TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 8358, 8 November 1890, Page 1

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[Fbom Oub London Cobbkspondknt.] London, September 19. EXIT ALDEN WESTON. What, one wonders, were Lord Dunlo’s feelings on Friday last as he sat in the well of the court of the Old Bailey and listened to his pretty wife calmly telling the story of her illicit connection with the reckless forger in the dock Alden Weston might well smile evilly at his successful rival. He probably felt that even bis conviction would not be without its drawbacks for Lady Dnnjo. She would prove him a forger, and have him “put safe away.” Certainly; but nothing could obliterate the fact that she had for three years been a felon’s mistress, and was absolutely the mother of two children by him, A new character appeared on the scene during the present trial in the shape of Mrs Weston. This was the woman whom the gay Lothario with the golden moustache, bold blue eyes, and engaging smile deserted in order to take up with Belle Bilton, He treated her shamefully and cruelly, yet when the fair Belle oast him off and the fellow came out of prison penniless, the injured wife returned to him and succored him. She it was whom Weston sent to plead with Lady Dunlo for money, and the two women actually bad an interview. What passed has not transpired, but Weston’s letter imploring her ladyship to receive his wife was read in court. The evidence of Weston’s forgeries of Wertheimer’s and Lady Dunlo’a names given at the Police Court was repeated at the Old Bailey, some expert testimony being added. The well-known expert, Nethercliff, said the imitations of Lady Dunlo’s and Wertheimer’s signatures were both very clumsy forgeries. This appeared to be also the jury’s opinion, for they found Weston guilty without leaving the box. The Recorder then sentenced him to seven years’ penal servitude. As the convict left the dock he muttered some words which sounded like nonsense, but which must have been comprehensible to Lady Dunlo, for she turned very pale and seemed about to faint. There can be little doubt that such affection as the girl felt for Weston has long ago been replaced by a fear amounting to positive physical terror, and that it was with profoundeet relief she assisted to close the prison doors upon him. In this trial, as in the divorce

proceedings, Wertheimer appeared in his favorite role of Lady Dunlo’s guardian angel and “ keyind ” unselfish friend. Ahem ! Lord Dunlo sat by his wife throughout the bearing (save when she was in the witness box) and dangled the ends of bis lavender suede gloves. His face was absolutely impassive, even unintelligent. webrioht’s bankruptcy. The bankruptcy (for the second time) is announced of Mr Arthur Sebright, one of tho chief actors in the famous Soott-Sebright nullity suit, which created such a sensation some years back. Mr Sebright, it will be remembered, inveigled his cousin, Miss “Giddy” Scott, into going through a form of marriage with him in order, it was supposed, to gain possession of her fortune. She left him outside the Registrar’s office, and ultimately, after a lengthy trial, the ceremony was declared invalid. Miss Scott suffered far less from the unavoidable notoriety of thi) disagreeable case than might have been supposed. She soon married a most desirable parti, and is now a happy wife and mother. Public opinion strongly reprehends Sebright’s conduct in the whole matter, and the wretched man was generally cut. Soon afterwards he became bankrupt, and is at the present moment uncertifioated. Nevertheless, Mr Sebright managed to persuade certain people that he was a much injured person, and not long ago married a lady of means and position. At the meeting of the bankrupt's creditors, Mr Rubinstein deprecated proceeding to extremities, as it might prevent any offer being made by Mrs Sebright. Upon this a Mr Coleman asked whether the lady really had any money. Mr Rubinstein: “ She has money, unless he’s spent it all.” CANON LIDDON, One of the most interesting obituary notices of Canon Liddon is that by Canon Mac Coll in the ‘ Speaker ’ of Saturday, September 13, The Canon went a most interesting walking tour in the Balkans with Dr Liddon some years back, and knew him very intimately. “Dr Liddon,” he says, “ was a charming conversationalist —versa-

tilo, brilliant, humorous, argumentative, with always a command of most choice diction. He had great descriptive power in conversation, and had a rare faculty of hitting oli a character by a few strokes. He was also an admirable reconleur, and had great mimetic powers. But his humor had no malice in it. Like sheet lightning, it lighted up without harming the objects on which it played. Those who enjoyed his intimacy cannot think without a sigh of the bright and breezy freshness which will cheer them no more.”

