LONDON TABLE TALK.

Evening Star, Issue 9155, 9 June 1893, Page 1

LONDON TABLE TALK.

[From opr Special Correspondent.] London, April 14. TO THE BORED. Of the new up-to-date professions for ladies; the most original is surely that of the “ Pick-me-up ” or girl who “ cheers but not inebriates.” She comes as a boon and a blessing to the bored, and may apparently be taken eit her in large or small doses. One of the gang advertises thus : To the Bored.—An entertaining and amusing girl of good position will cheer and enliven any lady or young person who may be dull or lonely or dejiressed; unique capabilities; the greatest benefit guaranteed to the low-spirited ; innumerable testimonials; reference permitted to the Hon. Mr M., etc., etc. Terms by the hour or arrangement. This lady, a giddy young thing of thirtyfive, will, I am told, either play, sing, or skirt dance, or narrate the latest scandal and newest “ gentleman’s story ” for her clients. AMUSEMENTS. Despite its superb mounting and acting, ‘ Hypatia ’ has not proved the lasting attraction at the Hay market* at first anticipated, and will be withdrawal on its one hundredth night. A week later Mr Tree produces Oscar Wilde’s ‘ A Woman of No Importance,’ in which—ns I told you last mail— Mrs Bernard Beere wall play the heroine. ‘The Silver Shell,’ by Mr Dain, of ‘Diamond Deane ’ notoriety, will be produced by the Kendals at the Avenue to-morrow. Mrs Kendal plays the heroine, Katharine Vail, Mr Kendal enacting a Russian prince. Nihilism supplies the interest. The revil ed version of ‘ The Magic Opal,’ now called * The Magic Ring,’ was produced at the Prince of Wales Theatre last night, the composer {Signor Albeniz) conducting. Oii the same evening a number of new songs were dropped into ‘ In Town ’ at the Gaiety, the most promising being one for Arthur Roberts,'with the idiotic retrain ‘ My daddy wouldn’t buy for me a bow-wow.’ The drivel the vivacious “ Awthur ” can convert into genuine fun by means known only to himself is surprising. To say that he is- the life and soul of ‘ In Town ’. would he to express oneself feebly; he is body, soul, bones, everything. Nobody else .really matters much. 1 ..etty Lind dances nicely, and Florence St. John now sings ‘ Dream memories,’ which threatens to become as great a nuisance as ‘ Love’s golden dream.’ None of the men are allowed to do anything save play up'to Roberts. LITERARY NOTES. Miss -Mary Angela Dickens’s new novel, ‘ A Mere Cypher,’ is an immense improvement on her earlier efforts, and, without doubt, would have greatly pleased her famous gratOfather. The character of the heroine, a seemingly timid, colorless, awkward, uninteresting little woman, who “says everything so badly,” and yet unnoticed and unthauked plays the good angel to all who come in contact with her, is not, perhaps, quite new to fiction. 1 cannot, I confess, remember wiiere I have met her before, but I feel sure she was not as strongly and yet restraiuedly limned as Miss Dickens’s Mrs Custance. Norman Strange is on the high road to becoming an irreclaimable drunkard when he first meets the “ mere cypher ”, wi\o so powerfully influences his life. She is the bullied wife of Dr Custance, a medical man to whom the lad’s friends have sent him so that he may be out of the way. The doctor is a lazy, self-indulgent creature, living in a ramshackle old house amidst the dreary Lincolnshire fens. Strange has fallen into the lowest depths of hopelessness and degradation wiien quiet, shrinking Mrs Custance- forces herself to rouse him, and unobtrusively assists him to recover his self-respect. In a few months Norman goes away cured, owing his moral revivification entirely to the poor lady whom he fancies he has only noticed out of good nature, and quite unconscious of his debt to her. Years later they meet again, when Norman is the leading spirit of a great philanthropic enterprise a colonisation scheme tor transplanting East End families to Manitoba. His most enthusiastic cohelper is the curate’s sister, Stella Chisholm, with whom the young man falls in love. She returns his affection, but false pride and the interference of meddling busybodies nearly lead to her refusing him, when little Mrs Custance, unsuspected by either lover or beloved, manages to set things right. Finally, Norman Strange’s reputation and the great enterprise which he has at heart are threatened with complete ruin by the “mere cypher's ” husband. Dr Custance, a scamp as well as a cowardly bully, finds a means of, as he thinks, blackmailing Ins ex-patient, Circumstances enable him to tell a plausible story against Strange, which the latter cannot find evidence to refute. Only Mrs Custance knows its falseness,, and she (Norman latterly reflects) is wax in her tyrant husband’s hands. Nevertheless, Strange refuses to bo blackmailed, and invites Custance to do his worst. Boiling with rage and spite, the doctor resolves that he will. He reckons, however, without his wife. The little woman weighs the mischief ho is going to do, and the misery he is going to bring on hundreds of poor families, against his own worthless life. She eventually resolves the latter must be sacrificed, and coolly poisons him. Then the brave creature indifferently announces her guilt, and a few days later dies in gaol. Norman Strange’s life was a very happy and useful one, “ and,” winds up Miss Dickens, “ the woman to whom he owed it all remained to him for ever, as fur as his own life was concerned, a mere cypher. She had saved him from despair when despair Was drawing him surely te death. She had turned to him the heart of the woman he loved. She had saved him again a second time. And as long as he lived and worked on earth, he lived and worked in igno-. ranee.”

