GOSSIP AND NOTES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9835, 18 September 1897, Page 8

GOSSIP AND NOTES.

fun Prince of Wales has deserted Hornburg, it seems, and intends this year to take the waters at Maricnbad instead. Perhaps he will g«t less mobbed there. Lord Bowen used to have a good story of the Prince at Homburg. His Royal Highness had a dog with him there, and the dog did not follow Inn Koyal master as closely to heel as he mipjht. "The Prince of Wales's dog," said L-ord Bowen, "was the only person in the place who did not run after his Royal Highness."

A mciiriA' esteemed midwife at Stolfe, in Germany, celebrated lately a singular feast. Sho had just assisted the birth of the 6000 th child to which she had given her services, and, in honour of that event, she invited all the children whom she had helped to come into tho world to her country house to partake of a banquet. Very many bij; and little children accepted tho invitation, passing a pleasant afternoon. When they left in the evening they made a torchlight procession past their benefactor's house, and then took the train to Berlin.

Tug Paris police show a disposition to take advantage oi the popular belief in the occult in the detection of crime. A lady living in the Rue Chanlal recently had a 40f piece stolen from her. She suspected a maidservant, and informed tiie police. The servant denied the theft l>eforo the inspector, who thereupon remarked quite casually that he would consult Mdlle. Conedon—the famous ciairvoyanto—ii> thy matter. Mo did not go to Mdlle. Conedon, but returned in about an hour, saying, in the suspect.'s presence, that unfortunately she had been unable to give the name of the culprit. The thief, however, was to die within six months if ho did not previously restore the money. The servant nearly fainted on hearing this prediction, but still protested her iuuoccnce. .Subsequently she became very ill, and two days later confessed. Her miatrcsH, thinking sho had been suiliciently punished, decided not to prosecute her.

A sort of higheafc record in long-distance reciting haa been achieved by an Italian professor, who has repealed tho whole of the Divine Comedy of Dante, from memory, in a continuous sitting of twenty hour.". He began at aix o'clock one evening, and ended at two on the following afternoon. Ho waa never onco prompted, un<l did not make a single mistake. His audience, or those of them, at least, who were in »at the death, ought to have taken tho higher honours for endurance. Tlio achievement is not absolutely without a parallel. Many yeare ag<», in the dim and distant time, when tnero was a St. Martin's Hall in London, an enthusiast hired that hall, and recited the whole of " 'Paradise Lost," and, we believe, its ecquol, in a serica of sittings. He had the entertainment protty much to himself at the close. If all truths were known, perhaps it would be found that there wae no crowding at the doors of the Italian professor. If Dante conld have foreseen this he would probably have kept a warm oorner in one of tho oircles for bores.

Talkino with a friendly policeman on duty in the jubilee week (says a Home writer) I learn that he, in common with the men of his division, was on uninterrupted service from five o'clock on the morning of Jubilee Day till nine on the next day. Hyde Park was left open throughout the night following Jubilee Day, and the police who usually patrol it were kept up all night. It is part of the police regulations that no man on dtity may withdraw from bis beat in search of refreshment This rule was not varied in jubilee thno, the consequence being that in many cases men were on their legs for twenty-four hours without provision for a meal. My friend the policeman glowingly tells how Baron F. de Rothschild did good by stealth. He will, I fear, blush to find it fame. But the story is worth telling pour encourager let autoei. In the evening, when the gueste Baron Ferdinand had entertained throughout the day had departed from 134 Piccadilly, he sent out into the highways and byways, brought in. all the police within hail, and gave them An excellent meal.

A striking illustration ofthe value of house property in London has been brought under the notice of the South-Eastern Railway Company, who are now engaged in widening their line in its approach to Charing Cross. A firm of biscuit makers, of whose factory a small portion will be cut away by the projected line, named a million and a quarter sterling as compensation for disturbance. The South-Eastern have resolved to vary their pious so as to leave the biscuit factory standing where it did. Another experience awaited them close by Waterloo Junction, where the widening of the line is now approaching completion. There stood in the way of extension a musty little beer shop, the owner of which refused all over* tuxes of purchase. At length he said he ■would go if the Company built for him free of coat a house close by. As the site of the beer shop was indispensable to the scheme of extension, the offer was accepted. Travellers along the line will now see a lordly hotel built within a few yards of where the beer shop stood.

