Cliptomania.

Evening Star, Issue 6915, 30 May 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Cliptomania.

The Queen has just received a present from Scotland which might almost be understood to be a reflection upon our present military operations in the Soudan, and our prospective ditto in Afghanistan. It is a handsome little plough, complete, manufactured entirely out of old swords, dirks, ami spears—a very literal way of turning the spear into the plougshare. An extraordinary outrage was peqietrated in St. Paul’s Cathedral on Good Friday. During Divine service, whilst holy communion was being celebrated, a young man named Charles Beere rushed forward and struck the chalice out of the hands of the celebrant. The perpetrator was charged with the offence at the Mansion House, and was remanded on bail, the defence set up being that the defendant was of unsound mind, but subsequently he was committed to prison for a month.

As much as L 7 was paid for a seat in the New York Senate to hear the recent orations on Washington. It is said that of the seventy-six United States Senators, at least thirty-two are professors of religion, including one Jew, one Roman Catholic, and two Unitarians. Of these, sixteen—or just half—are Presbyterians.

The approach of the hot weather in the Soudan, with its night temperature of 75deg, would seem a peculiarly appropriate time to send out 25,000 blankets for the use of British troops. A month or two previously these blankets would have been welcome indeed. Sheets were wanted, but blankets went out.

During a fire which destroyed the Langham Hotel at Chicago recently, a woman jumped from a fourth-storey window and was killed; eight firemen and policemen were buried under the falling walls, and several were fatally injured. Mr Pinero’s “Magistrate,” which has been so favorably received at the Court Theatre, recalls a good if doubtful story of Mr Justice Hogan, of the Tombs, New York —a dignitary whose functions are analogous to those of our own Chief Magistrate at Bow street. One morning there was brought before him a gang of “ down town ” ruffians, charged with a general stabbing and shooting affray in a gambling hell in Bowery. Each of the witnesses told his own partienlar pack of lies, until Mr Justice Hogan fairly lost patience, and addressing a witness who was evidently a bigger liar than his predecessors, asked sternly, “ Does the Court understand you to say that Murohy did not draw his knife until Dwyer had drawn revolver?” “Right you are, Judge,” was the answer. “Then you had better b© careful,” solemnly observed Mr Justice Hogan, “ and so had all the other witnesses; for the Court was there itself the whole time, and the Court saw the business through with its own eyes from start to finish.”— ‘ St. James’s Gazette.’ When three cats, the leader of whom was a black tom, can put a whole family and two policemen at defiance, it is time for the average man to wonder what the world is coming to. Mr Ashton, the occupant of one of the smaller class of “ desirable” villa residences in a London suburb, resented the liberty his tom cat had taken by admitting two feline female friends into the house. Mr Ashton was “very human,” and the noise which the three animals made in their “parleywows” aroused his temper. He endeavored to kick the visitors out, but they and his own domestic pet made common cause and beat him off, so wounded in the strife that he was fain to seek hospital aid. The feline trio then turned on the mother of the gentleman who had taken to flight, and she, too, had to be carried bleeding to the hospital. The cats, still in possession, were then tackled by two stalwart policemen. For a quarter of an hour or so the battle raged furiously, but in the end two of the cats were killed, and the third made its escape.

To most people it will appear strange that the Stipendiary Magistrate of Stoke-npon-Trent refused to convict a herbalist who, when asked by a woman for saffron, which is said to be used for measles, and as a coloring and flavoring ingredient in cooking, gave her savin, which is a drug of a very different chaiactcr, and is, indeed, in the list of poisons. He “stated a case,” however, and the Queen’s Bench Division have decided that there should have been a conviction, and have remitted the matter to him with that view.

Fourteen members of the Gosport Com* pany of the 3rd Hants Rifle Volunteers have been dismissed. It appears that a short time ago they attached their names to a letter addressed to Colonel Mumby, the commanding officer, protesting against the promotion of a comrade to the rank of corporal. At the next drill the commanding oflicer stated that unless the protest was withdrawn he should be compelled to report the conduct of the members who had attached their signatures thereto, and to recommend their dismissal. He, however, gave any individual member the opportunity of withdrawing his signature, which was not taken advantage of, with the result mentioned.