Cliptomania.

Evening Star, Issue 6913, 28 May 1885, Page 4

Cliptomania.

A remarkable incident is reported from Arlingford, a town in County Kilkenny. The occupants of a house were alarmed by hearing cries issuing from the chimney, and eventually a young man was extricated from it when on the point of suffocation. He then confessed that having been forbidden to make bis addresses to the daughter of the house, he determined to get into her bedroom by means of the chimney. Mounting to the roof, he entered the chimney, but his progress was presently obstructed by some pieces of timber, and a fall of soot almost suffocated him. He cried out, arid so aroused the occupants of the hause. A party of mou visited the house of a farmer named Moriarty, at Barlymount, at a late hour on March 19, one pf whom entered with a loaded gun and demanded the voting paper, which was issued last week, for the coming election of poor law guardians for the K Blarney Union, there being two candidates—a Conservative and a Nationalist —for the Aghadue division. The farmer’s wife hesitated, when one of the party threatened to blow her brains out if she did not show then: the paper. The woman then produced the document, which bad not been filled up, and she was warned that if the Nationalist was not voted for they would return and carry out tiieir threat. Four men, named Cronin, Kennedy, Moriarty, and Sullivan have been arrested on suspicion. Several farms in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have recently been let at enormous reductions in rent, in some cases over 50 per cent, below the average of recent years. In Lincolnshire a farm which up to ISS3 was taken at a rental of H 3s Gd per acre lias now' been let by auction at Pis per acre. A remarkable change has been witnessed in the hotel system of London of late yours, The old-fashioned hotels are gradually giving place to buildings of great dimensions and novel appointments. A recent example of this new order of things is seen in the Army and Navy Hotel, in Victoria street, Westminster. This great structure is fitted with every convenience that modern science has placed at the disposal of the builder aud

decorator. Attached to the hotel, ar<j splendid .Turkish, and swimming baths, billiard and banqueting-rooms, and a bureau for booking seats at the theatres. Each bedroom is fitted with a fire-escape, and in all the corridors are fire-hydrants supplied with water at high pressure. The electric light is laid on in every part of the building, including the kitchens and larders at the top of the hotel. The rooms look out upon a well-wooded garden. There are suites of rooms entirely enclosed by doors opening on to the corridors, so that families may reside there for any length of time in the enjoyment of every home comfort and of the strictest privacy. Society in Vienna and Pesth is eagerly discussing the dispensation which has been granted by the Pope regarding the mixed marriage of two persons, both well known in Vienna—namely, an officer in the Hungarian army, Baron Popper, who is of the Jewish persuasion, and the Roman Catholic Countess Blanche Castrono, whose mother, under the name of Madame Marcheao, was for some years a teacher of singing in Vienna, and now lives with „ her daughter in Paris, and can count theatrical vocalists of worldwide fame among the number of her pupils. The Pope, after one year’s consideration, has decided that the Baron and the Countess may effect a legal marriage in the Catholic Church without the Baron changing his faith ; but the children, if any, must be brought up as Catholics. The ceremony will take place in Paris ; but, in the, view of some eminent lawyers, the marriage will be illegal in the bridegroom’s country, as the law of Hungary prohibits marriage between Jews and Christians.

Von Moltke, a few days previous to his departure south, left the Reichstag at an unexpected hour, and, failing to see his carriage, called to the driver of a first-class drochke to take him to the “ General Staff.” On alighting he had hardly opened his purse to pay his fare when the cabby whipped up his steed, and, hastily making off. exclaimed to the astonished man of precision : “I fully appreciate the honor, Herr Field-Marshal!” The thinker of battles, however, had conscientiously taken the cabby’s number on entering, and through this means could soon ferret out the magnanimous and patriotic Jehu, to whom, before leaving Berlin, he sent his photograph with the autograph dedication: “To his cabman, March 9, ’85.”

The period of General Massy’s command in India has expired. He gave over the Gwalior command after having at last brought the redoubtable and sulky Scindia, who so long held aloof from other commanders, to visiting terms with his brigade, “ Redan ” Massy is now in London, deeply disappointed that his volunteer offer of service in the Soudan has not been accepted. He proposed to the authorities to raise a corps of gentlemen guides and troopers for the war ; and it is said that Ireland alone would easily have given him 400 or 500 volunteers, capital riders and good shots, from the junior members of respectable families of the gentry and farmers. England would certainly supply him with as many more.

Cardinal Manning’s article on “Selfishness,” in ‘ Merry England,’ ought_ to be read by everyone. He says “ Selfishness can be brought even into the drawing-room —a young man is selfish and unkind who neglects the ‘ wall-flower,’ and contemptuously refuses to add to the general pleasantness of the entertainment by talking and making himself agreeable to those whom fortune, age, or circumstances have only been too conspicuously neglected. He is more than selfish, he is unkind and illbred.”

