LONDON TOWN TALK.

Inangahua Times, Volume III, Issue 99, 6 April 1877, Page 2

LONDON TOWN TALK.

(Correspondent of the Melbourne Argus.) Sir Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, who lately sold his share of the business carried on in his name for one million of money, is said to have been offered a peerage, which he has declined. Having a turn for epigram, he conveyed his refusal to the Prime Minister in the tallowing lines .— " Your kind intentions I must damp, The Game of Rank's not worth my candle, It is, sir, but the guinea's stamp ; My honest pewter needs no handle. One comfort is left to quiet folks— the roar of KeDealy is hushed, or if it is not, nobody listens to it. He has given up his rooms at fray's Inn without his threatened " appeal." he has quarrelled with his own Magna Charta Association, he has broken with his belo/ed Onslow, and nobody is moved when he announces that the British nobleman residing in Dartmoor is growing thin. There is a new governor, who knows not Joseph, and puts him in the common conversational cage, with a warder between him and his friends, when they come to condole with him. Mr Karslake's Jong-winded letter to the papers abou,t. the fate of " the Bella, 1 ami the new survivors that have been dis» covered, has fallen quite flat. The game is up. I» a cat has nine lives, a boy must have nineteen. Sis lads, from 10 to 13, years of age, have been travelling in a truck on the Great Western Railway for three day* without food. They were playing in, the g/>o is, yard, at PL mouth, wlieu hearing a policeman 'shout at them, the hid in the truck and vreut to sleep. In the night the

trndj sorted for Peozance but wss shunted at Tn.ro, and eventually went on to Bristol, where its wretched and terrified occupants were discovered still alive, I remember a young gentleman at school at Swindon who thought he would see h.e in London, but having no money even to buy Ins railwav ticket concealed himselt under a seal in a first-class coupe* intending to th'ow himself on the good feeling of his fellow, passengers to keep h»s secret. Unhappily a pair of hvers took their place in it, and he felt that to announce himself, after being witness, or at least audience, to their little endearments, would b*» embanssing to all parties. He remained, therefore, qnite qniet, but very cramped until thev reached Paddington, and before he could leave the carriage it was placed on the turn-table and faken back to Swindon. He was there brought | before the magistrates for travelling without a ticket, and only handed over to Ins schoolmaster upon tin (qnite unnecessary) understanding that he should 1 be whipped. The following shaving from the mahogany board is even better. A well* ! known climber of the Alpine Club, | th<>m'h by no means aged, has given «vav I to time and corpulence so far as to eschew his favorite exercise. He still visits, hourever, the scenes of his old trtump'is «it the proper season, presides at tb a public table at Chamoun' and elsewhere, and is listened to with respectful attention. On tH* a contemporary of his, who still climbs remarked to me the other day that poor Jones " had fallen into his table d'hote age." A charming instance of that " vice of the pulpit, verbosity '* — and it must be *dded of ignorance— is reported from the Midlands. A town clergyman preiching there in a country parish, toolr for his theme the parable of the prodigal son. " "Remember." he said, " this was no ordinary calf that was to be killed suffer- ! ing from murrain ; no half«starved calf slowly awaiMng death No. nor was it only a fatted calf. It was the fatted calf, which had been prized and loved in tha I fanrlv for many years ! " Before one. enters upon a career of martyrdom it is absolutely necessary to possess a name not nnen to ridicule. If Mr Tooth, the RitnaHst, were the most exalted eharacfer of the age it would be impossible for him to stem the tide oi ridicule that plavs about him. Suopose an Englishman of the name of Buggins— even a Cardinal Btiggin*— should be made Pope, what other English man— even the most devout of Catholics —would care to kis his toe ? Mr Toith is never mentioned as " Tooth " pure and simple ; he is the "Tooth that ought to be pulled out," "the hollow Tooth," "the tooth that must be stopped," Even if his ways were not funny, to beg^n with— which they certainly arc — he could never make head against these slnwersof contemptuous fun. 'I he "Ritualists do not understand, of course, how ridiculous their behaviour is to those to whom it is not offensive; but it is the height of folly in them to j iin their faith to their present idol. Ii a t them subscribe a few pounds to buy him letters paton 1 to enab'p him to change his name, and then run him again for the same «t?ike*. l ilfe the whitewashed three years old in Yorkshire. As matters stnni. he has not a fair chaneo from the starting { post. j Tt mnst have been at St. James's, I flafelnm, or some similar place where j such fintics ar« practised, that a lady of j my acquaintance to->k n servant som» iim>* J ago, whom she Ind tately imported from the Highland*. "Well. Jeinnie," inquired she as they walked h.>me togethe-, " and how did you like the service ?" " En, maam. it was beautiful ; but what an awfu' way of spending the Sabbith 1" Afcer the ladies lnve retired, and politics set in, the Eastern question looms large at every dinner table, and bids fair to establish the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. There are now and then, however, some, scintillation in the gloom ; one sympathiser with the Turk wis remarking the other night that no good could be expected from a nation like the Russians, so barbnrous that it devoured tallow eandl*>s- "My good friend," said his opponent, " they are only a light refreshment.