"CONCERNING PEACOCKS' FEATHERS."

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 4419, 12 July 1884, Page 4

"CONCERNING PEACOCKS' FEATHERS."

An Amusing Case of Assault,

(FIIOM OCR LOSTDON CORRESPONDENT.)

London, May 23. An amusing case of assault, which resulted in the famous baritono singer, Signor Foli, recovering i'3ol) damages and costs from a young banister named Bradshawe, warf tried before Lord Coleridge and a special jury, in the Queen's Bench Division, on Tuesday. Tho plaintiff, Mr Foley, or Signor Foli a* he prefers to be called, is not only one of our greatest operatic baritones, but a warm-blooded Irishman, n regular " Paddy '" in fact. Last spring he and bid wife were at .Monte Carlo. They stayed at one of the hotels, and lit the table d'h6te, they met an English lady of position named Bmdehawe. A discussion appears to have ai'L-.on one day between tlie ladies touching peacocks and Iheir feathers', and there was a difference of opinion between the plaintiff1* wife and the defendant's mother. Signor Fuli intervened in the discussion to resont whit he thought to be an offensive impeachment of the veracity of his wifo. "Can heavenly minds such high resentment show, and exorcise thoir spite in human woo J" Unfortunately, the frame of mind in which the disputants treated the peacock controversy was not of a very heavenly order. There was not precisely "a(ito,"iisArtemus Ward would say ; but there was an' abundance of hard words all round. Mrs Bradshawo declared that subsequently, when she was peacefully consuming hor soup in tho hotel restaurant, Signor Foli shook his. fist in her face and above her head. She even asserted at the trial that the Signor had on one occasion seized liur by tho shoulders with the view of accelerating her progress down a (light of steps. Tho parties came to England, and Mrs Brndshawo im-

parted her woes, or what slic thought to bo her woes, to her son, Mr George Paris Bradshawo, a barrister. The chivalrous apprentice of the lr»w was moved to dire wrath by the maternal recital. " C'est ma mere ; jo la defend !" ho cried with the poet in " Mourir pour la Patrie." Ho challenged Signor Foli to fight a duel, but the Signor did not see his way towards settling the affciir by the arbitrament of sword or pistol. Mrs Bradsbawe'a son applied in vain at more than one polico court for a summons against Signor Foli for assaulting his mother at Monte Carlo; and finally the.highteinpercd young gentleman, who is a son of a general officer deceased, went down, accompanied by a friend to sco fair, one evening last May, to St. James's Hall, just as a concert was about to commenco, and seeking ontSiguorFoli,"whacked''him,toueevulgar . parlance, with a stick. Thero was only one blow, but it was on the face, and severe. The jury on Tuesday, without leaving the box, found a verdict for the plaintiff, with three hundred and fifty pounds damages. Mr George Augustus Sala, chatting pleasantly about the caso in the "Telegraph," says :—" At the table tPhfite wrangle, it was incidentally mentioned, it eeem.«, by Madame Foli that "people who ktpC peacocks' feathers never had any luck as lone as they lived." Thou something wus «iui about peacocks not being eaten, to which Signor Foli rejoined in an under-tone, " They are eaten." Now if some guest of a mollifying and peacemaking disposition had only suggested that reference should at once bo made to "Notes and Queries" lor an explanation of the old and silly superstition that it is unlucky to keep peacocks' feathers, not only need there have been no feud between the houses of Capulet and Montague —we mean of Foli and Bradshawe—but the correspondents of our "learned, chatty, and useful" contemporary would have revelled for awhile in peacock lore. It might have been pointed out that if the keeping of peacocks' feathers be indeed unlucky, there has been a notable exception to the rule in the case of the famous and amiable blueBtocking and entertainer of young chimneysweeps, Mrs Montagu, who had good luck all her life long, for she married a gentleman of immento wealth, and did not die until sho was eighty six years old, and concerning the mural decoration of whoso drawing-ro.im Cowpor wrote, "Tho birds put off their every hue To drew a room for Montnsn ; Tho pencsck sends his heavenly dyes, Hln rainbows nnd his starry eyes," As respect") the eating of peacocks, about which Signni- Foli got inlo>o much trouble, it mi;;lil huvn been pointed out that Argus wan a favourito di-h with our ancestor*. Tho skin of tho bird with the feathers adhering was tkatoarefullf stripped off. Then Argus was roasted, and when partially cooked was sewn up again in his plnmca ; his beak was gilt, and lie was sent to table. Sometimes the " food for lovers and meat for lords" was stuffed with spices nnd sweet herbs, basfctl with yolk of egg, and served up with plenty of gravy. The noble creature was not. served by common hands. It was brought into hall by the lady guest most distinguished for birth and beauty, music preceding, and other ladies following, the grand roast. At tournament banquots Pavo waa served as a pie, his plumed crost protruding from one extremity of the crust, audhis -'train," in all its glory, from the other. There wero Vows of the Peacock, as thero wero Vows of the Heron. The last English Prince of the Blood Royal who dined publicly on peacock was William IV., when Prince William Henry, but the banquet took place at Grenada, in the West Indie?. The fact is that the peacock moat is, save during two months of the year too tousli for modern digestion. The bird's are hatched about the beginning of November ami from January to the end of March, when the corn is standing, the flesh is remarkably juicy und tender. When, however, the dry season comes the birds feed upon insects and the seeds of weeds. Young peacocks still make an occasional appearance at country gentlemen's tables. All of which information, with much more besides, might have been published for the edification of the good people of Monte Carlo, if they had only referred to " Notes and Queries."