SOCIAL GOSSIP FROM HOME.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7526, 16 April 1890, Page 6

SOCIAL GOSSIP FROM HOME.

Arqits CmresponSeni.

LONDON, February. 2L The adulation offered by bis votaries to theG.O.M. is as nothing td the worship which is beginning to be paid among Unionists to Mrßalfour. A new sect has just been founded among the "exquisites and elegants of society* called 'The Souls, and haviog as its leading tenet the worship of "Arthur Balfoar"-ao they lovingly calj him. Lady Granby, the Duchess of Portland, and Mr and Mrs-Frederick Myers are among the leading " souls. They are always bringing out portraits of Arthur Balfour's head and shouldery m blurred dry-paints or still more blurred photographs. The pretty women of position are flocking into the society, but the trouble is to get in acceptable men. Not that Mr Balfour is without a host or male admirers; but these are mostly of the electioneering-agenttype. His lackadaisical figure, and the affectation of nations, " rile " the ordinary—and jealous —man of society, however much he may admire the " Tiger-Lily's " public conduct. Mr Balfour is at that stage of his career when those whom, he has passed in the race think of him as the dandy whom they knew when he was comparatively a nobody, rather than as the dauntless, resourceful champion of their ideas. Some time ago I reported that the actors and actresses who had been for a long time settled on the fringe of society were • all being relegated to the Bohemia whence they came, it would now seem as if certain petted and favoured children of Israel were to be deprived of some of their high estate, fne Prince of Wales, who has become suddenly serious, seems to have taken an aversion to the fashionable Hebrew coterie in question. This is cruel, as he was for a quarter of a century a father unto them. Ie appears that he did not mind his old friends, who possessed the polish which comes of contact with affairs and men,but it is some of their offspring of the second generation whose advent he resents. He was quite angry, the other day, that, at a committee meeting of the Mariborough Club over which he presided, a boy was actually elected whom he meant to be rejected. His fellow committee-men had sinned all in ienorance. The boy's family had immortalised B.R.H. in bronze at an expense ot £10;000 to themselves. The committee-men thought they could do nothing more pleasing to Royalty than to elect to the club another member of this munificent family. But no, the Prince tnougat that the line should have been drawn at the original generation. It is doubted, however, whether the Prince's disfavour will have any marked effect. The care which it is necessary for Mm to observe in order to maintain his health is- unfavourable to the continued exercise of society influence. The death oiLord Lamingfcon (BaillieCochrane) leaves the Duke of Rutland the solft survivor of the Young Euglaud party. It has been the fashion to laugh at that party, but it was undoubtedly a serious political force in its day. Its existence and that of the Chartists were such serious obstacles to the middle-class liberalism of Cobden and Bright, that it is a wonder that those stiitenmen ever succeeded in establishing their principles even for a time. The Young England movement was a protest against tue eternal domination of the unlovely in politics and economics. If the most rough-going state-socialist of the day were to put himself through a course of the political literature of forty years ago, he would find himself much more in sympathy with the Young Englanders than with the Manchester men. In person, Lord Lamington was tall and stately, pompous in manner and self-conscious, bub well-bred and sympathetic In politics he. bored people by descanting on topics which lacked actuality, such ai the Euphrates Valley - question — whatever that may be—but on social matters he had a mine of curious and interesting infor mation. He could tell you how many admirers each great lady of the century had •favoured, what was the exact modus operandi of every nobleman who had indulged in card-sharping or kleptomania, how every ruined family of the aristocracy had gob through its acres. All the great people of the century were arranged and labelled in his' mental museum, and he was .never at a loss in descanting on the treasures of his mind. I pace stayed in a house with him, and the chief impression which he left upon my mind—for there was an ecclesiastical and theological element in the pprty—was his intense hatred of low-church Christianity. Indeed, one of the most trenchant of his many pamphlets was against Exeter-hall. Poor Mr Joseph Gillis Biggar, once the bile noire of the Commons, has died amidst expressions of universal regret. 16 was Punch which made him a popular, figure, or rather inoculated the public with the liking, which had long been prevalent among all whose business lay in the Par-liament-building. "Toby M.P." was always recording imaginary conversations between himself and "Joey B."; and Mr Harry Furniss hardly ever did a caricature in which thehigh shoulders, roun Jed back. horned glasses, ; and sharp features of Joseph Gillia were not to be somewhere discerned. I was talking about him a short time ago to a red-hot Irish Tory M.P., who told mc that there was no one he liked better, or enjoyed* a.chat with more, than this relentless but sincere and kiudly enemy of nle class. The common bond whicn first united.them.was a jealousy for the purity of Irish butter. At that time the names of " oleo-margerine " and " margerine" had not been invented; and everything ' falsely called butter was technically known as " bosh-butter." Mr Biggar and his Tory friend made war. on besh-butter in and out of Parliament, always hunting iv couples and seconding one another in speech. At last toe great day came when they were enabled to arraign the miscreants who made " boshbutter" before the Commons of England. Mr Biggar wound up the debate in a convincing speech, which- was listened to with that respectful sympathy which the House shows to every man when he is talking of what he really understands, cheers gieeting the orator as he [resumed his seat. The; next order of the day happened to be a bill for increasing the Episcopate by the splitting np of the older dioceses, and appointing to the new districl&a subsidiary k iid of bishop with no seat in the Upper House, no palace, , no cathedral, and very little salary. Biggar was at once ononis legs. '* Mr Speaker, I object," (a confused cry of rage rose from all parts of the House.) Joey on butter was all well enough,; bat how dare he intervene in a question of the internal government of the Anglican church ? He stood out the storm with his usual doggedness, and then he began again, "Mr bpeaker," this appears to mc to be a bill for creating bosh-bishops." The rest of his sentence was drowned in shouts of laughter; and, in return for his unexpected joke, was allowed to finish his little speech in peace—albeit, the bill was thereby killed for the session. Mr Biggar possessed a beautiful seat—Butterstown Castle, near Waterford—and he sometimes talked of re-decorating it in the aesthetic style, forming a great establishment, and entertaining the Gladstonian aristocracy in style; but.as a matter of fact, he remained the plain northern tradesman to the end, never even getting so far into the ways of the world as to purchase a suit of dress clothes. He died a martyr to his temperance principles. Feeling very weak and ill the evening before his death, but being bound to remain and " tell" in the division, he tried to sustain himself by drinking five tumblers of pure water, firmly -resisting the entreaties of his friends to mix some of the national beverage therein. It is believed that he knew he would see St. Stephens no more, for it was noticed by Speaker Peel that as he approached him after the division with the numbers he bowed low with unwonted solemnity and courtesy, as if takingleaveof the visible impersonation of that institution which had been for so long his only world. The Speaker was much touched at the news of his death. It seems strange that' this poor old soul—this extinct volcano— whose disappearance -hardly ranks as a political event, once had Charles Stewart Parnell as his humble henchman and lieutenant,