“It has been said in some of the obituary notices of him that Dr Liddon could not preach extempore. That,” Canon Mac Coll tells us, “is a mistake. He was a good extempore preacher. Indeed, the late Dean Stanley once told me that he preferred Liddon’s extempore to his written sermons. I asked Liddon i one day

why he did not preach extempore at St. Paul’s. He answered that he found that the management of his voice in so large a building occupied so much of his attention that he was afraid of imposing an additional strain upon his mind, I was myself a_ witness one day at St. Paul’s of the readiness with which he could speak without manuscript. He wrote his sermons on very small loose sheets of paper. On the day in question he chanced to brush the sheets off the pulpit cushion. Ho picked them up in hopeless disorder from the bottom of the pulpit and began quietly to arrange them, out never ceased speaking. He went on developing his scheme till he got his theme in order.” MUSIC. There are two songs which I hove beard myself, and can honestly commend. One is * Mine in my dreams,’ by Lovett King, and the other ‘ Dream memories,’ by Lindsay Lennox. M. Myer’s ‘ Salammbo ’ will be produced at the Paris Grand Opera daring the autumn, and it ie hoped Madame Melba, who is a great favorite there, will create the prima donna rdle. Choral societies may be interested to learn that the most successful of the novelties produced at Worcester Musical Festival last week was Mr Lee Williams’s devotional church cantata ' The last night at Bethany,' now published by Novello Ewer. Of the Christmas dance music, I can recommend ‘ The Gondoliers Lancers ’ as excellent, and the new waltz ‘ Yours always sounds capital on the band at Covent Garden. Whether ie would do equally well for piano only I doubt. tueateioal notes. ‘ The Sixth Commandment ’ is the title of the prolific Buchanan’s new piece for the Shaftesbury Theatre. It will be produced on the Bth prox. with the somewhat mature Miss Wallis in the principal part. The Kendals have revived ‘ All For Her ’ in the provinces with conspicuous suooesa, and intend to make this piece a feature of their autumn tour in the States. Mr Kendal plays the part which, whilst alive, popr John Clayton made his own, Mrs Kendal resuming the character she originally created. This week Mrs Kendal win appear at Birmingham in a new one act piece entitled ' It was a Dream.’ - —r>-

