CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10594, 1 March 1895, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

HBROWOBSHIPPING.

It is meet that the great apostle of "hero-worship” should be the subject of a

portion of that adoration which mediocre humanity pays to greatness. Thera is on foot a movement to acquire the house in which Thomas Carlyle resided for so many years at Chelsea, in order to convert it into a hind of Carlyle museum and memorial. An influential committee formed for the of the building comprises the Marquis of Eipon, Lord Houghton, Lord Tennyson, Sir Cavan Duffy, Professor Archdeacon Farrar, Dr Garnett, Professor Masson, Mr Leslie Stephen, and Dr Spence Watson. About .£4OOO will be required, the price of the house being £1760. When purchased the property will be vested in trustees, and it is intended that a collection of Carlyle memorials should be gradually accumulated, with a view to the house being opened as a kind of museum. Mrs Alexander Carlyle, of Edinburgh (Carlyle's niece) has offered to place in the house sufficient of the old furnishings to form a substantial nucleus for the collection. The Emperor of Germany haa sent the following telegram to Mr Poulteney Bigelow, who is a member of the committee s—" New Palace, Potsdam.—l have just heard of the idea of buying Carlyle's house as a museum. As a descendant of the great king whose life Carlyle so vividly and nobly described, I beg you, as one of the committee, to note me for a contribution of £IOO in aid-of the fund.— William Impebatob and Eex.” There can be little doubt of the requisite amount of money being raised if Carlyle’s admirers respond to the call for subscriptions. Last year it is recorded over six hundred people visited his birthplace at the Scottish village of Ecolefechan, and though no record has been kept of the number of visitors to the well-known: house in Chayne Eow, Chelsea, it is, believed to be far in excess of the above figure.

Horse-dealing is said to have a deteriorating moral effect, especially in the matter of truthfulness. Prob-

WHIST —THE EECOBD BEATEN.

ably no one will be found possessed of sufficient hardihood to maintain that whist-playing has an opposite tendency; but it would bo a relief to newspaper readers if the reputation of whist-players for truth-telling were established on a basis more secure than that of the sportive fisherman. When the latter gentleman is describing the size and weight of his “ catches,” ha is understood to give a liberal rein to his imagination, and we fear the whist-player, who gets wonderful “ hands,” is in danger of being classed in the same category. Luckily, the maximum of the miraculous has been reached in the way of a whist hand, and henceforth no amount of exaggeration will avail to ‘'lower the record” established. The wonderful feat is recorded by a correspondent of the London Times, who claims to have been one of a'whist party that experienced the marvel. It is confirmed by “ a rough sketch of the table and the positions and names of the respective players,” and what is more to the point, by the signatures of the whole four. There were five onlookers at the unprecedented occurrence which is described as follows“ The two packs of cards had been alternately used for six rounds of the first rubber. In its proper order one of them was shuffled, cut and dealt for the seventh round. The dealer turned up the three of hearts. A prolonged pause followed, which was, perhaps, not unnatural under the circumstances. The dealer then remarked that it would be unnecessary to play the cards out, and placed his on the table, disclosing the possession of every heart in the pack. The leading player then put down the whole suit of clubs, the second that of diamonds, and the third that of the spades. Ido not know if this possibility—a marvellous one, it must, be admitted—has ever been previously recorded.” Commenting on this, the St James’s Oazette says:—“The whist players who write to the papers at rare intervals to say that they have held a,ll the thirteen trumps in their own hand are completely beaten by this correspondent of the Times. It is a good story, and we hope it is true, and that there was nothing to account for it in the cards, the shuffling, the dealing or the drinks. Only if Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel had begun to play whist in the Garden of Eden, and if all their descendants had been playing all day and all night ever since, tbe odds would be considerable against such a distribution occurring more than once.” To this it may only he added that if the evidence of its having occurred is accepted as reliable, humanity ought to feel relieved at knowing that for some thousands of years to come it will hear no more of phenomenal hands at whist.

PBIMA DONNAS AND THEIR WAYS.

The January number of the Cornhill Magazine contains an article that throws a good deal of light on the vagaries of some of the spoilt children of the Muses.

'The collection of anecdotes which the

—^™SSS2SI2S2ISS22!S2!22SSS!SSIHBH| great number of celebrities, and hf ita pregnant illustrations of indicates that the Eoman poet knew what he was about when he wrote the -wellknown ' line, Mutahile semper Malibran, the most famous of pimn donnas, was, we are told, the most mischievous and capricious of them all. At the rehearsals of Borneo and Juliet she could never make up her mind where she was to “die” at night. On one occasion.• she chose to "die” close to the footlights, her companion, of course, being compelled to "die” close beside her, and thus, when the curtain fell, a couple of footmen had to carry the pair off, one at a time, to the great amusement of the audience. John Templeton, .the Scottish tenor, was probably never so miserable as when cast to sing with Malibran, "Very often she was displeased with his performance, and one evening she whispered to him: “You are not acting make love to me better,” to which—is said—Templeton replied innocently; “ Don't you know I am a married man/* Malibran, curiously enough, had no great love for music in her early years,-and had a natural antipathy to singing masters. Paer, her tutor, on one occasion, was dining with the Garcias*— Malibran's parents—and had the little Maria on his right. Daring the repast he constantly felt what ha calls a “piquant sensation,” and though strongly suspecting his petite neighbour, did not like to incur the displeasure of her father by complaining. In the evening, however, he discovered that the future singer had tattooed him with a pin like a Bed Indian. Gabrielli, another prima donna, was afraid to go to England because she believed that if in a fit of caprice she refused to sing the audience would probably murder her—"they are said to be sq ferocious.” These are only a few of the anecdotes that go to make up what is a very amusing, if, perhaps, in places, a slightly unhistorical article.