WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5332, 17 March 1879, Page 3

WHAT THE WORLD SAYS.

(By "Atlas" in the "World.") It will make some middle-aged people feel' very old to hear that the Princess -^LRoyalj who was born within their rememHMance, is on the point of becoming a grandmother. Her daughter, the Hereditary Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, is expecting her confinement next month ; so that if all goes well, Her Majesty the Queen will be a great-grandmother before i she is sixty. Up to this time no Queen of England has ever lived to see her greatgrandchildren ; but Her Majesty may now reasonably hope to be a great-great-grandmother and to see her grandchildren's grandchildren. Lord Beaconsfield's admirers will rejoice in the reflection that, according to the laws of hereditary longevity, he has still many years of life to look forward to. His father lived to be eighty-two, and his grandfather, Benjamin Disraeli, to be eighty-six. His mother was only seventyone when she died ; but his father's grandmother, Mrs Seybroot, lived to the age of ninety. If Mr Beresf ord-Hope had known that Isaac Disraeli was the son of a Dutch Jew he might effectively have retorted Lord Beaconsfield's sneering allusion to > the " Batavian grace " inherent in Dutch blood. One of the most picturesque scenes in London for many years past has been the blocks of ice floating down the Thames during the recent frost. Those who saw, from a certain cosy and hospitable mansion in the Adelphi-terrace, the miniature icebergs slowly drifting down in the moonlight a few evenings ago will not readily forget it. It was a scene of indescribable beauty ; it was " a nocturne in snow and silver" that would have hugely delighted Mr Whistler. The^ death of the Princess Alice has been felt and deplored at Berlin even more than in London, and the details of her illness are still the one absorbing topic of conversation in every class of y society. Great dissatisfaction is expressed in the highest diplomatic circles at the supineneßS of her medical attendants, and Sir William Jenner is loudly blamed for not having insisted on her immediate removal, at all hazards, from the "'infected air of Darmstadt, when it was evidently her only chance of life. feis experience of the disease in England made him suggest this course ; but he suffered himself to be overruled by his German colleagues, who were afraid, forsooth, of the invalid catching cold ! It was proved last year at Uppingham that change of air is almost a specific cure for diphtheria ; for when the complaint broke out in the school every single case which was locally treated ended in death, whilst every boy who was removed to his own home recovered,. without exception. Removal in the last stage of prostration is, of course, a forlorn hope ; but it succeeds so often that the Princess's physicians will never be forgiven for their cowardice in not trying the experiment. The great ladies at Berlin are now impressed with a want of confidence in the German doctors and Lady Odo Russell, the wife of our Ambassador, who is expecting her accouchment in February — about the same time as the Princess of Saxe-Meiningen— has invited Dr. Matheson, of Granville-place, to come over and attend her. But a London physician in full practice is often compelled by his duty to his patients to forego these flattering invitations. In Paris the other day a young lady went into one of the great drapery houses to shop with her maid. They keep watchers there ; and one of these, making sure he had seen something, presently tapped the young lady on the shoulder, and asked her to follow him to the search-ing-room. " You have just put a pair of new gloves in your pocket, mademoiselle; don't deny it." "I know I have," said the young lady quietly ; ' ' and if you will be good enough to look inside them you will see that, as they were bought at another house, they could hardly have been stolen from this." " That was so," as our cousins say. The watcher had -simply made a mistake ; and he and the whole gang of searchers began to grovel in excuses. " Now," said the lady, turning to her maid, "go to the nearest Commissary of Police, and tell him that the daughter of Prince O—*- requires his protection." It was the very awkwardesfc of blunders ; her father was an Ambassador. The contrite drapery company is offering thousands to hush it up. Some people say that Lord Beaconsfield's is the worst Government we ever had ; however that may be, lam sure that we never before had so maladroit an Opposition. They were both short-f rocked frilled darlings of the middlocracy, and were at school at a most select abode of learning and propriety at Brighton. Number One was the daughter of the member for Muffborough. The sire of Number Two occupied a distinguished position in the gallery of the House of Commons. The girls were boasting about their respective parents, and Number one owed them all Ibj saying, ' My papa is a member of ParIliament?' ' Very likely,' rejoined the ir•Zrepressible Number Two ; ' but my papa is a Parliamentary Reporter !' Number One was quite extinguished till she made inquiries during the Easter holidays. She returned radiant, waited her opportunity, and before the whole of the school said to • Number Two, ' Ah, I know now what your papa is ! He's obliged to sit in a cage and write down whatever my papa likes to say !' Not long ago a husband sought a divorce. Society was full of sympathy for the injured man, whom it believed to be overpowered with grief for the loss he had sustained. The lady, after the usual probation, prepared once more to reenter the married state. The night before the wedding she was surprised by the arrival of a casket.. On opening it she found a magnificent present of jewelry, with a note from the divorced husband congratulating her warmly on her approaching nuptials, and wishing her every happiness in her future conjugal relations. , Reading " Daniel Deronda " has given afresh impetus to the fashionable craze that Jewish blood has an hereditary monopoly of statesmanship and financial talent. No amount of ingenuity can trace an Israelitish origin for Mr Gladstone or Sir Stafford Northcote, but believers in this theory are comforted by the recollection that Mr Hugh Childers, M.P., the coming Liberal financier, is on both sides the grandson of a Jowess. Both his grandmothers were daughters of Sampson Gideon, the great Jewish stockjobber of the last century.

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