ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10836, 20 August 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[FROM THE SOCIETV PAPERS.] f ' The Queen's health has been much benefited by her stay at Balmoral, and Her Majesty is now very well iudeed, and in excellent spirits. The weather on Upper Deeside has been fine, but some days have been very cold. The Queen went out in the private grounds round the Castle in her "< garden chair every morning for about an hour. The Queen lunches at two, and at about half-past three Her Majesty goes out i for her daily drive, and seldom returns to the Castle at this season much before eight, dinner being at a-quarter to nine. A Scottish lunatic doctor mean, ol course, a Scottish doctor who has charge of a lunatic asylum—lias hit upon the idea of using the bicycle as a cure for insanity. He says that he has tried it on some of bis patients with good results. At first sight . the suggestion is an appalling one, for the . scorcher who claims to be sane is quite enough for. most of us to contend with. But ; we are relieved'to find that the cure is only j applicable to the earlier stages of mental disorders, and that the practice is confined at present to the quiet and remote byways of Montrose. We hope the good doctor's experiments may be successful, but we are afraid the little urchins of Montrose will christen all the local cyclists "loonies." , '; Mr. Gladstone's admiration for Sir Walter Scott's works was, like the Queen's, always ; very great, and few things in Dr. Dobie's last statements are more interesting than . that to the effect that Mr. Gladstone turned to the great works of the "Wizard of the North" once more during his last few months on earth. Scott has had many glowing and splendid testimonials, but scarcely one greater than this. The opposition of Nonconformists to the . theatre is evidently breaking down very :• rapidly. At the Lyceum the other afternoon—when Miss Ellen Terry gave a monster benefit for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children— and Mrs. Joseph Parken were to he seen in the front row of the dress "circle, while in the stalls below the Rev. W. J. Dawson and the Be?. Joseph Hocking enjoyed the imitations of Miss Cissy Loftils and the humours of Mr. Dan Leno. Nonconformist laymen were also represented by two well-known publishers —Mr. James Bowden, who is a. Baptist deacon, and Mr. Horace B. Marshall, who is a leading Methodist.

A more pathetic and pitiful figure than that of the Empress Eugenie in the Paris of to-day can scarcely be imagined. Bowed with age, crippled with rheumatism, a jvraith of her former self, she haunts the scenes of her greatness— ghost in what must be to her a city of ghosts. Her meeting the other day with her sister in misfortune, the ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, was .'•' very touching, especially as Eugenie was a maid of honour to Isabella in the days of her brilliant youth, when she was Countess do Montiojo. It is said that this accounts for what.took place at the beginning of the interview. .She rose first, and even performed some little service for the aged queen, as though she were still a maid of honour in the palace at Madrid, in the bygone years when Louis Napoleon was a young adventurer in' Ken- York, and when the French flag was floating over Jletz. But it is much more likely that Eugenie's action was a spontaneous outburst of womanly sympathy with the keen grief which Isabella is experiencing for the troubles of the country which she once ruled. And, of course, the ex-Empress is herself a Spaniard of the Spaniards.

Old Etonians know, and other public) school men can probably guess, to some extent, the extraordinary position which is held at Eton by the Captain of the Boats. No mere human potentate can compare with him— the Czar of Russia, nor the German Emperor, nor even the President of the United States. It is rather a curious coincidence that in the present year, when England and America are being drawn together in bonds of genuine friendship, the Captain of the Boats at Eton should be an American. No foreigner has ever hitherto occupied the position. The Captain is Mr. W. Astor, son of Mr. W. W. Astor, and a very good captain he is. His tastes are not wholly athletic. He has a strong literary bent. He is joint editor of the Eton College Chronicle, and he is also President of the School Debating Society, which was founded last year, and owes a good deal to his interest and support. Up to the present this is a real debating society, and not, like most Eton societies, a mere collection of athletes. .

The other day, while the Kaiser was driving rapidly through Berlin, the Imperial horses nearly ran over a young woman on a '■ bicycle. She was thrown off the wheel into the gutter, where the Emperor's coachman r was going to leave her, when his master leapt out of the carriage, picked up the dishevelled damsel, stood her on her feet, ' touched his hat, end said, in the politest manner possible, he trusted his horses had not injured her. , All Berlin rang immediately with the story of the Kaiser's gallantry, and the Fraulein stands a good chance of being married forthwith, as she ha? become an object of deep interest.

The late Lord Playfair was one of the few. men, like Sir John Lubbock, almost equally distinguished as politicians and as men of science. ' In width of reading, also, Lord ■ Playfair might fitly be compared with fair' j ' John Lubbock. Some idea of the former's encyclopedic culture mav perhaps be : 'J gathered from the following list of authors from whom (in addition to several pure scientists) he quoted in his presidential address-' <■-■ to the British Association in 1885: Jimerson,' y Washington,' Swift, Frederick William of Prussia, Shakespere, Milton, Voltaire, Epictetus,- Goethe, Virgil, Euripides, Swedenborg, Addison, Chi Hwangti, Antipater,'. .'. •■■ Homer, Solomon,. Jules Simon, Horace Mann, Ali Mahomet, Pope, Philip the Good, Plato, Aristotle, and the Prince Consort. Lord • Playfair's teaching was as diversified as his ',' learning. He had been Professor of Chemis- '" try at the Manchester' Royal Institution, 1 • ">;'• Chemist to the Museum of Practical Geology, Inspector-General of Government Museums, ; and Professor of Chemistry in the Univer- .'. sity of Edinburgh. He had, moreover, held any number of Government scientific appointment's, and had received any quantity of foreign• decoration. . • He was thrice , mar-''. :J '(-, ried, the present Lady Playfair being' an 1 '. : % American. Lord Playfair used to declare ;: that this wedding at Boston, U.S., in 1878, ; when he espoused the eldest daughter of Mr. - S. H. Russell, of that city, was a veritable .-■'-, festival of the : poets, • for Emerson, ■ Long- ■ fellow, Lowell, Holmes,' and Wbittier were ' present.: i With all these peat men lie ym on '■• terms of close intimacy.