ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS,

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9244, 22 December 1888, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS,

[from the society papers.]

Report says that Queen Christina of Spain recently swam across the Bay of San Sebastian, a distance of half & mile, in threequarters of an hour. Her Majesty was accompanied by four bathers and a maid of honour, but the latter was unable to swim the distance, and was taken on board a boat) which accompanied the royal progress.

The New York Herald gives a list o£ marriageable English dukes for the information of American ladies who would like to be duchesses. There are ten dukes in the list ; but it rather awkwardly happens that four of them are married, and that a fifth is understood to be engaged. And a3 the youngest of the remaining five is already forty-eight, the budding duchesses must needs hurry up.

It appears that General Grant left in manuscript a number of humorous anecdotes dealing with his military life, which will be shortly issued in book form. It should be good reading if General Grant knew as many good stories as President Lincoln and told them as well. „

The Vienna Tagblatt has some curious statements concerning the German Emperor, but the picture they present'of him is not especially flattering. The Tagblatt describes His Majesty as being intelligent and eager for information, but adds that ho is noisy and overbearing. He laughs and talks loudly and uproariously, is very restless and undignified, goes everywhere with two ostentations lumps of cotton wool in his ears, and seems to consider it a positive penance to sit still for five minutes. Owing to the want of muscular power in his lef arm, the Emperor uses at tabic an ingenious contrivance which is knife and fork combined. At the recent State banquet the Austrian Emperor, whose innate courtesy, even in matters of detail, is notorious, made use of his right hand only, so that the deficiency of his royal guest might be loss noticeable.

At no Court is etiquette so tyrannically rampant as in Spain, and many of the usages which are now in full sway smack strongly of the Dark Ages from whence they have descended. It is, for instance, a rule which is most stringently enforced that none but a privileged few may touch the person of the King or Queen, and on one qccasion a Queen of Spain was in imminent danger of her life in consequence. She had been thrown by her horse, and her foot catching in the stirrup, she would certainly have been dashed to pieces but for the heroism of a young man who stopped the horse, and released her from her dangerous position. He immediately tied, however, for his life, ami did not stop till he had crossed the frontier, for fear of the penalty. Similarly quite recently his aunt) made the little King of Spain a present of a swing. When lie used it for the first time the motion frightened him, anil he began to cry, whereupon a lackey lifted him quickly out of it, and so no doubt preserved him from falling. This, however, was such a grave breach of etiquette that the Queen Regent was obliged to dismiss him from his post. She engaged him, however, in another position in the royal household as. a compensation.

A story got into circulation the other day 3 that Lord Cranbrook not only never read a novel, but prided himself upon never having read one. Writing from his home near Staplehurat to contradict the statement, he not inaptly called it "a work of fiction which did credit to its inventor."

All really clever men value a woman's criticism. Moliere read his plays to his housekeeper, and there have been few good writers who have not worked, as it were, wjth a woman's face peeping over their shoulders. Alexandre Dumas, it seems, must be added to the list, his daughter, Mdme. LippmaSn, both copying and critising her fathers MSS. It is said that M. Dumas rewrote the first act of "Denise" twice in deference to his daughter's opinion. After this I hope we shall see a multiplication of professed critics amongst the women who work for their living. There is no doubt as to their critical faculty, their only weakness being a tendency sometimes to let the heart get the better of the head, and womanly sympathy stand in the way of wholesome and necessary flagellation of ignorant presumption, M

The following conversation took place in Colston Hall, Bristol, during the performance of the " Rose of Sharon " last week. Lady : " Well, I like the music very much, but not the -words ; they are very bad.' 1 Gentleman: "Do you know where they come from ?" Lady (referring to title page): " Were they not written by Joseph Bennett?" Gentleman : "Certainly not; they arechiefly from Solomon's Song." Lady (taken aback): "Oh ! I never read it." It seems that opportunities for the study of sacred literature are not turned to account in every case.

The parachute business is becoming a joke. Baldwin may presently be responsible for some serious event in London. On Wednesday a theatre sent up a balloon with, a dummy attached to a parachute beneath it. The dummy got detached in such a way that it fell' in Trafalgar Square. Had there been a meeting there, very much interested in the oratory of the moment, the fall of the dummy might have produced a panic; and if on future occasions* this monstrous doll should destroy telegraph wires, or kill a nervous old lady, the responsibility on the heads of those who send up the toy will be almost as serious as the actual weight which falls upon the head of the London citizen.

We are now to get the last of Victor Hugo's last words. Ten volumes are promised, which will include his travels in England, Belgium, Holland, and Spain (with his observations on the curious customs which prevail in those partially explored regions), a metaphysical treatise, a collection of literary letters, and many desultory and piecemeal compositions, " written at random on scattered slips of paper." It looks as if the pious regard for a great man's memory was going to do him a doubtful kind of service. It is also announced from Paris that M. Mounet-Sully-has undertaken to write a poem to be read at the unveiling of the statue to Shakspere that takes place in Paris on Oct. 14. Lord Lytton has promised to be present.

The Empress Frederick has succeeded in purchasing the Villa Reiss at Cronberg for some £33,000, as the landowners at last came down with their prices. All in all, there are about 200 acres of ground belonging to the villa, and I hear that it will take about two years to divert the present road running through the property, and to bring the grounds into proper order. $ t »

The latest mot about Matthew Arnold is that of Augustine Birrel. " Mr. Arnold, to those who cared for him stall, was the most useful poet of his day." So Mr. Andrew Lang must think,' since ho avers that what Wordsworth was to Arnold, Arnold is to him, only more so ; and so also must John Morley think, since he has confessed that Arnold is the intellectual stimulus and whetstone on which he sharpens his wits before a great speech. Perhaps, however, that is too free a paraphrase. Mr. Morley may simply rest in the reading of Arnold as Charles Darwin rested in Captain Marryat, or as President Cleveland is said to refresl himself with George Eliot.