ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8360, 13 September 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[from the society TAPERS.]

A young man in Vienna, in emulation of our Duke of Clarence, but with a greater regard for economy, has drowned himself in a butt of vinegar, upon which he had previously painted his initials. If the butt was his own, there is nothing to be said against that; but he also inscribed upon it three cresses. There have been a good many jokes about liquor " with a body in it," but the endeavour to persuade the Vienna public— thirsty race and devoted to malt—that the butt held "treble X" was surely carrying the joke a little toe far.

It is a fact that London grows gayer and gayer. Paris will have to look 'to her laurels, or by-and-bye, when people use the expression "the gay capital," we shall come to understand by it not Paris, bub London. The foreigner who arrives in the British > capital expecting .nothing bub spleen, is not a little amazed to find this huge city given over all the summer Ion"- to polite revelry, if not frivolity, for it is "nob only the aristocratic and leisured classes who revel, bub the large army of brainworkers make time for pleasant social intercourse with their fellows, and their merry-makings are the most enjoyable of any. There are still plenty of Britishers who look askance at pleasure all the week, and put on an extra long face on Sundays ; but thair numbers are diminishing, and Sunday, once a day of depressing 'gloom in London, is more and more utilised foi rational recreation, thanks to the lead ol scientific men and the artistic and literary fraternities. The visitor to London need spend no dull time, if he has a few friends, for almost everyone entertains. Those who cannot or will not give balls and dinners fall back upon that growth of modern England, the "At Homo."

This is what an American writer says of our Queen:—"From her accession at the age of eighteen till she was twenty-five or twenty-six the Queen was a very pretty young woman, fresh and fair, with soft blue eyes, a small rosy mouth, and the loveliest arms and shoulders imaginable. Her lack of height was always a great drawback, and was the cause of her delighting in giving grand fancy costume balls, at which she was wont to appear in a Court toilet of the eighteenth century, the highheeled shoes which must perforce be ivorn with such a dress lending a very becoming addition to her stature."

! A London Telegraph correspondent wke visited Bismarck lately at Friedrichsruhe says :—" At the age of seventy-five Prince Bismarck is as upright as a dart and as firm of foot as many a strong man forty years his junior. His complexion, which used to be sallow when I first knew him, is clear and ruddy ; his eyes sparkle with all their old fire and brightness ; his voice is mellow and sonorous; his heavy moustache and bushy eyebrows are no whit grever than they were twenty years ago." He looks younger than his age by a decade at the very least. ' Rest !' he exclaimed ; ' yes, a definitive rest. Official life, as far as lam concerned, is all over and done with. Now I shall have time for some of the recreations I have foregone throughout thirty years. Repose is good— better in the certainty that I shall not have to change houses any more. You English have a proverb that says" three removes are as bad as a fire," and it is a true one. Don't you think ib is high time that I should have a little amusement and enjoy a few social pleasures f "

Particulars are published in England of the lamentable termination of a practical joke that was about to be perpetrated at the expense of Mr. J. L. Toole. A wealthy Melbourne citizen, wishing to give Toole and his company some idea of bush scenery, organised a picnic in their honour among the Bandenong Range.'. A couple of low comedians thought they would improve the occasion, and " take a rise" out of Johnny, knowing his penchant for practical jokes. Accordingly, they left town the night before, and next morning " made up" as Australian blackfollows. The conspiracy was that they should be introduced to Toole as genuine aborigines, the sole survivors of their race in that neighbourhood. But, as ill-luck would have it, the rain came down in torrents that day in Melbourne, and it was decided to postpone the picnic. The two jokers, unaware of this postponement, awaited in their war paint the arrival of Toole ; but, lo ! instead, who should appear on the scene but a mounted trooper ! Explanations were unavailing; the pair of blackened comedians were marched" off to the nearest lock-up and formally charged with "insulting behaviour."

' "I saw an interesting relic the other day,' writes a correspondent. " A lady put into my hands a lock of hair which had been cut from off the brow of the poor little Princess Elizabeth, who died in Carisbrook Castle a few months after the execution of her father, Charles I. There is a story about these pretty golden tresses which is of immediate interest, and which might well form the subject for a new ' Rape of the Lock,' for only last week a detective was sent down by Government to insist upon the return of 'the hair. It had been abstracted from the coffin as long ago as 1859, in which year the Queen had set up amo lumen to the memory of the Princess in th i Newport Parish Church. My friend, however, bafiled all inquiry, and still retains possession of her precious relic. World not Dean Swift murmur once again over so great a pother and worry over such a very trifle as ' only a woman's hair V "

A juvenile preacher, eclat 11, is coming over to England from the United States, with very high credentials. He is certainly younger than most divines. Fenelon and liossuet were each fifteen before they made their mark nob by cutt ; ~>r their, initials, like most boys, but by .■ eloquence in the pulpit. This young gentleman's "delivery" is said to bo excellent. In addressing the Lancashire Collegg students the other day upon the matter, a Nonconformist divine gave them an excellent piece of advice, evoked by the practice of too many preachers of using an artificial delivery to suggest their melancholy view of the state of the souls of their congregations. "Do not whir- "' iays. "No pessimist is fit for tuo ministry. Truth may be spoken with such depression of spirit as to beget scepticism instead of faith." Curiously enough " apostolic Eliot," as he was wont to be called, gave advice of a similar kind to the members of the old Methodist Conference. "Do nob

scream, my brethren. Speak as earnestly as you can with all your heart, but in a moderate voice." la his journal ho records the death of one or more of his co-roligionist3 in consequence of their loud preaching.

After attending Mr. Stanley's wedding, Mr. Gladstone went on one of his secondhand book expeditions, this time to Garratt's, in Southampton Row. The right hon. gentleman walked with his customary elasticity, and was followed to the shop by a large crowd of admirers, chiefly consisting of workingmen, whose enthusiasm was kept in order by three policemen. Outside the bookseller's several

hundred people gathered, and they were not disappointed in their wish to see the Grand Old Man, for Mr. Garratt's shon does not boast of a back door throu which fame can escape its penalties, jn coming out Mr. Gladstone, looking, as a workingman standing on the kerb expressed it, "as straight as a new nail," received quite an ovation, the people waving their hats and cheering vigorously as he drovo away in a cab. Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary versatility was typified by the purchases he made. Four of the works relate to Ireland—" The Life of Thomas Reynolds," in two volumes ; " The Morning of Life," containing some interesting letters from Dr. Doyle, the late Roman Catholic Bishop of Carlow ; "Ireland Before and After the Union," by R. B. Martin; and Mrs. Thompson's account of the rise and progress of religious opinion in Ireland. The other books were " Lord Holland's Reminiscences," " Manchester

College Lectures," containing an address by Cardinal Newman on classical literature, published in 1841 ; " Byron's Letters p" Canon Ashwell's "Lent Lectures;" "Tho Laws of Honour," an account of ths suppression of duels in France ; "Le Bonddha," by Saint-Hilairo ; " The French Librarian, or Literary Guide," by Ventouillac ; a Greek work published at Eton in 1610;_, and "English Synonyms."