ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9124, 4 August 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[from the society papers.]

I hear that Prince Oscar of Sweden has just taken up his residence at Carlskrona, the Swedish Portsmouth, with his bride, nee Miss Ebba Munck, and apropos to their housekeeping, it may interest friends of the temperance cause to know that before any servants were engaged for their household, all of them had to pledge themselves to abstain from drinking any spirits, although allowed a moderate quantity of beer daily.

Sir Algernon Borthwick has taken the magnificent estate, with grouse-shooting and forests, of Invercauld. Her Majesty greatly admires the beaut, of the scenery, and constantly drives in the grounds. Sir Algernon is getting on in the world.

The most interesting moment of the evening—in fact, the one for which alone it was worth the trouble of mingling in such a crowd ! —was at eleven o'clock, when the Prince and Princess, with their son and daughter, the Prince and Princess Christian, Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lome, the Duke and Duchess of Teck, with Prince Adolphus and Princess May, the Duke and Duchess Paul of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and about a dozen lesser royalties or serenities, entered the Throne Room, all attended by their respective suites. That) was really a brilliant sight, the display of diamonds, orders, uniforms, and waving plumes and costly draperies, all lending their effect to make it a splendid blaze of colour and glii_er. The dancing was comparatively neglected—people wanted to walk about, and look at all the notabilities, and the strains of the band made a pleasant accompaniment as they strolled around — when that was possible ; but it was more generally pushing, or receiving merciless prods and tramplings from others.

Mdme. Bernhardt's newplav is thoroughly French in sentiment arid construction. An old soldier marries a young wife. Eventually she is faithless, and a weakly infant appears upon the scene, the nephew of the old man being the father. The final act shows the child dying of croup, and the husband, who has discovered everything, is forcing his wife's lover to blow out hi* brains. Just as he is about to do it the child dies. "It is enough," exclaims the husband, "my vengeance is satisfied ; thy one who has sinned is dead 1"' The moral, of course, is that a wife may have a lover, but there must be no " evidence" of guilt.

The evening hours seem generally to be preferred as more satisfactory for literary work by many writers ; but Lord Tennyson, it appears, invariably works in the morning and reads in the evening, and finds food for his exquisite pictures of Nature by spending his afternoons out of doors. With regard to the great poet's work, it is curious to reflect how nearly his readers lost the enjoyment of "In Memoria.m," which is said to have been forgotten in a cupboard when he left the house where he first penned the manuscript.

Among the new stationery " notions"— and again this season their name is legion —is an envelope intended by its inventor, a well-known West End stationer, to serve the two-fold purpose of saving trouble to correspondents and baflling the inquisitive. The new invention is called the " safety' envelope, and is so contrived that it wiE now be impossible to open the wrapper of i letter without detection, whilst sealing will be rendered unnecessary. The envelope i.-? in a new form, the flap being so arranged that it fastens just under the corner upon which the postage stamp is invariably placed, and it will thus be seen that the old mean and dishonest methods of reading and appropriating the contents of other people's letters will henceforth be impracticable. To my taste its possesses an additional advantage, inasmuch as it does away with the possibility of besmearing envelopes with crests, monograms, and useless addresses.

I admire the brevity of Matthew Arnold's will, though if he had employed a lawyer it would not have been necessary for the representatives of his widow to have applied for letters of administration ; but the small amount of the personal estate has surprised most people. It is to be feared that Arnold's books, original and brilliant as they were, failed to bring him in much money. Men with less than a tenth of his gifts have died worth tens of thousands, and earned them, too.

Spurgeon writes that he is hopeful now that his health will soon be decidedly better and he will be able to do more than he thought he could in the great conflict which is raging between truth and error. He has received many generous letters of sympathy. He quotes approvingly one which came from a Baptist minister, who said : "A dry rot of churches extends from the people to the priests. It has infected many who are sound, but mostly the timid, many who are confused and many who are too indolent." Surely," adds Mr. Spurgeon, " there are some left having eyes to see the evil and courageous enough to free themselves. Time was when for a hundredth part of the foul evils now tolerated in religious unions, the servants of God would have lifted up the cry of ' To your tents, O Israel.' "

Statistics of the workings of the divorce law in France afford curious reading. The total number of petitions filed from ISS4 to 1886 exceeds 20,000. Of the couples who in 1886 asked for divorce, pure and simple, twenty-four had been married fifty years. Fifteen Darbies asked to be separated from fifteen Joans without divorce. "The largest number of disagreeing couples had been married from five to ten years ; 103 couples wanted to be divorced before the honeymoon had worn off; in 3626 cases violence was the reason of the application for divorce. In 1886, So per cent, resulted in the sunder ing of the couples.