MISCELLAEOUS GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5944, 4 December 1880, Page 3

MISCELLAEOUS GOSSIP.

Wac;xek s gout is the music of tt»'present. In Vienna there in one policemen- to 403 pwnsons. Dr. Gordon Holmes advises singers to wear flannels. The income of the Czar of Russia igf."> f OOO,OOO a-year. Ktissia. has IJOO.OOO hereditary nobles, and. 3SO.IXX) whose nobility expires with them. Wedding cards are to be smaller than ever, and made as plain, quiet and genteel as possible. A servant at Government House, Sydney, presented her husband the other day with the :24th child. Public speakers who sip cold water during their ■■remarks" are advised to use v.arm milk or mucilaginous drinks. The Athi-nifiim thinks that the competition among London hiujpitals is in its training of I physicians productive of more harm than The B.ittk- of Waterloo—that greatest event in the history of the time—received just one-third of a" column in the London Times ! Lady Kli/abcth Campbell, the second daughter .if the Duke i,f Argyll, has just been married to a commoner, Mr. Clongh Taylor. it is reported that the Marquis of Lome will resign his position in Canada, next year, in order not to be separated frouv his wife too fivijiicntly. The Maquis of Bute has built a villa on the site of the Mount ..f Olives, overlooking Jerusalem, where he occasionally intends spending the winter. The latest fivak of fashion- at London dinner-parties is to have real fruit trees in lull fruit in the dining-room, so tlia* the guests may gather their own dessert. It is a noteworthy fact, as indicating a. change in the spiritV the times, that the Irish land agitation is more vigorously supthe Knglish than the Irish Press. M. liuna/.r:t, whose revenues came from the gamblers at Baden, left six million pounds to his widow. She was forty years old, and recently became insane. "Being cured by 3. young physician named Tlmlie, she settled i'SOOl) a-year on him, and married him. The Ogdcnbuix' Critic says: "A Mrs. Denny, in the Second Ward, West Side, has two thumbs mi her right hand. AH her seven lroys are marked in a similar manner. This is certainly a particularly hand-thumb-family, eight persons having twenty-four thumbs. Who can beat it?" A regular thumbs crew, sure enough. _ The stone which covers the grave of Miss N-cilson in Brompton Cemetery, says the Kcho, has already been surrounded by flowering plants, and covered with wreaths and immortelles, placed there by the hands of loving and affectionate admirers. At- thehead, pending the completion of a suitable monument, stands a simple white cross, bearing only the word "Xeilson."

The Echo asks :—Why should Ritualistic papers so constantly sneer at the Queen? On duo page of the Chinch Review we find a contrast made between public worship at Balmoral and Hawarden, much to the advantage of the latter; and almost immediately this is followed by a notice of Mr. Stopfonl Krooke'ssecession to the Unitarians, the editor remarking, " We should not be surprised to hear that Mr. Brooke will continue to be chaplain to ' our most religious and gracious Queen.'"

The father of President Grevy was a heaff forester, living near the market town o£ Mont Sous Vaudrey, in the Jura mountains. The Crevys, of course, are well known to l>e of neither aristocratic nor wealthy origin, and several persons of the same name arc occupied at the present moment in the most humble pursuits in Mont Sous Vaudrey. The forester expended all his property in the education of his three sons, the youngest of whom went to the Ecole I'olvteehniijue on his load to the Senate. The' other two sons studied for the law :>. Paris and took their tirst steps in their profession itself modestly and painfully. Their two sisters married— the one a large carrier, the other a medical man--and both remained at Mont Sous Yaudrey. When the eldest son had become a wealthy man by the exercise of his profession, lie bad the paternal abode restored, and from a farmhouse it developed into a comfortable, spueioos residence. The villa then constituted almost exclusively the abode during the legal vacation of M. Jules Grevy and his daughter, Alice, until, on becoming; President of the Chamber, he adopted a more, pretentious style of living, and aspired to the status of a landed proprietor by purchasing, four or live years ago, some land, with a. house. The estate," situated at the bottom of a village, has been successively restored, beautified and enlarged, the grounds being laid out like a small English park.