ENGLISH AND FOREIGN CLIPPINGS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4001, 18 June 1870, Page 6

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN CLIPPINGS.

A STRANGE STORY. One of tLe Paiis journals announces the death, at Versailles, of a Russian lady who appeared in the drawing-rooms of Paris in 1848 and 1849, and was nicknamed the • ' Dame a la Cle f . " She died, aged forty-five, in the most complete solitude. It is said that her husband, who was much older than she, cauie to see her for a week or two every six months, and went away again no oue knew whither. All was mysterious about this Lady of the Key. Last month the husband did nob return as usual, bub a letter came announcing his death. The widow survived him a few days only, and it is supposed she allowed her&elf to die of hunger. Whether true or not, this was the story that was whiapei ed about her when she appeared in Paris, young and beautiful, more than twenty years ago. It is said that her husband sui prised her, in a little countryho se which he possessed near Moscow, at the moment she was hastily shutting somebody up in a wardrobe. A servant had betrayed her. The Muscovite Othello turned the key twice in the wardrobe, took it out, then told his wife to follow him. A travelling britzka stood a few paces from the villa. More dead than alive, the unhappy woman obeyed. When the husband had placed her in the carriage, and given an order in a low voice to the coachman, "Keep th s key," he said to his wife: "I have forgotten something, and will return," and then went ba k to the house. He returned according to his promise, but; as the carriage descended the hill the poor woman saw the flames issuing from the wiadows of the country house and taking full possession of it. She fainted away, and on rega ning her senses perceived that a gold chain was riveted round her neck, to which the little key of the wardrobe attached. She M'ished to kill hereslf, b.it her husband threatened that if she committed suicide he would revea^her misconduct and cover her and her family^withjdisliouour. She was, therefrue, -condemned to live, and her strange necklace excited much curiosity in Paris At last her tyrant-" allowed her to retire into a quiet retr at on the express stipulation that she would not attempt to destroy herself dnri ig kis lifetime. His death released her from this condition; but she had languished for more than twenty years, having the witness of her guilt always before her eyes. It is a curious story ; we wonder whether it is true ?

MK. BRIGHT ON PUBLIC SPEAKING Mr. E. Potter, M.P., presided at the meeting of the Carlisle Debating Club. In opaaing the proceedings, ha said that on one occasion, $ h\n (Mr, Fotter'a) own dinner

table, he heard Mr. Bright say, " The whole son-icof effective speaking is Jiere — ot com^e if you mean to speak, you inustfirst know what you arc going to say ; and when you have resolved on that, the next point is to speak very deliberately-;— every word, in fact every syllable, should be expressed." Mr. Bright added, " If you do ■ thi3, and if you have matter worth listening to, you will be listened fco, and you will acquire a confidence and ease you won't; acquire in any other way." That he (Mr. Potter) thought good advice, and he was sorry they could not at all times attend to it, because one was sometimes in the habit of slurring over one's speaking, under the idea that the aadience were getting impatient.

FANNY FERN ON THE SOCIAL QUiSTION. "Now, I am a Government clerk, witli two hundred a year, and yet my wife expects me to dress her in first-class style. What would you advise me to do — leave her ?" Those words I unintentionally overhead in a public conveyance. I went home, pondering them over. "Leave her?" Were you not to blame, sir, in selecting j» foolish, frivolous wife, and expecting her to confine her desires, as a sensible woman ought and would, within the limits of your small salary ? Have you, yourself, no " first-class 1 ' expenses, in the way of trips, dinners, and cigars, which It miiflit be well for you to consider while talking to her of retrenchment ? Did it ever occur to you that under all that frivolity, which you admiie in the maid, but deplore and condemn in the wife, there may be, after all, enough of the true woman to appreciate and sympathize with akind, loving statement of the case, in its parental as well as marital relations? Did it ever occur to you that if you require no more from her in the way of self-denial than you are willing to enduie yourself in short, if you were just in this matter, as all hu^band.s are not — it might bring a pair of loving arms about your neck, that would be a talisman amid futuie toil, and a pledge of co-operation in it, that would give wmgtf to effort ? And should it not be so immediately — should you encounter tears and frowns — would you not do well to remember the hundr idw of wives of dissipated husbands, who^through the length aud breadth of the land are thinking — not of ' ' leaving" them, but how, day by day, they shall more patiently bear their bin den, toiling with their own feeble hands, in a woman's restricted sphere of effoit, to make up their deficiencies, closing their eat's resolutely to any recital of a husband's failings, nor asking advice of aught save their own faithful, wifely hearts. 1 ' What course they shall pursue'/ And to all young men, whether clerks or otherwise, we would say, if you marry a humming-bird don't expect that marriage will incontinently convert it into an owl ; and if youhave caught it,andcagedit,v ithout thought of consequence don't, like a cosvard, shrink from your selfassumed responsibility, aud turn it loose in a dark wood to be devoured by the first vulture or beast of prey, — Fanny Fern.