The full cast of ' The Struggle for Life, which will be produced at the Avenue Theatre on the 25th fast., includes George Alexander and Miss Genevieve Ward as the weak Paul Astier and his elderly but devoted wife, Mr Albert Chevalier as Chemineau, Mr Ben Webster as Count Adrian!, Miss Kate Phillips as La Mareohale, and Miss Laura Graves as Lydia. The scene is laid, as in the original version, in France, and the piece will be mounted precisely as •t the Paris Vaudeville. Grave doubts are expressed in some quarters whether the London pit and gallery will stomach some of Daudet’s sentiments, which are Jin de akek to a degree. LITERARY NOTES. Colonial readers anxious to form an idea as to what is considered by the “culohured ” critics of the Saville Club the highest form of contemporary English "journalese,” should procure the shilling reprint of the really admirable series of articles on "Modern Men” from the ‘Soots Observer.’ Some of them, of course, are better than others. As a specimen of straightforward hard hitting, and polished yet bitterly cutting sarcasm, the attack on " that good man Stead ” is, perhaps, the most conspicuous. Lewis Morris, the poet, also comes in for a severe castigation. On the other hand there is a singularly fair and perspicuous article on Spurgeon, and a warmly appreciative one on George Meredith, for the noncomprehension of whom by novel readers generally the writer undoubtedly gives the true reason. Mr Raskin has in the press a volume of poems, the Work, it is to be feared, of latter days. They must, however, have some merit, or Mr Arthur Severn would have managed to prevent their publication. Messrs Macmillan and Co. are as usual early in the field with a formidable list of works, which they propose bringing out during the pending publishing season. Amongst the more interesting may be mentioned 'Royal Edinburgh: her Saints, Kings, and Scholars ' by Mrs Olipbant, ‘ Glimpses of Did English Homes ’ by Elizabeth Bulch, the clever American authoress, who died recently ; * The Oxford Movement ’ by Dean Church, a work sure to be eagerly devoured in Anglican circles ; ‘ Landmarks of Homeric Study ’ by Mr Gladstone t and ‘ A Life of Archbishop Tait ’ by the Dean of Windsor. In the way of fiction the firm promise ‘ A Cigarette Maker’s Romance’ by F. Marion Crawford ; ‘ Kersteen, the Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago ’ by Mrs OliEhant; ‘The Book of Fort-five Mornings’ y Rudyard Kipling; * Two Penniless Princesses ’ by Miss Yonge; and * A Colonial Reformer ’ by Ralf Boldrewood. Messrs Routledge announce W. S. Gilbert's ‘ Songs of a Savoyard,’ illustrated by the author, ‘ Small Boys in Big Boots ’ (by A. C. Gunter, author of ‘Mr Barnes of New York,’ etc.), ‘ Kings in Exile ’ (an illustrated translation of Baudot's famous work uniform with ‘Sappho’ and ‘Jack’) and * Picturesque India’ (by W. S. Caine). ‘ The Courting of Dinah Shadd ’ and other stories, contributed by Rudyard Kipling to the English magazines, will be published shortly in a single volume together with a memoir portrait of the Anglo-Indian prodigy, the former written by his ardent admirer Andrew Lang. ‘Notches on the Rough Edge of Life’ is the cumbrous title of a capital little volume of vigorously written stories of wild Western life, two of which—‘ The First and Last Preacher of Urora ’ and ‘ White City ’ — would not have disgraced Bret Harte. The author calls himself Lynn Cyril D’Oylo which is probably a pseudonym), but whether Mr D’Oyle is a genuine literary novice or simply a well-known writer masquerading under another name for some purpose or another, I hope we may soon hear of him again. His ‘Notches’ make up a first-rate shilling’s worth, Mr Marston, sen., the head partner of .Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, can seldom be got to believe in novices, and relying on his own very fallible judgment has, 1 should imagine, missed more good things than any other man in the trade. When Mr Jerome K. Jerome was an unknown city clerk, he took Mr Marston the MSS. of the ' Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow,’ of which considerably over 100,000 copies have now been sold in England alone. Hearing nothing from the great publishers for some time, the young man at last called, and was contemptuously handed back his "copy.” “I don’t want to discourage you," quoth the perspicuous Marston grandly, “ but I consider your thoughts simply rubbish.” Yet another new monthly, which is to be called ‘The Paternoster Review,’ and brought out under the auspices of the Anglican community. It will aim at nothing less than " a radical reform in the spirit and method of our periodical literature,” which suffers (the editor in poise kindly tells us) from “an absolute lack of any ethical criterion whatever.” The habit of trusting to distinguished names is also specially to be discountenanced. Nevertheless, Number one will contain articles by such nonentities as Lord Ripon, Mr Henry Blackburn (of " Academy Notes ” fame), the Vice-Chan-cellor of the Primrose League, etc. After expending many thousands of pounds, and dismissing countless editors, subs, and reporters Mr James Gordon Bennett is forced to admit the London daily edition of the ' New York Herald ’ a failure, and on Monday last its publication was discontinued. Mr Bennett does not, however, altogether evacuate the metropolitan field. The Sunday edition of the ‘ Herald ’ has paid its way, and this will be carried on with a much-reduced staff, ‘A Marriage at Sea’ is the title of the nautical novelette which Clark Russell has written for the October number of ‘ Lippincott’s ’ magazine. DISTRESS IN IRELAND, Conflicting reports as to the extent of the damage done to the potato crop in Ireland by the blight appear in the London papers day-by-day, and one is hard set to gauge the amount of distress likely to arise therefrom, In Connemara, however, there is no doubt as to the havoc caused by the blight. Not only is the potato crop a ghastly failure, but the cereals also show the same symptoms of disease, the grain being in many oases utterly withered and puny. Calling at the ‘ Star ’ office the other day I was shown some specimens of tubers and barley, which had been sent to the editor by a correspondent in Connemara. The potatoes were taken at random from various plots in the district. They are hideously dwarfed and diseased. The largest was about the size of a walnut, and the smallest no bigger than a small Barcelona nut. All bear marks of the blight in the blackened skins and shrivelled bodies, So much for Connemara, and God help Ireland if the run of crops wore to turn out similarly. Bat if the personal experiences of friends of mine are to be relied upon, the reports from the soath-western districts are often gross exaggerations. The Poor Law Guardians, it is darkly hinted, have, with a view to Government grants which would somewhat relieve the rates, circulated highly-colored bulletins as to the prevalence of the disease. No doubt, however, the Government will make fall inquiry into the equity of guardians’ reports ere bestowing grants, but we in England would like to know the whole troth, and nothing but the truth, at once.