, and the Times came to the rescue with a fearfully and wonderfully - made paragraph, the sum and substance of which amounted to what I told you a mail or two since—that the Duchess of Edinburgh was in a fair way to be brought to bed of a little Dukeling. At this all the other papers pretended to be very much abashed, and metaphorically put up their hands to hide their faces, reminding one thereby of Ovid's line — slightly altered— "they want that covering for another place." ' They were out of their minds with jealousy at the idea of being done out of such a bit of news, and they all said that the announcement was snobbish, and that the Duke wished it to be clearly understood that he had no hand in it. However the mine was sprung, and every one knows now that the Queen is- shortly expecting her twentythird grandchild. When the Czar was in \ England the matter of precedence must have been talked over and settled in some way, for now it is announced that in future the Duchess Marie is to be known as "Her Imperial Royal Highness." What an unctious title ! Piling" it on, isn't it ? So everything is comfortable again—except the Duke of - Edinburgh when he rides on horseback. It is very seldom that he does so, but when he happens to have been perched outside of a quadruped he does look the most unhappy of mortals, and the spectator really becomes quite anxious for him. "fie looks every moment as if he were going to fall off. At the Woolwich review he rode with his father-in-law, the Duke Alexis and ther^ ' ' *~ Wales, all three splendid horseme-n* nTTRTTC contrast was shocking. However, wi -i 7 i remember that sailors are not usually t>. 'T/M&bi equestrians j the only wonder is that hors^Jw manship was not included as part of hi*re§ education in view of the position which he 3K was destined to occupy in the Mature. ~ f" have not yet quite done with the Royal family. It is said that both the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of Edinburgh are newspaper proprietors, and Vanity ■Fair is named as the journal in which they are interested. A sop has been thrown out to the Irish people by the conferring on Prince Arthur of the title of Duke of Connaught. It is also said that he will shortly be made Lord Lieutenant of the siater island, and that the Queen will visit Dublin this year. Whispers are abroad as to the bethrotal of the Princess Beatrice, and almost every eligible sprig of Royalty on -the Contioent has been named, from time to time as the happy man.

SIR EDWIN LANDSEKR's PICTURES. J One of the events of the past month has ! been the sale of the pictures and art collections of the late Sir Edwin Landseer. It was a matter of surprise that the Government did not secure the best of the works of the national collections. Everything passed into private hands, Messrs. Agnew, the picture dealers, being purchasers to the extent of £40,000. The entire sale, which lasted seven days, realised £72,500 THE FLOGGKNG OP A BRITISH VICE-CONSUL at San Jose. ii\ Guatemala, has furnished a S'H]§^9°"*WlLhe affair seems to have been ?*& maniac, who is himself to be v £ed and shot by his own Government ft, ifgee, the vice-consul, has been offered £Jp tO compensation by the Guatemalan £500 aliment, which will help to salve his and of course a public apology and reception will be accorded him. However, he had a very narrow escape of his life, for the mad commandant of San Jose, who had him flogged, would have murdered him if liis soldiers had carried out his instructions. He received two hundred lashes, which was only a moiety of what was intended, and was dreadfully injured. The cause was simply jealousy on the part of the Spaniard, who could not endure that Mr Magee should act independently of him. DREADFUL TRAGEDIES are becoming so common now in England that they scarcely excite a remark, notwithstanding the awful headings with which they are announced by the papers. The last horror occurred at Mile End, and consisted of the murder of an entire family by its head, and his subsequent suicide. The name of the family was Blair. The father was a bricklayer and a drunkard. He had been married 14 years to his wife, and had several children, the eldest a girl of thirteen. In a fit of delirium tremens he murdered the whole lot and then cut his own throat. When the house was entered the entire family were found dead and cold. You will probably consider that you in the colony have had a fortunate escape when I tell you that Blair was contemplating emigration to Auckland, having been chosen by Dr. Featherston as an excellent man for the colonies. Then in Yorkshire there has been another dreadful affair : A young fellow, a discharged soldier of rather intemperate and very violent habits, murdered his sister, a handsome girl of 16, in cold blood, by cutting her throat with a razor one evening whilst the pair were walking in the fields, and afterwards whilst in prison tried to cut his own throat with a piece of tin. These are only conspicuously disgusting. There have been plenty of minor murders and suicides since I last wrote. Kicking one's wife to death is becoming very fashionable, as it is generally found that such a mode of riddance is not attended by any very disagreeable consequences. Six months or so at the outside is what may be expected in the event of the affair being brought home.