ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9823, 18 May 1895, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[FBOM THE SOCIETY PAPERS.] The American love of diamonds is being carried so far that some rich society women across the Atlantic even sew the gems on their shoes and stockings. Lord Cromer, whose position in Egypb id one of extraordinary weight and authority, is notable for many things. He is famous in Cairo for his habit of nearly always ' wearing a white top-hat. Whenever you see in the distance a white top-hat, whether at the races, at a gymkhana in the desert, or in the Mooskee, be sure Lord Crotaer is underneath it. His rosy face is pugnacious, and at the same time imperturbable, and he looks the incarnation of will. Besides being one of the greatest financiers, generous philanthropists, and richesb men of all Europe, Baron Hirach possesses an additional qualification in the eyes of his friends and acquaintances, namely, that of being the very perfection of a host and successful entertainer. His shooting parties at his Moravian estate, the twelfth-century castle at Eichorn ; his modern country seat of St. Johann, in Hungary ; his chateau of Beauregard, in France ; hia mansion in the Hue de l'Elysee, at Paris; and his town house in London are famed throughout the length and breadth of Europe for the perfection of their organisation, the abundance .of the sport, and for lavish hospitality. Baron Hirsch rises at six o'clock in the morning, receives his secretary, M. Fiirth, and before the general breakfast bell sounds has got through a formidable batch of correspondence, interviewed his house steward, and settled with his bead gamekeeper the precise locality of the day's sport. Dressed, as usual, with scrupulous care, his costume ■ is essentially English and extremely quiet). Baron Hirsch's unpopularity with the AuS" trian aristocracy is not so much due to thai fact that he is a banker and a financier, i who has made his own name and fortune instead of inheriting them, bub because he is popularly believed to be possessed of tha evil eye, and to bring ill-luck to all who come into contact with him ; this, too, notwithstanding that ho is the most generous, kind-hearted, and genial of men. And in support of this theory of the evil eye, the Hungarian anijl Austrian nobility are fond of enumerating the names of the members .of their caste who, having—according to their story—become involved in the meshes of the Baron, have ended by suicide.

There is an amusing anecdote about) Mtw, Beerbohm Tree's little ten-year-old daughter ' Viola, who was some time ago acting before the Queen at Balmoral. Her Majesty gave the child a lovely pearl-and-ruby brooch as a and, pleased with Viola's dainty grace, held out her hand for the little girl to kiss. Viola, all unsuspecting, grasped the Queen's hand and shook it heartily, and there was much amusement among those present.

A well-known London butcher waa recently put down in the candidates' book ab l a West End club. He was euphoniously described as a "purveyor of meat," bub even this couldn't save him.

America is the land where the star of the fortune-making woman shines most brightly. Harriet Beecher Stowe made £40,000 by writing one book. Then there is Madame Modjeaka, who is worth £20,000; and Annie Louise Gary, who, asked by her husband as to the amount of her fortune, replied with a blush that she had a mere £20,000. It is judged that Mrs. Langtry's gains in America during her tours have been nearly £30,000; while Miss Mary Anderson is worth more than that sum, and has it well invested too. According to a recently-published account, one of the greatest female money-makers in the world" is Lydia von Finkelstein, a native of Palestine. She is 28 years old, and her study has been of the Holy Land, of which she . knows every inch. Her business is to. lecture, and every time she lectures £25' float serenely into her treasury.

Nob many people are aware that fclie real name of Colin Campbell (Lord Clyde) was nob Campbell, bub Macliver. He was the son of a Glasgow carpenter, and was born at Glasgow in 1792. Young Colin's father and mother were of good families thab had come down in the world. After some time spent ab the Glasgow High School, Colin was removed by his mother's brother, Colonel John Campbell, to the Royal Military and Naval Academy ab Gosporfc. When barely 15 his uncle presented him to the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, who promised him a commission, and supposing him to be, as he said, "another of the clan," put down his name as Colin Campbell, the name which he thenceforth bore. General Shadwell (Lord Clyde's biographer) states that on leaving the duke's presence with his uncle young Colin made some comment on whab he book to be a mistake on the duke's part in regard to his surname, to which the shrewd uncle replied by telling hinf'that "Campbell waa a name which it would suib him for professional reasons to adopt."

The author of" An Englishman in Paris," •writing in the Illustrated London Mews, says :—" But for his mother and paternal grandmother the Emperor Wilhelm mighb nob be alive to day; his fate mighb have been thab of Rudolph of Hapsburg— other words, he might have become bhe vicbim of some abominable intrigue ; which, if ib had nob ended in midnight assassination, would have left him unfit) to complete the noble task bequeathed to him by his grandfather and father. For there was a time when th« young prince was very near falling into th« trap laid for him by an adventuress ; there was a time when he bounded into his father'# room and announced his intention of foregoing his prospective inheritance—the Imperial Crown—of retiring into private life, and of marrying an opera singer. It my memory does not play me false her name wasCarlotta Grossi. The father sab absolubely thunderstruck; nob so the mother. In spite of the lateness of the hour, she simply pub on her bonnet and cloak, and five minutes later she was seated by the side of her father-in-law, who had already retired to bed, and told him everything. Next morning Prince Wilhelm was shown an album containing a dozen portraits of German princesses, and given half an hout bo make u choice of a wife. Ib is said. that he refused, and told his mother that she could choose for him. The Crown Princess took her son at his word, with whab result all tho world knows ; she chose a sensible, domesticated German princess, one who is nob likely to protest much again the young Prince's somowhat autocratic disposition, who has made him an excellent wife, through whom Germany is perfectly secure with regard to the succession. The Empress of Germany is, perhaps, , nob an ideal woman, bub she was chosen by a woman who had never known the galling yoke of matrimony as ib is understood by the Germans in general. For that alone, the German Emperor should nob curtail discussion of the marriage tie on the part of the enlightened women in his Empire."

The beautiful Duchess of Leinster V has nob long survived her husband. She died ab Mentono recently after a long illness. The duchess was the eldest of the four lovely daughters of the Earl of Feversham, her sisters being Lady Edgar Vincent, Lauy Mabel Graham of Netherby, and , Lady Ulrica Duncombe. She was married to the late duke in 1884, when she was only 20 years of age, and at once became one of the moat admired and popular women in society. Her beauty was of the statuesque order, but her manner was inexpressibly winning and charming, and her appearance" ); ab any' social gathering was always a large contribution towards it* success. A fatality seems to overhang the Leinster family. The late duke died when comparatively a young man, and so did his father, and his , brilliant mother, who was a sistor of the " late Duchesses of Westminster and Argyll. The hopes of the family are now set in the eldest son of the lata duchess, a boy of eight, the chubby little chap who was photographed so much on the staircase at) Carton after his father's death. The lato duke used to acknowledge his unfitness for public work, and was described aa " socially, ' and politically a nonentity."