"WHAT THE WORLD SAYS."

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3917, 28 May 1877, Page 3

"WHAT THE WORLD SAYS."

(By "Atlas," in the " Wurld," April 4.) The following may be absolutely relied upon : — Last week Count Orloff still hoped in the Emperor's power of imposing peace, though admitting the feeling against it in Russia. "We have nothing to gain, all to lose, by war." he said. "We know all the German machinations to bring about war. Austria would take the Bosnian provinces ; Germany, Roumania ; France would be crushed ; England would go to ' Constantinople. And to bring this about we should have the sterile honor of fighting the Turk, and giving military satisfaction to the army of the Pruth." He said that Germany (in the person of a near relative of Bismarck) is keeping the pot boiling in Herzegovina. He considered Ignatieff's visit to England as a false move, and spoke much of the coolness between him and Schouvaloff. It is really true that when the young banker's son, Camondo, was taken for the Prince Imperial the other day, on landing at Marseilles, a Cabinet Council was held in Paris ; and had it not been for the warning of the Due Decazes to make sure that he Avas the Prince, lest they should be the laughing-stock of Europe, the Ministers would have committed the hetise of arresting him. As it was, his apartment was visited by a eommissaire de police, accompanied by four officers. As far as recent events go, or, as ninetynine people out of a hundred say, Shakespeare was singularly wrong in his estimate of the power of music on the savage breast. Close upon the Patti scandal comes the news of the unhappy matrimonial arrangements of Mine lima di Murska. This gifted lady's husband, M. Straus Ilia, amused himself during the honeymoon, according to Australian advices, by ruthlesly slaughtering the two small terriers of the songstress, her three canary-birds, a parrot, a monkey, and live cats of rare breed, which she had acquired Avith difficulty and was maintaining at untold expense. I have the more sympathy for Mine. lima di Murska inasmuch as this is the seventh time she has vainly essayed to obtain a suitable partner for Tie. "What's in a name i" is a question often asked. "A good deal if the name is Thompson," might be the reply of a picture-dealer. Three or four years ago Miss Thompson executed a very clever sketch of a number of French seminarists at recreation time, and sold it to her solicitor for £15. The solicitor has since disappeared from his usual haunts, and his effects are about to be put for sale. A well-known hahilvc of the auction-room has received a commission to buy this work of Miss Thompson for a print-seller, who proposes to have it engraved ; the limit of price being £300. It is generally considered that the next best thing to being the rose is to be near the rose ; and therefore I suppose if one cannot be Mr Gladstone it is highly enjoyable to live near him, and to haA'e passers-by gaze into one's windows as if they would find some inspiration as to the origin of Homer or the art of complete letter-Avriting. But the rose has its thorns. And perhaps it is almost too great a penalty to pay for assumed greatness Avhen enthusiastic Liberals chip pieces oil' one's doorsteps as mementoes of the " people's William. 1 ' 1 humbly suggest to country cousins, and others coming to town on pilgrimage bent, the advisability of discovering the exact number of tho shrine at which to worship. A correspondent says : — " I wish you Avould allude, in your witty and severe paper, to the singing quadrille that I saw danced in Dublin Castle the other day. Picture forty people, all more or less voiceless — grand ladies blazing in jewels, some portly figures between thirty and forty — crossing hands, and galloping as hard as they could go to '•' Ride a cockhorse," and A.D.C.s and officers murmuring, "Goosey, goosey gander" — one especially ludicrous major in the liitte Brigade looking like a melancholy mute in his sombre uniform, and unly occasionally saying, " Ba, ba, black sheep," in the saddest way. If danced at all, why not have young people avlio can sing, and then it might not be so ludicrous ! But

every other person did not even attempt to open the lips, and the effect was quite beyond description." The prospect of hearing Bach's Passion music appears to stir up the most pugnacious feelings. On Friday evenings, when it is given at St. Anne's, Solio, there is a free tight to get into the church. Prominent among the combatants are many distinguished personages ; great ladies join in the fray with an eager enthusiasm worthy of the holiest cause. The elbowing, scuffling, and jostling are worse than in an East-end crowd. lam tempted to ask whether all this is quite seemly on the threshold of a sacrificed edifice, or whether it leaves people in quite the proper frame of mind to appreciate the noble music of the immortal composer. In the current number of 2lij fit's Journal the editress returns to the charge on the subject of night-shirts. She says : — " I feel bound to remark that gentlemen's night-shirts are much embroidered in red-and-blue Russian embroidery, and that no one could pass the windows of the Grand Magasins dv Louvre last October or at the present moment without being struck by the elegance which this embroidery gives to an otherwise unromantic costume. I think most gentlemen arc pleased by any little token of pains being taken upon their apparel, and that neither husbands nor brothers are indifferent to the fine needlework bestowed upon them by loving hands. " There is no accounting for taste ; but the majority of husbands and brothers T am acquainted with would, I think, prefer the fine needlework to lie bestowed on their garments rather than on themselves. The lady furthermore says : — " It is rather amusing to be called " Miss" after a long period of married life, and a hearty laugh was enjoyed by my husband and me at the paragraph in question." I must apologise humbly for my mistake, and I have no doubt that Mr Myra in his " otherwise unromantic costume," when "much embroidered in red and blue," is " a joy for ever."