CLIPTOMANIA

Evening Star, Issue 6505, 23 January 1884, Page 3

CLIPTOMANIA

Mr Robert Buchanan's new novel, entitled "Annan Water," which will be published in a few days by Messrs Chatto and Wlndus, has been dramatised by the author. General Butler, who has just been defeated in his candidature for Governor of Massachusetts, has certainly claim to be the bestabused man of his party. One local paper alluded to him lately as an " Oasa of check piled on a pelion of gall."—'Figaro.' According to .' Figaro' the American papers have been trying to marry Mr Archibald Forbes again. Tho rumor that he i. engaged to Mies Meigs, daughter of General M. C. Meigs, of the United States Army, is o ce more revived, and we are now assured tint the union in question is shortly to be consummated.

Preparations are, it is stated, nearly completed for the establishment of a new illustrated paper, to be " run " on the lines of the famous American illustrated magazines, and in opposition to the ' Graphic' and * Illustrated London News.'

A correspondent of the ' Globe ' wishes to introduce the guinea-pig to our notice. He also calls it the domestic cavy. He says that it is an "amusing and intelligent pet," characteristics which its best friends never suspected ; and he further adds that it is " delicious to eat." To eat an amusing and intelligent pet is bad enough, but to eat a guinea-pig is worse. A writer in «Truth ' remarks:—" A party of Mormon missionaries from Utah have been working actively for the la3t six months in the Western counties, and I regret to hear that they have induced quite a large number of persons in the rural districts to join their egregious body. Many ' converts' have already gone to Utah, and a still more numerous contingent have been baptised pending the time when they will be ready to start for the ' Promised Land.' It is lamentable to think that, after the repeated exposures of the Mormonite creed, there still remain in this country people capable of being ensnared by the outrageous fictions of the plausible vagabonds who are regularly despatched to Europe from Utah in search of recruits. In America the humbug of Mormonism has long been so thoroughly exploded that converts are rarely forthcoming except in the persons of individuals whose room would usually be considered to be preferable to their company." Messrs Bournehofer and Fluckigen have offered, according to the New York papers, to cover the whole city of Buenos Ayres With a monster umbrella, to be hoisted when it rains. The citizens will not then need to carry umbrellas of their own. The next scheme, "according to the New York papers," will no doubt be to shoe the whole city with a monster pair of goloshes, to be put on when the ground is damp. The citizens will not then need to wear goloshes of their own. Mr Labcmcliere -writes in 'Truth':—_" I must congratulate the Canadian Methodists upon their good sense in having dropped the word 'obey' out of the marriage service. The idea of the obedience of a wife to a husband is an Oriental one, and is based upon a notion that wives are but little removed from the category of domestic slaves. Why should a wife obey a husband any more than a hußband should obey a wife, I have never discovered. Matrimonial bliss ia founded upon the give-and-take rule."

It is understood that there is little prospect of a settlement in the case of Belt v. Laws, and that the whole of the story will have to be rehearsed again in the law Courts. In the meantime, one of Mr Belt's assistants, Mr Pagliati, whose bust was modelled in Court, has by dint of much brooding over the trial gone clean out of his mind, and was missing for some days. Happily, the unfortunate gentleman was found safe in the Westminster Union Workhouse, and will, it is to be hoped, soon be restored to health.

Samuel Downes, a member of the Birkenhead police force, while chasing thieves along the railway at Tranmere, was overtaken by an engine, and while down on the rails had both his arms taken off, one at the Bhoulder and the other below the elbow. He was conveyed to the Borough Hospital, where he recovered, but was, of course, permanently disabled and almost helpless. Much sympathy was felt for him by the public, and a number of gentlemen undertook to get up a subscription for him, tho result being that the sum of LlO4 was obtained. The Corporation of Birkenhead voted Downes a pension of LI per week for life, and supplied him with a pair of artificial

arms costing L3O. Here are a few recent catastrophes from Monte Carlo:—An Englishman allowed a train to run over his neck; a Russian blew his brains out; a young Bavarian fired two bullets into his chest; a Pole shot himself in the stomach in the middle of the gaming saloon at Monte Carlo, and a well-dressed stranger shot himself in the Hotel dea Empereurs at Nice; a merchant poisoned himself at the Hotel de la Gare at Cannes ; an Austrian of distinguished family, at Vienna, blew out his brains in a shed in the Rue Segurane, Nice ; a lawyer thiew himself from the top of tho Rauba Capeu into the sea, at Nice; a German officer shot himself in the ear; a Hollander poisoned himself with laudanum, and another Dutch nobleman put an end to his life with his pigeonmatch gun, in the garden of his villa at Monaco ; a widow, aged fifty-five, poisoned herself with laudanum at the Hotel des Deux Mondes, Nice—she hid sold her last jewel to endeavor to recover her losses at Monaco ; a German shot himself in the chest on a seat, a few steps from the casino, and an Englishman hung himself on a fig tree on the St. Pons road ; a gentleman shot himself before the Cafe" de Paris, close to the casino, and a young Russian shot himself close to the casino. A young Englishman of fortune—a masher, and also, journalists say, a poet and athlete —has gone off his liead about Mary Anderson, and pushes his passion to eccentricity. He has the fancy to pay court in the disguise of a bard, and nightly, much to the diversion of a crowd, he haunts the stage door in a troubadour dress, with his flute for a lute. He never tells his love, but lets concealment detain him around tho corner till the lady trips forth to her carriage, and then our pinchbeck Petrarch strikes up tho saddest of sad serenades. The first night he started this demonstration he advanced, after the lamentation, and offered a valuable bouquet, but the fair Mary graciously declined, and now the courtier simply kneels, as the lady drives off, and breathes his soul in song. A curious coincidence has been pointed out by the ' Whitehall Review.' It was on September 29, 1833, that Queen Isabella asoended the throne of Spain. On September 29, 1868, King Alfonso's mother had to fly, and took refuge in France. It was also on September 29 that King Alfonso met, at the hands of the French mob, with the insult which was all but attended with serious consequences. _ Dr Murphy made an exhaustive report to the Sanitary Committee of the vestry of St. Pancras, upon the recent outbreak of enteric fever ra Camden Town. He states that in six wrieks 431 persons, in 276 houses, were attacked, of whom Bir.ty-two died. Ihe preater"number of theße consumed milk supplied by one dealer. To this source the doctor, who has examined the farms from which the milk came, has no hesitation in attributing the epidemic. Grays and fawn color are the prevailing style, but look cold for the season, therefor* relieved by a bunoh of colored ribbon.