ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10407, 3 April 1897, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[from the society papers.] It has juafc transpired that the Prosidenb of the Royal Academy was on the verge ol having his two contributions to the Exhibition of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts rejected by the unconscious Hanging Cominifctoe. I& was discovered when a photographer arrived at the galleries to photograph Sir E. J. Poynter's pictures. The photographer hunted all over tho rooms, bub could nob find the works iu question. Then he appealed to the authorities. They ab first could give him no information, but the result of an energetic search was that the President's pictures were discovered among the great Rejected. The fatal chalk-marks were on the pictures, but both have since been hung. It should interest the Academy td hear how near it was to a snubbing from trie " Glasgow School."

The native ladies in the territory of the Royal Niger Company are gifted with artistic instincts. A cloth round the loins suffices for the mon, bub some of the womeu are painted with cross lines of blue or red, and in a few instances they have brass wire bangle?, or are covered with a slatecolourod chalk, a Btrange mode of adorn-

_ From D'Escoutoux, near Thiers, comes a singular etory. Ib seems that one Sunday three children of the masculino sex belonging to inhabitants of different villages were to be baptised. All the relatives had put up at the one hostelry of tho village, and the children had been put to bed together. The custom in the region is for tho godfathers to carry the children to the church, which was done, this ceremony taking place without a hitch. But when the children were taken back to their mothers none of the women recognised her offspring. The godfathers, who had drunk the health of their godchildren rather too ofton, had taken the ohiidron out of bed without making sure of their identity, which was all tho more difficult as they wero drossed alike. On Sunday night messengers travelled between the three villages trying to restore each baby to its real mother. Even now, however, "there is eome doubt as to whether the distribution has been properly effected.

It appears from the decision of the New York Courts against the Cigarette Trust that tobacco in any form is a necessity and not a luxury, in the view of the United States law. In reply to the contention of counsel for tho Trust that its product is not an article of prime necessity, the Court quoted with approval the language of Mr. Hugh McCulloch, in a report as Secretary of the Treasury, in which ho said of tobacco: "An article which ii so generally used, and which adds so much to the comfort of the large numbers of our population who cam their living by manual labour, cannot) properly be considered a luxury." This should be a comforting " finding" to many.

A London paper has the following:—The Earl of Glasgow, who is now on his way home to England, succeeded Lord Onslow a few years ago as Governor of New Zealand. Soon alter His Excellency's arrival in the country of boiling lakes and snowclad mountains, the magnates of tho colony were bidden to a big function at Government House. An aide-de-camp was despatched with a verbal invitation to a newlyappointed Minister, who owed his position rather to his natural abilities than to any adventitious advantages in the way of birth and training. Ib is said thab Lady Glasgow was rather astonished ab the answer brought back by tire grinning aide: " Much obliged, but me und my tnissue don't meal out."

Ib would seem that an edict has gone forth among mistresses for the destruction of that proudest adornment of tho domestic servant, her fringe. We infer this from the growing frequency with which tho ominous words "no fringe" appear in advertisements for the necessary housemaid or indispensable cook. The maids with fringes had better form a society for the protection of this personal attraction. Their simplest plan of action would be to come to a general decision to boycotb those houses where the fringe is nob allowed. Bub we have not stated the worst. The mistreae who advertises, with the proviso "no fringe and no beer," is quite pub in the shade by tho lady who qualifies her advertisement for "a house-parlourmaid" (whab a mouthful of a word !) by adding, "five in family, no washing, no boots.' . And this in a village rectory ! But there is something pathetic in this last stand ol " missus." Ib is she who has to get through the ordeal of examination and cross-exami-nation. Instead of asking the details oi the maid's character and abilities, it is the maid who puts the lady through the mill. She questions the prospective " missus" as to the number of her family, and as to their domestic peculiarities, and she frowns with disapproval and haughtily declines if the unfortunate lady's quiver is over full.

It requires a very hardened burglar to bo proof aginsb the seductions of the wine cellar of the house, when he has onco goo inside. If the wine be good, the owner of the house has a fair chance of finding his unexpected visitor asleep with an empty bottle in the morning. And this k jusb what did happen in the case of John Davey, who broke into a house in Gordon-street, Sb. Pancras. After forcing the catch of the window, he climbed into the diningroom with the object of taking all he could find. Unfortunately for the burglar, the first thing he discovered was a bottle ol whisky in a tempting position on tlio dining-tablo. Had he been wise he would hare kept the whisky in reserve until lie could enjoy it in safety. But the temptation was too great. On the following morning the housemaid found him asleep on the dining-room sofa, and quietly locked the door and called in the police, who rudely woke him up to the stern realities of twelve months' hard labour. There is a doublebarrelled moral in this story—one for the burglar and one for the householder. The former should sign the pledge before he goes burgling; the latter should always make a point of leaving a bottlo of whisky in a conspicuous position as a burglar trap, on the same principle as " sugaring" tho trees to catch moths.

One of the most touching incidents yet reported in connection with tlie innumerable mooting being held all over the country to arrange for local celebrations of the longest reign was the appearance ol Lord Leicester on the platform of the Norwich meeting. The Earl has been Lord-Lieutenant of Norfolk for half 3 contury, and has been a muniflcenl supporter of all good movements during that time. He took the chair at the meeting and announced that it would be his last public appearance, as he was almost blind .and wholly deaf, and took this occasion d publicly associating himself with the county for the last timo. And having mndn hi; speech, and promised a donation of £2000ta the hospital extension, which is to bo the Norwich method of celebrating the reign, he left the meeting, which he could baroly see and could hear not at all, to another chairman.

Of all the schemes that have been devised up to the present timo for celebrating the sixty years' reign of the Queen, thatldecidod upon by the teetotalers is one of the moid remarkable, it has been decided to endeavour to obtain a million more teetotalen, and the various societies are busily engage! making their arrangements. It is not expected to get fcheeo oow teetotal adherents from the adult population entirely. The present year is the jubilee of the Band of Hope movement, and it is upon the children of England that this mighty assault is to be made at the initiative of the Band of Hope Union. On a certain day— the date of which is not yob fixed—every home in England is to be visited by canvassers, and the parents will be asked to allow their children to sign the pledge. A special fund is being reisod for this mammoth canvass, which it is believed will be the largest the world has over seen, and already thousande of teetotalers have decided to give up the day in question, to help in getting signatures. Her Majesty: has given her patronage to the movement.