LondoNb not merely London proper, but greater: London (says a Home correspondent), has rarely been so healthy. Wβ have had king drought and a good epell of tropical heat, but these have brought with them no consequent disease. And now the doctors are grumbling with the unanimity of the agricultural classes. But it ie not the low death rate that is their special grievance). What has injured them—it seems strango, «Wt one hears it all up and down Harley street— is the Jubilee. People had not time to get ill, or they had no. time to go to a doctor, or they were obliged to get well quick, or tlioy lot themselves recover naturally. Whatever was the cause the doctors suffered and the death rate dwindlod. The cause probably was that the excitement sustained a hesitating patient, and when tho week or fortnight had slipped by, the small crisis bad been passed. Hospital doctors are familiar with the fact that their services are not so much required in Christmas Meek as before or after it. The same cause leads to tho samo result. The excitement of decorating the wards has a tonic influence. The prospect of the banquet abates the impending trouble. Afterwards, indeed, the doctors may have harder work. This more hopeful view of their prospects does not obtain with what should have been their Jubilee patients. The season ends prematurely - abruptly — definitely. London empties in a week. The patients start for Zertnatt, and the mountain air achieves what the Harley street prescriptions might have failed to effect. The not result of the Jubilee is a saving of the doctors' bills.

The British Central African Gazette contains some interesting particulars of the insensibility of the black man to pain. The writer gives several instances which certainly seem to prove that the coloured man either does not feel pain as acutely as his white brother, or is possessed of a greater amount of endurance. A Makua had his foot amputated. The following day ho was found out of bed, stumping about the hospital floor. A Yao who had three damaged angers removed, stole away next morning to go on a journey of some weeks, using the damaged hand freely. After the bombardment of a slaveraiding chief's capital, some women who had been mortally wounded were seen going about picking up firewood, drawing water, and attending to their physical wants. Next day they had died of their wounds. The children are not different from their parents in proof of which tho writer tells the following story :—A little girl, after having her leg amputated, made her way to a pool, where she eat with the stump dangling in the water, which she splashed over it with he* hands, singing all the time as though nothing were amiss.

Thk King of Greece, when conversing with the members of his family, never employs any but the English language. He seldom speaks French, and only uses Greek when compelled to do so. His Hellenic Majesty draws his own cheques, and a recent writer who once had an opportunity of seeing one' was surprised to find that the Kingsiens himself "Genrgios Chmtianon,« or "George, eon of Christian." The Royal banking awoont ia in the hands of 4a EngtahtnT* I*,1* ,, *' *"* ««* » in

A oKACKFUi, act on the part of Mr Gladstone

and persuaded the leaguer* to visit St. DenioVs Library. There was a meeting held by the leaguers at the lodge gate, and under the circumstances Mr Gladstone's act came in for much appreciative comment. The ex Premier happened to drive near where the assembly was being held, and at once a great cheer was raised in his honour. Several of the leaguers, who happened to know Mr Gladstone, had a brief interview with him.

The revival of the suggestion that a Royal residence should be established in Ireland, saya the Westminster Qazette, may render it of interest to remind the public that as far back as 1821, immediately after the visit of George IV. to Ireland, Daniel O'Connell, in response to a suggestion from the Lord Carbery of the day, offered to subscribe annually a sum of £20 to a fund for the establishment of a Royal residence, and that in 1851 Lord John Russell, speaking in favour of a Government Bill for the abolition of the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy, which was carried by large majorities through the House of Commons, as Prime Minister, promised the speedy consummation of arrangements, which -were then represented as practically completed, for a Royal residence m Ireland.

Little more than six years ago the site now occupied by the fine city of Johannesburg was a mere encampment of canvas tents. At that time Mr Lionel Phillips, one of the principal witnesses before the recent South African Commission, had no idea that gold was likely to be found in the immediate neighbourhood, and when in England about that time looked entirely to somo South African silver mines as likely to 1)2 a source of profit.

When, however, gold was found, Mr Phillips' firm bought land extensively, nob in the immediate neighbourhood of the " finds," as these plots were all at such fabulous prices ; but having carefully calculated tilts direction in which the gold vein would l>9 likely to run, they bought land at a distance from where the- surface workings were being carried on for the proverbial "mere song." They then commenced the deep level working, out of which have sprung the well known Hand mines, which have so largely contributed to the great wealth of Mr Lionel Phillips.

The visit of the King of Siam to England hag led to the publication of the following jeu d'esprit, entitled " What's in a Name ":— I met a man who looked distraught, His hair and dress dishevelled, WJiilat in a hotch-potch strange of words Persistently he revelled. " Somdetch," he cried, " Patindir Ra t Parama Chau M.ibrongee, Varnmadharm Hiraja Phra Pabito Chula Wongse. " Waraktiara Mika Chak Purusiaratua Parabut Rujad Debia Chulalongkorn Ra Hua 1" But here I stopped the breathless man, I own not greatly caring To longer hear what seemed to be More Oriental swearing. "Swearing!" he cried, "indeed you're wrong, You ill-advised inquisitor; I'm only rattling off the names Of our last Royal visitor 1" " Gasangkes Phra," he recommenced With ardour undiminished; "Uhoinklau"—but when we went to press He hadn't nearly finished.