The pew and. cheaper edition of the ‘Memoirs of the Baron De Marbat’places the most remarkable book published in France last year within everybody’s reach. All who are interested in the of the first Napoleon should more especially make a point of reading it. In this reissue the translator wisely cuts out the “stodgy” dpfails included in the second volume edition.

Mi' Frank Barrett, one of the most popular of the seusational-cum-dramatic story writers of the day, is a man of forty, who made his first success as a “ talepitcher ” on the ‘ Pink ’Un.’ He published a three-volume novel (‘ Maggie’) as long ago as 1886, but It was not til) ‘ Honest Davie ’ attracted general attention that his name became well known, Mr Barrett’s best hook Is, perhaps, either the just-men-tioned ‘ Honest Davie ’ or ‘ Little Lady Linton.’ Ho himself prefers ‘The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane.’ Mr Barrett has just completed a tale for the ‘ Sun ’ called ‘ The Woman With the Iron Bracelets. ’ It begins well. Messrs Cassell have published Stevenson’s ‘ Island Nights Entertainments ’ in a very clumsy fasm, instead of uniform with the popular buckram-bound edition of his works, or even the same size as ‘ The Wrecker.’ LEICESTER RACES. Despite the large sums of added money given away by the Leicester executive, it is the one important gate-money meeting which has never caught on as it deserved to do with.pßher owners or the Thiels the odder because the adjoining meeting at Derby attracts, the biggest fields of horses in England and huge crowds of sightseers from all parts of the Midlands, On Friday and Saturday last, in glorious spring weather, the attendance at Leicester