GARDENING IN A GftA-VEYAPvD. An instanccbf how cemeteries ma <• bo turned to good account, and tender reminiscences utilised, is related by one of the Paris papers. A widower, who greatly regretted his wife, had her buried in the" cemetery of Mont Pama33e. Ho p'lfcupno monument of marble or stone ; only a small garden and a very small inscription uiarkgd the spot where his lost partner lay. First some nastuvtiumsweve planted ever the grave — the deceased was fond of nasturtiums — these wore gathered on Sundays and eaten as salad. This attempt having been successful, bolder measures were adppiod, flnd gome little pink iadisb.es grew there as if byeljanpfi. The official in charge of the cemetery said notiuug until last autumn, when he became awaie of the presence of two enormous melons in the little enclosing. This time the police regulations were put in force, and fcbjq new form of maiket-gardeiiing was brought to *v glp$£ by the bereaved husband being requested to withdraw from the cemetery, which he did, complaining bitterly of ci uelty, and saying that he had gp particularly valued tho vegetables giown upon the gfftyp, and eaten them with peculiar satisfaction, because he felt they were offered to him by his Zoe,

YANKEE COMMERCIAL MORALITY. I met an American gentleman the othei day, and we fell to talking about morality in trade lh was admitted on both sides thai American men of bushiGss werpjust a? honest and aa d.shonpst as English men of buglnesis | but, so far as I was concerned, I could no) make out how it was that there seemed tc be more trading scandals in the old than in the new country. " Wall, I'll tell yon how it is, sir," said my American friend ; "my country and yoiiru proceed upon two different principles. fn England, it's reckoned the duty of the sellers to gee that ha does not cheat the bjyers ; in America, it's reckoner the duty of the buyers to see that he isn't cheated. In other words, sir, you look upor the trader who cheats as a rogue ; we look upon the peison v/ho is cheated as a f ol. Consequently, when you are d,o.no pujj of a lot of money you make a great outcry, and have the dishonest pai ties up before a Judge : we, on the contraiy, keep the thing as quid ill we can, not liking to let people know what 'tarwu fool? we've made of ourselves. And let me toll you thai J guesi ourn's the sounder trading principle o£ the two, The buyer's wits are sharpjne^ by it to thai extent that the seller doesn't like to try it on with him, and so becomes honest by compulsion, R3 jfc were." I could not help thinking, whon I cftmo to reflect on the mattei afterwards, that there was ft good deal oi truth in what my American friend had aaid — Cassell's Magazine.

A CALIFORNIA^ INCIDENT. In an artfple some ivhere — I forgot the source or I would name jfc -rl read recently a very good story thai will servo to comfort many a mothei's heart when their children {ire voted tiresome. Some ten years ago a woman in the streets of San Francisco was followed as a curious and pleasant sight. But even scarcer Bfcill were children. At the theatre one evening, whilst the orchestra were performing, a baby was heard to ory in one pai t of the house ; whereupon a man in the uit mounted on his seat and shouted out, "Stop them squeaking fiddles, and let's hoar the baby cry J I haven't heard such a, i blessed sound for years and years." And the fiddles did atop, and the baby did cry, and was rapfcui'ously ancored, to the delight of all except, perhaps, the young performer himself who had thus suddenly brought down the hoiise. This little incident serves to show how differently the same thi gs are regarded under different circumstances. This thought, philosophically considered, woxild help us to put up uth many inconveniences that are now barely tolerable. — Quiver.

A LADY ON MATRIMONY. WLen a girl marries, why do people take of her choice ? In ninety- nine cases out so a hundred, haa she any choice ? Does not the man, probably the last she would have chosen, select her ? .» lady writer says : — " I have been married many years ; the match was considered a good one. suitable in every respect — age, position, and fortune. Every one said 1 had made a good choice. I loved my husband when I married him, because he had, by unwearied assiduity, succeeded in gaining my affections j but, had choice been my privilege, I certainly should not have chosen him. As I look at him in his easychair, sleeping before the fire, a huge dog at his feet, a pipe peeping out of the many pockets of'hia shooting coat, I cannot but tlnnk how different'he is from what I Would have chosen. My first penchant was for a clergyman— he was a flatterer, and cared but little for me, though I have not forgotten the pang of his desertion, My next was a lawyer — a young man of immense talent, smooth, insinuating manners ; but he, too* after walking, talking, dancing, and flirting, left me. Either of these would have been my ' choice,' but my present husband chose me, and therefore I married him ; and this, I cannot help thinking, must be the way with half the married folks of my acquaintance."

The juvenile vagrants of Victoria are being «ncce»rfully formed into * "porter »n<J bootblackface," *