The memoirs of the Countess of Castiglione arc to be published in a few days, and some very curious, if not singular revelations will no doubt be made. They will be read quite as eagerly in London as in Paris, for the Countess who captivated the French Emperor thirty years ago, when a widow of twenty, is as well known in London—by repute at all events—as in the French capital. She still lives in Paris. Although now fifty years old at least, she continues to lead a most eccentric existence, and slums the public gaze. The blinds of her apartments are continually closed. She never goes out except in a brougham, with care-fully-drawn curtains. Whenever she goes to the theatre she sits concealed in a back seat of a proscenium box. A Fijian cannibal of fifty years ago would have felt himself disgraced by sucli disgusting brutality as was exhibited by a laborer named Thomas Chambers. The tale as unfolded before a Loudon police magistrate gives a terrible picture of the sort of life wnich many a poor woman endures. Having met her husband coining from a publichouse, they returned home together, whereupon, disdaining the otter of the key, the savage kicked in the panels of the door. When the wife had entered the brute rushed in, and, having seized her, kept knocking her down, lifting her up again each time by her hair. He also put his right foot on her chest, while with the left he kicked her about the ribs and body until she became insensible. When she recovered consciousness she got up and dragged herself into the passage, where she met her husband coming from the kitchen. Without saying a word, he clutched her by both ears and drew her towards him. He then gnawed her nose clean off.

YVhcn it is considered that Roberta only won the billiard championship by the narrow majority of ninety-two points in 3,000, it must be owned that he very nearly did not win it at all. And yet, if Cook had been successful, what an anomalous position his would* have been. Champion of billiard players, and yet matched to receive 2,000 in 12,000 from another cueist! The fact is that the billiard championship is not necessarily the championship of billiards at all, so long as championship matches are played on a special table, wliich, after all, is not a billiard table, as generally understood.— ‘ Truth.’

Sir Henry Taylor used to cram Cunning, and Sir James Stephen to cram the late Lord Derby, even writing some of his best speeches for him. Lord Derby’s forte, was ignorance of things in general. Sir Henry Taylor says: “ His skill as a debater enabled him to do without knowledge of his own. He took his topics from his opponents. Of anything of which heknewnothing, let but one view bo presented to him, and he had not the slightest difficulty in presenting another and opposite one ; ami in this way, so far as information was concerned, he lived upon the enemy’s country.” The manner of keeping Sunday in Loudon has greatly relaxed within recent years. Continental travel has incontestably done much to form public opinion in the direction of favoring a less rigorous and less austere mode of spending that holy day. A dozen years ago Sunday dinnerparties were almost unknown in West End families. Now, on the contrary, festive banquets are given on that day in every fashionable square. Garden parties, lawn tennis matches, and outings on the Thames are familiar events on the Metropolitan Sunday. A young couple who went the other day to a church to be married found to their great disappointment that the ceremony could not be performed until two days afterwards, owing to the neglect of the Kegistmr in not forwarding the required notice in time. The young couple had taken and furnished a house, the wedding breakfast was prepared, and all their friends, many of whom had come long distances, wore present. The mortification was increased when, after two days, the brideelect and the bridesmaids attended the church and the bridegroom failed to appear. When the minister, sympathising with the young woman, drove to the residence of the young man, lie found that ho had disappeared, leaving word that he had changed ids mind and would not marry.—London paper. A very amusing but very naughty book is the “ Souvenirs ” of M. Andrieux, late Prefect of Police. They throw marvellously clear “side lights” on police matters in France, and are not calculated to flatter those who are now in high places in Paris. Some of the revelations, backed by documentary evidence, anent “ personages ” now living and flourishing, cannot be precisely agreeable to their feelings—if they have any. Madame de Kalomine, the divorced wife of the Grand Duke of Hesse, who is now known as the Countess Czapska-llomrod, has left Dresden for St. Petersburg, and after a short stay there she is going to Italy, and will probably settle at Florence or Naples. It is understood that a modus' livcndi has been established between the

Countess and her late husband, and that she is toTbeeivea handsome allowance from the Grand Ducal Treasury ; while, on the other hand, all papers and correspondence have been given up, and she undertakes not to return to Darmstadt. The truth of the saying that a demand always follows the supply has received its literal demonstration in Die invention of a clever Frenchman. Knowing the weakness of a certain class of his countrywomen for vitriol as a means of attack or defence, as the case may be, this chemist has invented a pomade which is advertised as a “collo dion ointment, of which a thin coating will cover the skin of the face with firm glazing, on which vitriol has no effect.” The notorious Gladys, of Lonsdale, is again engaged to be married. The Earl de Grey is the fianci,, and it is stated that the Earl of Durham will be “ best man.” Her ladyship is sister to the Earl of Pembroke, is twenty-five years of age, and has a little daughter four years of age. Earl de Grey is seven years her senior, and is the son and heir of the Marquis of Ripon. Of the numerous poems written on the death of General Gordon,' this is the shortest and much the best: — FOR TUB GRAVB OP GORDON. •‘I had rather be dead than praised.”—C.Q.O. By those for whom be lived, he died ; his land Awoke too late, and orowned dead brows with prais He, ’neath the blue that burns o’er Libyan sand, Put off the burden of heroic days There, strong by death, by failure glorified, 0 never proud In life, lie down in pride 1