showed signs'of improvement, and two of the races run are worth describing. The first was the Excelsior Breeders’ Foal Stakes, of 1,000 sox's, for two-year-olds, for which, in a field of eleven runners, Mr MilnerManton’s Beggar’s Opera, Mr M. Dawson’s Fulton, and Mrs Eyre’s Barbary ttere ’ served up very warm. 'At first, * Beggar’s Opera was a 2 to 1 favorite. ' but the heavy support accorded each of the k other pair caused 5 to 2 ultimately to be on ’ offer, 100 to 30 being Fulton’s starting price, ! and 7to 2 Barbary’s. Bar three 100 to 0 was fruitlessly bawled. An outsider called I Ballerine started off with the lead, but at . the foot, of the hill Barbary went to the - front and was never afterwards headed. : Beggar’s Opera, lying second throughout, ■ endeavored at the distance to get on terms, but Mrs Eyre’s brown eon of Barcoldiue ami ’ Dfcsert Queen held his own comfortably, ami ’ won by a length, Tom Cannon’s Princess | Helena (by Melauion—My Queen) a good third, and Colonel North’s Bay Warden fourth. Beggar’s Opera (by Macbeath out of St. Agatha) is a fine-looking colt, and will sec a better day. LEICESTER SPRING HANDICAP. On Saturday the Leicester Spring Handicap, of 800 bovs, attracted a dozen runners, 1 the favorite being Sir John Maples’s Prince Hampton ('»yrs, 9.0), the length of whose tether is well known to be three-quarters of a mile. On this occasion, however, it was hoped his class and speed would suffice to get him the extra bit in mediocre company. Sir R. Jardine’s gay deceiver, Enniskillen (5 yrs, 8.0), came next in demand at j to 1 (100 to 30 was the favorite’s price), (J to 1 being laid Mr Deacon’s Clutter (4 yrs, 0,9, who was- ridden by the fashionable light-weight Bradford), 10 -to 1 Baron Hirsch’s Carabinier (6 yrs, 0.10), 100 to S each against Adoration (4 yrs, 7.12), Hercmon (6 yrs, 6.12), and Convent (3 yrs, 0.10), and 20 to 23 to 1 the others. The flag fell to a capital start, Convent at once draw ing out with a clear lead, followed by Enniskillen, Prince Hampton and Chater, Adoration heading the others. Scarcely any alteration occurred till half-way up the straight, when Chater ran into the second place, and Enniskillen and Esmond passed Prince Hampton. At the distance the latter and Convent were beaten, ami Chater, shooting to the front, w on in a canter by eight lengths from Enniskillen, who finished two lengths in front of Captain Machell’s Kilsallaglian (3 yrs, 6.9), placed third. EPSOM SPRING MEETING. The City and Suburban Handicap, winch was at one time a medium of speculation for weeks beforehand, now’ attracts little attention till the Ring meet on the Downs on Tuesday afternoon. The truth is owners have discovered that post betting pays far better than ante-post speculation. The average of a commission of say £I,OOO executed by good men at the post always turns out much higher than if the same sura had been dribbled on at the Victoria Club during the fortnight preceding the race. Last week so little money was.there in the market that the member for Tattersall’s declares an outlay of £2OO at either the Victoria or Albert Clubs would have made any horse in the race favorite. THE GREAT METROPOLITAN. On Tuesday nine runners went to the post for the < beat Metropolitan, of £823, over two miles, and a grand pace ensued between the favorite, Mr J. Charlton’s Madame Neruda (5 yrs, 7.9). who finished second to Colorado last year, and Lord Hastings’s Seaton Delaval (4 yrs, 7.7.), also much fancied. As the latter was roundingTattenham Corner an outsider interfered with him and nearly brought him down. Notwithstanding this the colt got to Madame -Neruda's quarters opposite the number board, and was only beaten after a tremendous finish by a head, Mr Rallies White Feather (5 yrs, 7.7) third. Betting; 4 to 1 Madame Neruda, .j to 1 Seaton Delaval, and 6to 1 White Feather. Madame Neruda is by Fiddler out of Alucha, and Seaton Delaval Milton—Rosedale. <TTY AND srUURBAN. The Jubilee Stakes at Kempton has taken much of the life out of the City and Suburban, which is a very different affair t<> what it was tw-euty years ago, when Tom Cannon, on Mominglon, heat twenty-four opponents, or even to 1889, when Fred Archer, on Master ‘Kildare, squeezed homo in front of twenty-eight others. Yesterday fourteen runners only went to the post, and the form was far from grand. Baron Hirsch’a Windgall (4 yrs, 8.9), who' won the Liverpool Cup last autumn, alone represented class, and so highly was his chance esteemed that despite being top weight ho finally started first favorite. Not that he throughout the wagering occupied that position. Till Wednesday morning Mr A. James’s The Smew (4 yrs. 7.10), the Irishowned Castlcblancy (4 yrs, 7.4), and Mr Fulton's Crystahelle (4 yrs, 7.0) were all better fancied. After, however, the preliminary canter, Windgall became all the go, and finished up at 4to 1. The Smew’s starting price was 3 to 1, 1.1 to 2 being laid Castleblancy, !) to 1 each against Lady Hermit (4 yrs, 7,3), who represents Colonel North, and Yodel (0 yrs, 6.12), 100 to 8 each Crystahelle (who went very badly in Unbelting at the last) and the' Leicester winner dialer (4 yrs, 7.0), git to I Mina, 28 to 1 Progression, and •33 to 1 King Charles (4 yrs, 6.(5). The lastnamed wore Winkers, and seemed a terrible handful for little Cough. After several breaks away, Mr Coventry got the fourteen runners off nicely in line, which Lady Hermit and King Charles were the first to break. At the mile post, however, TinSmew want to the front and kept there till rounding Tattenham Corner, when she, Pro-* gression, and Lady Hermit all collapsed together. This left Windgall at the head of affairs, with Chater as nearest attendant ; the outsider King Charles, who was holding an erratic course on the extreme right, lieing hardly noticed. Baekei-s of the favorite began to shout, and certainly Ceorge Barrett looked as though he were going to have an easy ride of it. Instead, however, of King Charles, on tho right, falling away, he gained steadily, and, to the horror of backers of the favorite, presently crossed and challenged inside the distance. “Go on, George,” they yelled at Barrett, and go on, or rather set-to, the jockey did. Ride as he would, however, Windgall could not quite give away the 321b. Opposite Tattcrsall'a ring the pair were level, and Lady Hermit, who had eome again, reached their quarters. Little Gough dare not touch his roguish mount with either whip or spur. It was just touch and go, but the blinkered king chose to do bis best, and eventually won by a head. Colonel North’s •filly three-quarters of a length off a bad third.