Home Gossip.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 801, 9 May 1876, Page 3

Home Gossip.

(From the ' News.') Sir William Don has found a successor. A friend at Richmond tells me a live Irish baronet, a Harrovian, who weats the Crimean, Turkish, and Indian mutiny medals, the Sardinian Order of SS. Maurice and Lazare, the Grand Cross of | the Legion of Honor, and the Iron Cross of Germany, appeared there recently aa

an actor, and is now fulfilling an engagement somewhere else. "We are glad to learn that he is a good actor, and pays his weekly visit to the " treasury " with praiseworthy punctuality. Mimetic power is not incompatible with blue blood. It is not known who that horseman was of whom the story is told that he tumbled into a ditch while out with the Ward Union Staghounds near Dublin, when the following colloquy passed between two men in pink : — " Who's that in the mire ?" " 'Tis only H , studying the land question !" "So I perceive, but he doesn't seem to be able to get beyond fiarity of tenure V We have all heard, and heard rather much, of the " Protestant Boys " of Ulster, but we did not know that there were Protestant babies in that riotously religious community. An advertisement in a Belfast paper, however, informs us that a situation as nurse is wanted " by a respectable young woman, aged twenty, four, whose infant is five weeks old, and is a member of the Irish Church !" "Members of the P.E." must no longer be associated with sporting " publics," rough company, land vigorous "sets-to" between Conky Bill and the Porky One. In the present day those initials are indicative of everything that is pleasant and refined ; " Members of the P.E," Bimply signifies members of Prince's Eink. The latest novelty is a lottery, in which the prizes are roomy and neatly constructed vaults. We met a friend in the Strand the other day who had won one, with accommodation for six coffins. He was as mournfully happy as the man who had drawn the ticket for the elephant in the raffle. An extraordinary case of Bhooting came before the Atherstone magistrates the other day. William John Portman, nine years old, son of a miner at Austrey, in his parent's absence loaded his father's gun, and, in firing at a bird in the garden, shot his brother, only two years old, dead. The lad then deposited the body beneath the stairs in the house, after which he coolly took up a book and sat reading by the fire. He at first denied having killed the boy, but ultimately confessed that he did it accidentally. He was discharged. Admiral Bous, in a letter, refers to the naval catastrophes of the last five years, and which have been singularly remarkable for the ignorant indifference to avoid danger and an apathy and want of energy to attempt to save the ship. These accidents, he believeß, will occur again and again, owing to the want of seamanship, which cannot be in a worse state, and to the faulty education of the young officers. Most of our skips of war, built at an enormous expense, are, he declares, failures. His theory is that no ships of war should exceed 4500 tons, which can carry guns to penetrate any armour a sea-going ship can carry. To regenerate the navy, and to make young officers, seamen, a flying squadron of small sailing ships should be constructed. They should be kept always on the move, visiting every port on both sides of the Atlantic. If they can work and manoeuvre well under canvas they will have no difficulty under steam. In this squadron midshipmen should serve their first three years, and work with the mizentop men so as to be taught the duties of a seaman. His Eoyal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has been appointed to the command of Her Majesty's ship Sultan, and will shortly proceed in that ship on his three years' cruise. The Admiralty haß ordered a new claBS of vessel to be built at Pembroke Dockyard to be called the Iris. This ship is intended especially for a seagoing cruiser with full sail power and the greatest possible speed under steam. She will be built of steel, and will have double screw engines of 7000 horse-power. Her tonnage will be 3963 tons, and she will carry ten guns of heavy calibre. A " general congress of the women of Germany " has been held at G-otha. Addresses were delivered calling on German women to unite and struggle for their rights, especial reference bing made to the practice of medicine. On the motion of a gentleman present, a resolution was carried condemning the present style of women's dress. The Cambridge University Union have resolved, by 40 votes to 19—" That the proposed adoption by Her Majesty of an Indian title deserves the waimest approval of the country, as tending at once to gratify that portion of her empire and to strengthen the ties that exist between it and the English nation." The 'Times' has given Mr Gladstone credit for being the only living statesman who can fell a tree with the skill of a trained woodman. Certainly he has demonstrated his capacity for cutting down upas-trees and other cumberers of the ground. But he has a rival in the present Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the art of handling an axe. Unless his hand has lost its cunning Bince his father's death, or unless he has disposed of the fine collection of axes he used to keep at Knowsley for practical use, Lord Derby could contend more successfully with Mr Gladstone as a woodman than as an orator. If beaten at this, he might challenge him to jump, with the certainty of proving the more agile of the two. Indeed, our Ministers and ex-Ministers of State could hold their own in manly sports, if pitted against adepts who are distinguished in no other way. The Opposition could send forlh a champion bicycler and rinker in Mr Lowe j while the Government has in the Marquis of Salisbury an excellent performer on the bicycle. As a salmon-fisher and billiardplayer Mr Bright excels most of his colleagues and opponents in Parliament, and might contend with success against members of the public who have considerable reputation at both fishing and billiards, In cripket, (shooting, »nd

hunting the members of both Houses of Parliament would not be easily matched. No legislative assembly in the world contains bo many men of varied and exceptional talents as the Parliament of United Kingdom. Among other things that recur with almost provoking regularity are " faßting girls." About once in eighteen months on an average the public are awe-stricken with the intelligence that some girl, not from necessity but choice, has adopted the principle of total abstinence in itß entirety, and refrains from taking any sustenance whatever. One of these abstemious young women is, it is stated, at present to be seen at the village of Culcheth, near Leigh, in Lancashire, where, as usual, her habits of self-denial excite "considerable curiosity and wonder." Five years ago, when only eleven years of age, she gave up both eating and speaking, and until last week remained speechless. She has now recovered her conversational powers, and has also unclosed her eyelids, which for ten weeks previous to the recovery of her voice she had been unable to open. Her appetite does not seem to have yet returned ; but if ehe is well in other respects, this need give no cause for anxiety, and, indeed, will be rather an advantage than otherwise, for, like moat fasting girls, she is of " humble origin." Under any circumstances, it is to be hoped that no attempt will be made to test the genuineness of the phenomenon by keeping watch and guard over the afflicted damsel. It is but a little while ago that one of these fasting girls died of starvation, owing to her being surrounded by a band of sentinels, and thus compelled to fast in earnest. Perhaps the best thing to do with fasting girls is to place food within their reach, and not to ask what becomes of it.